Pete McMartin: Government in lockdown — the Northern Gateway hearings
VANCOUVER — Here, in your role as a citizen of this province, is what I wish you could do:
I wish you could go down to the south tower of the Sheraton Wall Centre and go up to the fourth floor. It is there where you could witness in its glorious isolation the National Energy Board at work. It is conducting its “public” hearing on the Northern Gateway pipeline.
It is a disgrace.
If ever a hearing was designed to be as un-public as possible, this is it.
The hearing room is about the size of your average den. Besides a table for the three NEB panel members and a table for three speakers, there are a total of eight — eight! — chairs for media and guests of the speakers. Interested, or for that matter, even disinterested members of the public, are not encouraged to attend, even if they could find a spot. They are asked to view the proceedings via video feed in a room at the Westin Bayshore, 14 blocks away. Good lord.
Down the hall from the hearing room is another small room, which also carries a video feed of the hearings. This room is for overflow media, and for speakers and their guests.
The speakers address the panel in groups of three, and when their turn comes, they are escorted by public relations people into the hearing room.
When they have finished speaking — and they are on the clock and are stopped if they go over — they are ushered out. Interviews with the speakers after they have given their speeches are not allowed in the hall outside the hearing room but must be done in the media room, where I was instructed to go while doing an interview in the hall Wednesday afternoon. The media room has one phone and no Internet or Wi-Fi connection. I’ve been to city hall hearings on zoning changes that are more accommodating to meeting deadlines. The fact that these are hearings on an issue that may forever change the nature of the B.C. coastline, a change that could pose an environmental threat beyond measure, suggests that either this is an egregious case of amateur hour or a calculated design at damage control. Probably, it’s both.
When I attended, security was heavy and very, very evident. There was a police wagon parked outside the hotel, with cops in the hotel lobby and on the fourth floor. I counted nine of them. They were there, I’m sure, to prevent a repeat of Tuesday’s incident, when five people crashed the hearings to protest what they said was their flawed and over-controlled process. They were arrested and charged. I wish I had been with them. I certainly agree with them.
One of Wednesday’s speakers, Bill Darnell, expressed the same view to the panel. Darnell is one of the founders of Greenpeace, and the man who, 40 years ago, coined the name “Greenpeace.” (I’ll be doing a following column on Darnell’s submission to the NEB panel).
In a quiet, reasonable voice, Darnell told the panel:
“I find the arrangements for this quasi-judicial hearing profoundly undemocratic and offensive to Canada’s foundation principles of natural justice and democratic decision-making. These matters must be open to the public. People need to be able to witness in person that the process is fair and just. Keeping presenters isolated and separate from those who want to listen, not allowing fellow presenters and the public to watch, and not allowing presenters to remain, creates an atmosphere that calls into question the just and impartial requirement of this hearing and creates an adversarial atmosphere. In addition, all this does not support good decision-making.”
Nothing more needs to be said after that, but I’ll say it anyway.
Democracy is messy. Sometimes, voices are raised, if only to be heard. And in 36 years of newspapering, I’ve heard angry voices raised at city hall meetings, and school board meetings, and in metro, provincial and federal assemblies. Somehow, they all survive.
But this? This sequestering of speakers, and the invitation to the public to view the proceedings from 14 blocks away? This claustrophobic and well-guarded venue held in a hotel room?
It’s not a public hearing.
It’s a public insult.
Access article here: http://www.vancouversun.com/Pete+McMartin+Government+lockdown+Northern+Gateway+hearings/7829975/story.html#ixzz2IGoWwALd