Two lone voices support Enbridge pipeline at B.C. hearings
Only Former Liberal MLA, ex-Port Hardy mayor support $6.5-billion project
OTTAWA — Only two of 1,161 witnesses to appear at B.C. “community hearings” into the Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline project said they support the $6.5-billion megaproject, according to a tally by two environmental groups.
The lone supporters of the two 1,170-km pipelines running from Bruderheim, Alta. to Kitimat, were Dennis MacKay, a one-time Liberal MLA, and former Port Hardy mayor Russ Helberg.
The hearings now move back to the “questioning phase,” with participants able to put questions to any participant — Enbridge or government officials and technical experts, for instance — at panel meetings that start in Prince Rupert this week and conclude there in mid-May.
The three-person National Energy Board-Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel is then expected to receive both written and oral argument from that point until late June.
It will then spend the rest of the year preparing its recommendations, due to the federal government by Dec. 31.
But with a B.C. election in May, it appears the public debate over the issue will play out in the political arena rather than at the hearing process.
Emma Gilchrist of the environmentalist group called the Dogwood Initiative, pointed out that last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government took away the joint panel’s authority to decide on the project.
“This is going to be a political decision whether we like it or not,” she said in a joint news release with the group Forest Ethics Advocacy.
“Now, it’s just a matter of whether British Columbians allow Ottawa to make this decision for us or if we elect a B.C. government on May 14 that will stand for our coast.”
Gilchrist said that statement isn’t an endorsement of a particular party.
“We are pushing all parties to oppose the expansion of oil tanker traffic on our coast,” she said in an email.
“Currently, the NDP is opposed to Enbridge, but not saying much on” Kinder Morgan’s proposed $5.4-billion expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels a day.
“Meanwhile the B.C. Liberals are on the fence for both. So, we’re continuing to pressure both of them in the run-up to the election.”
Liberal Premier Christy Clark has set five conditions that must be met, four of which relate to safety, the environment and first nations issues, and one calling for B.C. to get greater economic benefits.
“Of the Liberals’ so-called ‘five conditions’ to be met for the pipeline to go ahead, four are already requirements that exist in law,” NDP environment critic Rob Fleming said in a statement Monday.
“And the fifth condition proves the Liberals are willing to sell out British Columbians for the right price.”
Enbridge represenative Todd Nogier said the hearings prompted the company to alter the pipeline route and spend an extra $400-$500 million to make the company’s “industry-leading” safety plan “even safer.”
He didn’t challenge the tally by the two environmental groups, but said “numerous” citizens submitted written statements of support for Northern Gateway.
“We also heard a number of energy producers during the hearings in Edmonton in September express strong support for the project as important in their attempts to access new international markets,” he said in an email.
“Accessing international markets for energy is something an increasing number of people view as critical for the future of not only the industry but also the provinces and the country as a whole.”
Project opponents who presented their views in person ranged from the environmentalist movement to an oilsands worker, a former naval officer and the ex-chief executive officer of BC Hydro.
“It is my contention that Enbridge has submitted marketing propaganda masquerading as economic analysis because of the one-sided, self-serving private benefit picture the proponent has presented,” said economist Marc Eliesen, the ex-chief executive of both BC Hydro and Ontario Hydro, and one-time senior provincial bureaucrat in B.C., Ontario and Manitoba, mostly with NDP governments.
Enbridge is offering “bogus economics with misinformation being utilized by the proponent, by the oil industry and by the government of Canada and Alberta to justify this pipeline project,” Eliesen, 71, said to the panel in January in Vancouver.
Helberg, presenting his position in Port Hardy last August, said he supports Premier Clark’s demand for B.C. for a bigger slice of the project’s profits.
“I recommend the project proceed with due consideration given to B.C.’s request for a greater share of the benefits, and that the legal and the treaty rights of the First Nations be addressed,” he said.
MacKay, meanwhile, said much necessary human economic activity involves risk.
“Sixty years ago, as a youth of 10 years in age, I watched the Trans Mountain Pipeline being laid through the town site of Jasper, Alberta. Jasper National Park is within the Rocky Mountain World Heritage Site,” he said in April.
“To this date I am not aware of any adverse environmental damage from that original pipeline that has been in the ground now for 60 years.”
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