The Canadian government will introduce measures “within months” to expedite regulatory reviews of major energy and mining projects, preventing a repetition of the prolonged Mackenzie Gas Project or MGP process and the current stonewalling by opponents of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver delivered pledges in almost simultaneous speeches that both legislative and regulatory changes will be needed to established what Oliver said will be “definitive timelines from start to finish on the regulatory process.”
They were joined by Environment Minister Peter Kent, who said the government is determined, during a “time of great economic turbulence” to set “realistic timelines … to cultivate conditions that encourage responsible, sustainable investment.”
He said that means “reducing those murky areas of overlap and obfuscation” and allow development of Canada’s natural resources “in the context of a modern, predictable and rigorous regulatory system.”
Oliver has already suggested that reviews should be completed within two years of an application being filed, compared with nine years for the MGP, six years for the Total-operated Joslyn oil sands mine and the three and a-half years that Northern Gateway now faces.
Industry says coordination needed
But industry leaders, who have called for streamlining, acknowledge that eliminating red-tape will require careful coordination of procedures within the Canadian government and between federal and provincial governments.
David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, questioned the need for the Joint Review Panel of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to hear presentations from 4,500 people who have registered to deliver oral comments on Northern Gateway.
He suggested it would be “much more efficient” to ask for written submissions.
Simon Dyer, a policy director at the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based think-tank focused on sustainable energy issues, is among those who think Canada should be doing more, not less to evaluate projects.
“The world is watching Canada’s regulatory performance and, if we’re interested in selling our product, we should be strengthening that, not weakening it,” he said.
Northern Gateway circus
For now, the Northern Gateway circus is wending its way through villages, towns and cities in northern British Columbia and Alberta, stopping in eight communities with nine more scheduled up to mid-April.
This stage is the public comment phase before a Joint Review Panel of the National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, charged with weighing the economic and environmental impacts of Enbridge’s C$5.5 billion project.
But the issues have tended to get lost in a fog of sameness.
Each stop starts with public gatherings of First Nations drummers, chanting activists and production-line placards outside the hearing venues.
Inside, the registered speakers — mostly Natives — deliver a soft-spoken, dignified message of concern about the prospects of a pipeline and possible spills disturbing their land, water and air, or their traditional hunting, fishing and gathering lifestyle.
Oliver v. ‘radical’ environmentalists
But the real fire and brimstone associated with Northern Gateway has been occurring hundreds of miles away, above all spurred on by Oliver insistence that his government’s efforts to promote the economic benefits Alberta’s oil deposits is being hampered by “radical” environmentalists.
“They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects,” he said.
“You won’t hear from American special interest groups (he accuses of funding Canadians opposed to Northern Gateway), celebrity environmentalists and champagne socialists that Canada’s oil sands are subject to the toughest environmental monitoring and regulation in the world,” he said.
“Canada has huge oil and gas reserves. The time to capitalize on these resources and diversify our energy resources is now. It is in our national interest,” Oliver said.
“If Canada does not move to supply the burgeoning Asian market for energy, someone else will and Canadians will have lost out on billions and billions of dollars of economic benefits that can support our quality of life for generations. It would be the height of irresponsibility for any government to stand back and allow that to happen.”
Ecojustice objects
Following a meeting with British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, he said that if the oil sands are fully developed “we are talking about C$3.3 trillion in economic activity over the next 25 years, up to 700,000 jobs on an annual basis for Canadians and hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue to governments in the form of taxation that will fund our social programs like health, education and pensions.”
Although Oliver has insisted his comments do not apply specifically to Northern Gateway and that any regulatory changes would balance economic and environmental interests, three organizations represented by legal group Ecojustice has asked the Joint Review Panel to determine whether statements by Harper and Oliver “constitute an attempt by those ministers to undermine or have had the effect of undermining the panel” in a way that would create “unfairness in the hearing process.”
It has urged the three-member panel to issue a statement affirming its independence and to urge the government to “refrain from further public comments on the proceedings” until the hearings are concluded.
A spokeswoman for the Joint Review Panel said the panel is an “independent body” that is fulfilling its mandate to assess Northern Gateway through a public process.
