Collectively improving the discipline of socioeconomic impact assessment
⏱ 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm 90 minutes:

Despite the broad definition of “environment” in Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act, experiences with socioeconomic assessment is a growing field that is rich in opportunities to add value to assessments.

1. Gender in Sustainability Assessment: State of Practice and Future Opportunities
It is important to consider where gender considerations can most effectively be integrated into assessment processes. Five historic cases of best practice in Canada will be discussed: the Berger Report, the Mackenzie Valley Gas Project, the Lower Churchill Assessment, the Voisey’s Bay Mine, and the Whites Point Quarry Assessment. These cases all represent sustainability based, next generation assessment processes. The presentation will focus on how gender has and has not been included in best practice asses sment, as well as potential methods of better including intersectional gender analysis into sustainability-based criteria for future application.

2. Collaborative Social Research: A Holistic SocioEconomic Study for the Webequie Supply Road Project
This presentation will explore how the Webequie Supply Road Socio-economic Baseline Study contributes to the Webequie First Nation’s Social License to Operate. Through this study, the Project Team, in collaboration with Webequie First Nation, will investigate their community’s social and economic well-being. Through this Indigenous-led process the Baseline Study goes beyond typical Environmental Assessment requirements by integrating Indigenous Knowledge and an awareness of the colonial histories which have impacted the social and economic well-being of the community today.
Theoretical frameworks such as Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) have informed the Baseline Study and will be explored in the presentation.

3. Challenging Epistemic Barriers to Collaborative Socio Economic Baseline Development: Engaging Indigenous
and Western Knowledge Systems
Socio-economic baseline data gathering poses epistemic and methodological challenges, as regulatory requirements and publicly available data can be fundamentally antithetical to Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Drawing on a combined 15 years of experience working with and learning from Indigenous Peoples in Canada and India, we offer insights on developing socio-economic baselines that reconcile differing worldviews. This supports clients in successfully representing holistic socio-economic and health baseline conditions, while protecting and sustaining the knowledge and practices of Indigenous Nations and Peoples.

4. Equity, Practicality and Inclusive Research: GBA+ Analysis in Socio-economic Baseline Studies
Requirements to interweave GBA Plus with socioeconomic baseline gathering requires reframing so as to better identify the experiences of individuals within the study area based on their intersecting identities. This presentation questions how socio-economic baselines can incorporate GBA Plus while following sound methodological practices.