Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr told reporters Wednesday that ongoing oil pipeline reviews will continue on as usual, despite a promise by the Liberal government to make the environmental assessment process more robust.

“They have not stopped,” Carr said. “The process continues.”

Ongoing National Energy Board reviews will continue for projects like the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion even though the Liberal party platform promised an immediate review of the process, saying the renewed assessments will “restore robust oversight and thorough environmental assessments” and “restore lost protections” resulting from weakened environmental laws under the Stephen Harper government.

Minister Carr indicated the National Energy Board review process will undergo a transition but until that time, project reviews will remain unchanged.

“There will be a transition as we amend the ways in which the National Energy Board goes about the process of evaluating these projects,” Minister Carr said, “and we will announce those changes as soon as we can, but the process continues.”

The announcement has some wondering what to make of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s assertion that a more robust process would apply to the to Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

In August, Dogwood Initiative’s Energy and Democracy Director Kai Nagata pressed Trudeau to confirm if an NEB overhaul would apply to the Kinder Morgan project.

“Yes. Yes,” Trudeau said. “It applies to existing projects, existing pipelines as well.”

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Trudeau on Kinder Morgan

Justin Trudeau says if he's Prime Minister, Kinder Morgan will have to go back to the drawing board, saying "the process needs to be redone." Find out where candidates in your riding stand: http://votebc.ca/

Posted by Dogwood Initiative on Friday, August 21, 2015

“Okay,” Nagata said. “So if they approve Kinder Morgan in January, you’re saying…”

“No, they’re not going to approve it in January. Because we’re going to change the government,” Trudeau responded. “And that process needs to be redone.”

After the Obama administration's recent refusal of the Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S. and a nearly dead Northern Gateway on B.C. northern coast, Kinder Morgan is upping its efforts to ensure the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion goes ahead.

On Friday Trudeau publicly released ministerial mandate letters, including one to Minister Carr that instructed him to “immediately review Canada’s environmental assessment processes to regain public trust and introduce new, fair processes” as well as “modernize the National Energy Board.”

“You can't slap some new paint on the Conservative review process and call it credible after campaigning against it,” Keith Stewart, energy and climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, said.

“I don’t see how the Trudeau government can continue with the review of a pipeline under rules that Trudeau has denounced for ignoring climate impacts, failing to respect Indigenous rights, and lacking a grounding in sound science.”

This week marks the passing of one year since hundreds of protesters gathered on Vancouver’s Burnaby Mountain to disrupt crews performing exploratory drilling for the Trans Mountain pipeline.

A massive loss of faith in the NEB process was on full display on Burnaby Mountain after nearly 500 citizens were prevented from participating as intervenors in the Trans Mountain hearings.

This included a group of 27 climate experts, including economists, scientists and academics.

The National Energy Board also quietly removed oral hearings from the process, which means oral cross-examination and testimony under oath are no longer part of the review.

These procedural deficits have made it easy for Kinder Morgan to refuse to answer questions from expert interveners, such as lawyers from Ecojustice.

Even the province of B.C. has been put in a position where it must fight Kinder Morgan for basic information about the expansion project. In early 2015, DeSmog Canada revealed that the company was refusing to release spill response plans to the B.C. government, even though the same spill response plans had been made available to the public in Washington State.

Beyond that, the review process has excluded local First Nations to such an extent the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, which is located directly across the Burrard Inlet from Kinder Morgan’s facilities, launched a legal action to challenge the credibility of the review process.

Last fall, energy executive Marc Eliesen publicly abandoned his role as an intervenor in the review process, calling it “fraudulent” and an act of “public deception.” Eliesen accused the board of engaging in a process that was rigged with a “pre-determined outcome.”

The current pipeline review process also considers upstream oilsands impacts to the environment and climate outside the scope of a relevant environmental assessment.

Terry Beech, Liberal MP in Burnaby North-Seymour, told the Burnaby NOW no decision on the Kinder Morgan pipeline would be made under the current system.

“We are going to redo the National Energy Board process,” Beech said. “We’re going to broaden the scope. We’re going to make sure it’s objective, fair and based on science.

“We’re going to make sure proponents of any major energy projects, including Kinder Morgan, have to work towards getting community support and support from partner First Nations,” he said.

“We’ve already said there will be no decision on Kinder Morgan in January. Kinder Morgan will have to go through a new, revised process.”

Image: Burnaby Mountain protest by Zack Embree

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This is a guest post by Karen Campbell, Ecojustice staff lawyer.

The dramatic events unfolding on Burnaby Mountain — where more than 100 protestors have been arrested and charged with civil contempt — has turned a white-hot spotlight on Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and the National Energy Board (NEB). And both parties are looking a little worse for wear.

Between injunctions and arrests, the furor over Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project has suddenly surpassed that other pipeline, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, in terms of controversy. You will recall that despite vociferous opposition from most First Nations and northern B.C. communities, the federal government approved Northern Gateway in June 2014. That approval is now the subject of dozens of legal challenges, including three applications filed by Ecojustice lawyers on behalf of our clients.

We are just one-third of the way through the Kinder Morgan project review, and frustration with the NEB’s stripped-down process — a product of federal environmental law rollbacks tucked into the 2012 budget bill — is steadily mounting, and may have serious implications for other projects, namely TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline.

To accommodate the new 15-month time limit imposed on pipeline reviews the NEB opted to forego cross-examination and community hearings in the Kinder Morgan review. This means intervenors, including municipal governments, affected citizens, First Nations, and environmental and community groups, can’t directly challenge Kinder Morgan’s experts the way they did during Northern Gateway hearings.

Instead, the NEB is relying on two rounds of written questions and answers as a means to test evidence. This “paper hearing” process has already proven to be a poor substitute for oral cross-examination.

Of the 253 responses Ecojustice’s clients received from the company during the first round of information requests, at least 77 — approximately 30 per cent — were inadequate or simply not answered.

All in, the NEB has issued 46 rulings to date in response to various motions and procedural matters in the review, virtually all of which favour Kinder Morgan’s interests. These rulings include upholding Kinder Morgan’s refusal to answer questions from intervenors about its project application (such as a question from Living Oceans Society, one of Ecojustice’s clients, about the makes and models of its oil spill response equipment), and allowing the company to undertake exploratory routing activities on Burnaby Mountain over objections from the City of Burnaby on behalf of its residents. 

Climate change is notably absent from the list of issues the NEB will consider. The NEB’s steadfast refusal to consider the pipeline’s climate impacts — from upstream extraction of bitumen to its downstream use — is inexplicable given the steady thrum of scientists warning us about the need to curtail global greenhouse gas emissions. The omission of climate impacts is even more problematic given the federal government’s continuing failure to take meaningful action on climate change.

The erosion of the NEB’s review process certainly appears to stack the deck in favour of industry. But while the federal government’s gutting of environmental laws in 2012 may have made approving a pipeline easier, if what’s happening on Burnaby Mountain is any indication, it may have also made building a pipeline more difficult. 

Those participating inside the NEB process can tell you that things are not working. Until the NEB addresses the systemic failures of its regulatory process — at minimum, adopting more flexible timelines, restoring cross-examinations and considering climate change — intervenors in the process will continue to be frustrated in their attempts to participate meaningfully, and protests like the one on Burnaby Mountain will likely continue and only get more heated. At this point, Kinder Morgan’s exploratory drilling activity is taking place with RCMP protection.

In addition to the more than 70 people arrested on Burnaby Mountain, six legal challenges have already been filed over the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline project. Conversely, the first Northern Gateway case was not filed until after the Joint Review Panel had made its recommendation to approve the project.

The longer that the NEB ignores the public’s legitimate concerns about the Kinder Morgan project, the more it undermines its own credibility and ability to regulate in the public interest. With yet another major proposal on the horizon in TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline, the NEB would be wise to get its house in order — and quickly.

Image Credit: Zack Embree

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Perhaps it’s the charming student activist, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who donated his $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award to the pipeline fight, or perhaps it was the scandalous documents leaked last week that showed pipeline company TransCanada has teamed up with one of the world’s most powerful PR firms, Edelman, to manipulate public opinion surrounding the Energy East pipeline.

Or maybe it’s the fact that at least two-thirds of Quebecers oppose the construction of a 4600km pipeline that will carry 1.1 million barrels of oilsands crude through their province (and five others) for export. Maybe onlookers, disturbed by the 50 arrests on Burnaby Mountain, have felt compelled to prevent a similar situation from erupting east of Alberta.

Who knows?

But what is becoming clear is the firestorm of public opposition that is committing to the fight against Energy East. Twelve hours after Nadeau-Dubois announced his $25,000 donation on the Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle on Sunday donations surpassed $140,000.

“If Quebec blocks this project, we will do a service to ourselves and future generations, but we also need to send a clear signal that we are prepared to contribute the global fight against climate change,” the Montreal Gazette reported him saying.

As of Tuesday, donations have surpassed $300,000.

Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada says the “unprecedented outpouring of support shows the breadth and depth of opposition in Quebec to this pipeline.”

He adds it also shows the level of opposition to “the broader pro-oil, anti-environmental agenda of the federal government.”

“It shows that a lot of people want to be a part of a movement that makes the world a better, fairer and greener place, and don’t accept that we have to accept the oil industry’s false choice between environment and economy,” Stewart told DeSmog.

Council of Canadians map of Energy East pipeline route.

Mark Calzavera, regional director for Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut with the Council of Canadians, says the outpouring of support “shows very clearly that people are concerned about Energy East and that opposition is growing.”

He added people are more interested in information about the pipeline and in challenging the information that is currently available.  

“In no way is [Energy East] a nation-building pipeline,” he said. “It’s an export pipeline.”

“It’s taking the product in its rawest form that it can be shipped in, which is diluted bitumen, and they are exporting it along with any the jobs that go with refining it.”

The people of Canada have for years now been saying they’re concerned about climate change and are looking for leadership on climate change from their governments and we haven’t seen it so people are taking matters into their own hands. These pipeline projects – that lead to greater emissions – they’re opposing them personally.”

Nadeau-Dubois told CBC Daybreak Monday that Quebec is in a “serious situation.”

“We have a very, very important choice to make around that very controversial Energy East TransCanada pipeline,” he said.

Stewart said the ‘nation-building pipeline’ narrative deployed by TransCanada is now turning against the company and the Energy East proposal.

“The only nation that Energy East is building is a nation of resistance. TransCanada’s attempt to trick people and buy support for their project has backfired, and now people want to be a part of the alternative,” he said.

Image Credit: Environmental Defence Canada via Flickr

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This video, by comedian Scott Vrooman, originally appeared on the Toronto Star.

American energy corporation Kinder Morgan filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against five Trans Mountain pipeline protestors in Burnaby, B.C., because apparently nobody told them the average income of a pipeline protestor.

The National Energy Board — an anagram of “regulatory capture” — ruled that the City of Burnaby can’t stop Kinder from carrying out its work, so now the protestors are accused of trespassing in their own city’s park. Kinder solved the Not In My Backyard problem by taking the backyard.

The company also claims that protestors’ angry facial expressions constitute an assault on their workers. They’re arguing that freedom of expression doesn’t extend to your face. So I assume that if protestors draw angry faces onto their butts and display those towards Kinder Morgan workers, that won’t constitute assault. And I encourage every protestor to test that theory.

All of this comes within the context of a wider attempt to delegitimize protest itself. The University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy which just installed a new oil feature in their garden it’s lovely — they recently held a conference on “social license,” where the case was made that protestors undermine the rule of law by claiming to speak for the whole community.

But pipeline and climate change protestors are mostly speaking for members of the community who don’t have a voice: children. Or they do have a voice, but they’re babbling and responding to everything with “why” and just generally saying the darndest things.

We don’t have a law that says children have a right to a livable environment when they get older. They’re expected to earn their ice sheets and predictable planting seasons just like we did. 

Even radical, chaos-gargling anarchists like the International Energy Agency and former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney have agreed that the vast majority of fossil fuel reserves must be left in the ground to avoid devastating climate change.

So maybe angry protestors aren’t the problem, it’s the lack of anger of everyone else. Maybe the expression we should be worried about isn’t an angry face, it’s a shrug.

Follow Scott on Twitter: @mescottvrooman

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The way tensions between pipeline opponents and Kinder Morgan contractors have escalated during the last week should come as a surprise to no one.

The mishandling of the National Energy Board review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker proposal has created the conditions for the situation now unfolding on the mountainside.

And with the continuing loss of faith in these federal reviews — which even before being refigured to “expedite” energy proposals were already ill-equipped to grapple with the larger societal issues, such as climate change, related to energy proposals — we can expect to see more controversy across B.C. and likely along the route of TransCanada’s Energy East.

How did it come to this?

In 2012, the federal government passed omnibus budget bill C-38 — despite significant upheaval in Parliament — which overhauled Canada’s environmental assessment process.

The changes contained in that bill condensed project review timelines, seriously restricted public participation in the assessment process and limited what environmental concerns are deemed relevant to projects such as pipelines.

Now, during the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review process, these changes are coming into effect.

It began with climate change impacts being overlooked in the terms of reference for the review — just as they had been in the Enbridge Northern Gateway review. But then it got worse. 

Hundreds of concerned citizens who considered themselves directly affected by the project were denied intervener status by the National Energy Board, the federal body overseeing the pipeline review process.

A group of 27 climate experts, including economists, scientists and political and social scientists, were rejected from participating in the hearings because they wanted to discuss the project’s significance to Canada’s climate targets.

In total, 468 citizens had their application for intervenor status rejected, leading stultified onlookers to call the process “Kafkaesque.”

To add insult to injury, the National Energy Board then quietly removed oral hearings from the review process, meaning oral cross-examination — during which live witnesses are questioned under oath — will play no role in the Trans Mountain pipeline review.

This step reduced the Kinder Morgan “review” to a mere paperwork exercise.

Participants are allowed to pose questions via writing to Kinder Morgan about the impacts of its proposal to triple the amount of oilsands bitumen it ships via pipeline to Burnaby — but the company has failed to treat these questions seriously.

For instance, Ecojustice lawyers asked the company to explain the potential effect of an oil spill on marine fish.

Kinder Morgan’s response? “Harm to marine fish populations seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, following marine oil spills.”

That was one of the better answers compared to the 20 Ecojustice questions Kinder Morgan refused to answer on the basis they were “not relevant” or the company simply didn’t know the answer.

Even the Province of British Columbia had to ask the National Energy Board to compel Kinder Morgan to answer dozens of questions the company had skirted — including failing to provide emergency response documents.

The review process has been so incomplete the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, whose territory overlooks the Burrard Inlet and Kinder Morgan tanker facilities, launched a legal action to challenge the review process on the basis of failed consultation and a fundamental mischaracterization of the project, which includes not just an expanded pipeline but terminals, storage facilities and increased tanker traffic.

Energy executive Marc Eliesen quit the review process amongst much fanfare earlier this month, saying it was “fraudulent” and an act of “public deception.” He accused the NEB of jury-rigging the process with a “pre-determined outcome.” (Read more about Eliesen’s crippling reasons for leaving.)

What’s more, a new report from SFU and The Goodman Group Ltd. shows Kinder Morgan exaggerated the jobs associated with the pipeline construction while seriously underplaying the risk of a potential pipeline rupture. And remember, this pipeline has already ruptured on several occasions, including once in 2007, sending 250,000 litres of crude into the community and 70,000 into the Burrard Inlet.

So with a community on edge and unconvinced of the benefits of the pipeline, and with the local municipality officially opposed to the project, Kinder Morgan perhaps made a critical error sending survey crews to conservation areas on Burnaby Mountain with chainsaws in September.

The city of Burnaby responded with issuing a stop work order claiming the company did not have the right to damage property protected by city bylaws. The National Energy Board, however, told the company to continue on with its legally allowable work, even if that meant cutting down trees on the mountainside.

It’s within the minutia of that legal interpretation — the tension between community self-determination and the energy board’s ruling on allowable survey work — that the Burnaby Mountain protest movement was born.

And for all the reasons above — not to mention the upstream impacts of oilsands development on climate, local ecosystems and First Nations’ territorial rights — this fight should surprise no one.

There has been no credible and democratic way for residents of Burnaby, or citizens in B.C. for that matter, to weigh in on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. There has been no legitimate forum for the concerns of the community, of local First Nations and of a variety of climate and environmental experts.

Although Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan has promised to fight the pipeline by every available legal means, the federal government has made it virtually impossible for citizens to register their opposition to this project in any way other than protest.

And that’s a problem. Because with similar opposition foreseeable for TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline (especially after the company’s downright dirty PR tactics were leaked in documents from Edelman last week), Canada can expect more of these conflicts in our future.

And we should not have to stand for that.

This set of circumstances is fair to no one: not to locally elected municipal leaders looking to represent their constituents, not to communities looking to protect their environments and personal well-being and not to companies looking for stable operating conditions.

The act of proposing a pipeline is a legitimate thing to do in our society. Businesses should have the opportunity to pursue economic opportunities just as communities should have the opportunity to say no if a proposal doesn’t fit in with their long-term plans.

But with a government working in the interests of industry, citizens have been left out of the decision-making process, where the only way to register their voice is from behind the blockade line where they are marginalized, or worse, criminalized as radicals.

Our federal government is failing to lead on one of the biggest issues of our time. What Canada really needs is a grownup national conversation about an energy strategy that meets Canada’s international climate commitments. Until that happens, these debates will continue to play out dysfunctionally during technical review processes that were never designed to answer such large societal questions.

So as the saga of Burnaby Mountain continues to unfold, we should all be asking: who really is acting in the public interest? 

Image Credit: Zack Embree

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Vivian Krause has spent years scrutinizing how Canadian environmental groups are funded, claiming she's just asking "fair questions."

But as the blogger-turned-newspaper-columnist has run rampant with her conspiracy theory that American charitable foundations' support of Canadian environmental groups is nefarious, she has continually avoided seeking a fair answer.

If Krause were seeking a fair answer, she'd quickly learn that both investment dollars and philanthropic dollars cross borders all the time. There isn’t anything special or surprising about environmental groups receiving funding from U.S. foundations that share their goals — especially when the increasingly global nature of environmental challenges, particularly climate change, is taken into consideration.

Despite this common-sense answer, Krause’s strategy has effectively diverted attention away from genuine debate of environmental issues, while simultaneously undermining the important role environmental groups play in Canadian society.

Creating Diversions a Trademark of Oil Industry Strategy

This diversion strategy is a well-known tactic of the oil industry. A strategy document leaked yesterday details how one of the world’s most powerful PR firms, Edelman, advised TransCanada to undermine opponents to the Energy East pipeline.

Edelman recommended TransCanada apply pressure to opponents by “distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources.” To achieve that, Edelman advises TransCanada to work with “supportive third parties who can in turn put the pressure on, particularly when TransCanada can’t.”

Sound familiar?

In Vivian Krause's resume, she proudly takes credit for spawning a Senate inquiry and Canada Revenue Agency audit — distractions that forced environmental groups to spend time defending themselves, rather than doing their important work as watchdogs and advocates for environmental protection.

While Krause has been busy maligning the funding of Canadian environmental groups, very little attention has been paid to where Krause gets her bread buttered.

Krause Receives 90% of Income From Resource Industries

Krause frequently claims her research is independent (PDF) and that her work is unaffiliated with any industry — yet she has admitted that since 2012, more than 90 per cent of her income has come from oil, gas and mining interests through honorariums and speaking fees.

Krause has been paid as much as $10,000 to speak to energy executives. While she may not be directly employed by the fossil fuel industry, her work certainly aligns with that industry’s interests.

Groups paying Krause speaker’s fees included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Association for Mineral Exploration and the Vancouver Board of Trade.

Large speaking fees are increasingly being used as a handy way to support the work of industry allies without directly employing them.

To see just how contentious speaking fees can be, take a gander at the recent Rex Murphy or Peter Mansbridge controversies. CBC ended up adjusting its policy, requiring hosts to disclose their speaking fees.

What Was Vivian Krause’s Argument Again?

So let’s get this straight: Krause, who has relied on speaking fees from the multinational resource sector for 90 per cent of her income for the past three years, argues that Canada’s environmental organizations are fronts for U.S. interests because they receive a portion of their funding from across the border?

Despite the spurious logic, Krause is still given a platform to spread her misleading information in the Postmedia chain of newspapers, including the Financial Post and The Province, as well as on Global News shows where she's a regular panelist on Unfiltered with Jill Krop.

While Krause may spin a mysterious tale, the answer is simple: philanthropic dollars crossing borders to support work on global issues is the norm. And Canadian charities are required to disclose all significant donations from foreign sources annually.

The Real Debate Canada Needs

The continued debate over the funding sources of the environmental community is simply a diversion tactic that favours the fossil fuel industry's desire to avoid having the real debate about Canada’s energy future.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges nations to phase out fossil fuels immediately to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

The report puts responsibility squarely on the shoulders of our elected leaders, saying they can “either put policies in place to achieve this essential shift, or they can spend the rest of their careers dealing with climate disaster after climate disaster.”

But Canada won’t meet its 2020 international climate target, according to Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand.

“The federal government does not have an overall plan that maps out how Canada will achieve this target. Canadians have not been given the details about which regulations will be developed, when, nor what greenhouse gas reductions will be expected,” Gelfand wrote in a report last month.

Now that China and the U.S. have signed a deal agreeing to cut emissions, Canada is left with even fewer excuses not to act.

Meantime, the federal government’s mandate to advance an energy superpower agenda marches forth, resulting in controversy across the country — from the Kinder Morgan fiasco on Burnaby Mountain, to the First Nations legal battle against Enbridge Northern Gateway, to the Athabasca Chipewyan and Beaver Lake Cree First Nations’ fight to prevent oilsands expansion on their territory, to efforts to ban fracking in Nova Scotia.

These efforts are not the outcome of foreign conspiracy — they’re the outcome of a lack of any sensible national conversation about how to develop our natural resources while meeting our international climate change commitments.

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On Friday, community members from across Vancouver converged on Burnaby Mountain, the site of conflict surrounding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, after the B.C. Supreme Court approved an injunction to remove a group of protesters, who call themselves the Caretakers of Burnaby Mountain, by Monday at 4 p.m. This article takes an in-depth look at Jakub Markiewicz, an artist, filmmaker and the youngest member of the Caretakers, who recently made headlines after chaining himself to a Kinder Morgan vehicle.

Living in the city, amidst streetlights and headlights and shop signs left on all night, it’s easy to forget just how dark the night can be. Burnaby Mountain isn’t far from its namesake city, or downtown Vancouver for that matter, but by the time six o’clock rolls around (thank you, daylight savings), the darkness feels like a vacuum. The moon, one day past full, is barely enough for me to see where I’m putting my feet in the wet grass.

Caretakers of Burnaby Mountain

Burnaby vs. the National Energy Board

All in the Family

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Canada's National Energy Board (NEB) announced today that it is stopping the clock on the review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion due to the company’s new proposed corridor through Burnaby, B.C. — which will push a decision on the project back to after the 2015 federal election.

The board will take a seven-month timeout from its 15-month timeline between July 11, 2014, and Februrary 3, 2015, to allow Kinder Morgan time to file studies for its new corridor through Burnaby Mountain, according to a letter to intervenors sent today.

That pushes the board’s deadline to file its report on the project with cabinet back seven months from July 2, 2015, to Jan. 25, 2016.

“The significant thing is that this decision now won’t be made until after the next federal election. It’ll be up to the next Prime Minister to make that call,” says Karen Campbell, staff lawyer with Ecojustice.

“From a campaign perspective, it certainly gives some wind in the sails of those who want to make sure this isn’t a fait accompli before the next election,” she says.

But Campbell also cautioned that there are still a lot of shortcomings in the process that the energy board has not addressed.  

That’s a concern echoed by Gregory McDade, legal counsel for the City of Burnaby.

“There are so many other incomplete items that need work,” McDade says. “We’ve been pushing all along for a proper public hearing with cross-examination and evidence and the NEB said they couldn’t do that because of the tight timeline. Now that we have the time, why aren’t we doing a proper public hearing?”

McDade says that without cross-examination, the energy board’s review is not legitimate. He noted how Kinder Morgan failed to answer many of the questions put to them through the “information request” process, which he described as a “colossal joke.”

“Stalling it seven months doesn’t help at all if you’re not going to properly examine the evidence,” he said. “It just puts the decision off.”

Chris Tollefson, executive director of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria, says this ruling is just a small step toward fixing the problem and that the entire process needs to be put on hold until Kinder Morgan’s application is complete.

As of right now, the rest of the hearings are scheduled to move forward more or less as per the previous schedule.

“The board has now recognized that this process was not working and that the timelines were unrealistic,” Tollefson says. “What we would call upon the board now to do is to revisit its decision to eliminate cross-examination from this process.”

Any which way, the Conservatives will be in the limelight over their support for heavy oil projects on B.C.'s coast in the 2015 election, according to Kai Nagata, energy and democracy director at Dogwood Initiative, a B.C. democracy group.

"It'll be a live issue for sure," Nagata says. "The way Kinder Morgan is going, the more time the NEB gives them to alienate landowners and First Nations, the more likely they are to remind people of Enbridge."

Kinder Morgan’s proposed expansion would ship 590,000 barrels of oilsands bitumen to Burnaby each day, where it would be loaded onto 400 oil tankers each year.

— With files from Carol Linnitt

Photo: Rod Raglin via Flickr

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