'Innovative' NEB pipeline review runs into big trouble, but government is silent - Action News
Home WebMail Wednesday, November 13, 2024, 05:23 AM | Calgary | 0.6°C | Regions Advertise Login | Our platform is in maintenance mode. Some URLs may not be available. |
PoliticsAnalysis

'Innovative' NEB pipeline review runs into big trouble, but government is silent

A month into the National Energy Board's public hearings, innovative isn't the word anyone's using to capture what's been going on. Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre uses "circus."

Allegations of conflict of interest mean hearings won't resume soon, if ever

A police officer removes a demonstrator on Aug. 29 in Montreal during disruptions to the National Energy Board public hearing into the proposed $15.7-billion Energy East pipeline project (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

When the National Energy Board began its review of the proposed Energy East pipeline, it sent out a news release touting the process as "one of the most innovative" in the NEB's history.

There would be opportunities for members of the public to offer their input. Participants could ask questions of TransCanada, the company behind the pipeline.

And the three-member panel conducting the Energy East review would, for the first time, consider the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced upstream meaning the pollution generated from extracting, refining and transporting the oil would all be factored into the decision.

A month into the public hearings,innovative isn't the word anyone's using to capture what's been going on. Fiasco might be better. Or, to quote Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, a "circus."

The $15.7-billionEnergy East pipelinewould carry 1.1million barrels of diluted oilsands bitumen dailyfrom Alberta to New Brunswick. Along with the proposed Kinder Morgan's TransMountain project through British Columbia, it's the most likely route to get Canadian oil to ports for shipment overseas.

By now most Canadians following the issue know that two of the three panel members reviewing the project stand accused of conflict of interest. They will have heard that hearings in Montreal, set to begin Aug. 29, were suspended before they really started after protesters stormed the room and were removed by police and security staff.
Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr speaks to a Calgary business audience in August. Carr says the NEB, whose members are appointed by the federal government, must deal with accusations of conflict of interest by two of its members. (CBC)

It's becoming increasingly clear that those hearings won't resume for some time, if at all. The fate of the two panel members is only the first of a number of challenges the NEB and by extension the federal government now faces.

"The process has lost all credibility," says Steven Guilbeault of the Quebec-based environmental group Equiterre. He notesfarmers, First Nations and more than 80 communities along the Energy East route oppose the project. "The lack of confidence in the NEB is spreading like a disease."

And yet the response from Ottawa has been silence.

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr says the NEB, whose nine full-time members are appointed by the federal government, must deal with the crisis itself, even as Carr's own department considers applications to expand the board by as many as four temporary members.

French speakers needed

At least part of the reason behind that search is the NEB lacks enough French speakers who haveexpertise in the energy sector and regulatory law.

The shortage will be acute if the two panel members under scrutiny, Lyne Mercier and Jacques Gauthier, decide to withdraw because they met privately with former Quebec premier Jean Charest, who was a paid consultant to TransCanada at the time.

Critics insist the two are irretrievably tainted by that discussion with Charest.A spokesman for the NEB says the board's request for written submissions on the conflict allegation produced about a dozen. The clear majority of them call for both to be removed.
TransCanada's Energy East pipeline would have moved crude from Alberta to the Atlantic. (Canadian Press)

The NEB says the decision is up to the two panellists themselves.

To critics, that's a big part of the problem. Allowing those accused of a conflict of interest to decide whether they believe they can hear the evidence impartially is hardly what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had in mind when he talked about restoring credibility to the process.

On Thursday, more than 50 groups opposed to Energy East released an open letter to Carr and the prime minister urging them to show leadership by stopping all pipeline reviews and dismantling the NEB.

"Firing a couple of conflict-of-interest-tainted appointees and rescheduling a hearing is not going to fix the broken and discredited NEB," Patrick DeRochie of Environmental Defence is quoted in the accompanying news release.

NEB overhaul promised

If critics of the NEB get their way, the hearings won't resume at all, putting the matter firmly in the hands of the governmentwhich is promising a complete overhaul of the NEB, but only after the Energy East review is done.

Trudeau sidestepped questions about Energy East during his just-completed trip to China and the G20 summit, but he has argued repeatedly that protecting the environment and exploiting resources can go handinhand.

Energy East and TransMountain are now going through the interim review process that the NEB once touted as so innovative, and that Trudeau said would provide the kind of community support, the "social licence," needed to proceed.

The government needs something, too. It needs to show that at least one of these pipelines can meet the dual test of beinggood for the economywithout being harmful to the environment.

And for Energy East, that could very well mean starting over for the good of the Liberals' political agenda.

Corrections

  • This story has been updated from an earlier version that referred to the proposed Energy East pipeline carrying 1.1 million litres of crude oil. In fact, it is 1.1 million barrels of diluted oilsands bitumen.
    Sep 09, 2016 12:27 PM ET