Plans to build a pipeline along the MacKenzie Valley have been hit by rising costs, land claims disputes, court challenges and regulatory delays.
Photograph by: Ed Struzik, Edmonton Journal
OTTAWA — A joint review panel assessing a $16.2-billion northern pipeline proposal has chastised the federal government for lacking transparency in an attempt to reject environmental protection measures recommended for the project in the Mackenzie Valley.
In correspondence made public this month, the chairman of the panel, Robert Hornal criticized numerous recommendations from the government, including its suggestions that the environmental protection measures should be rejected on the grounds that they would "constrain future development in the North."
"The panel does not, therefore, understand the concept that a constraint on future development could alone be a ground for refusing to accept a recommendation," wrote Hornal on Oct. 4. "The panel rejects any suggestion that there should be no constraint on future developments."
Hornal had previously called the government to task for proposing a confidential process for modifying the environmental protection recommendations, describing the request in an Aug. 30 letter as a "fundamental breach of the basic principles that the panel's review process is to be open and transparent," and accountable to the public.
In the October letter, Hornal also noted that the governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories were rejecting 28 out of its 115 recommendations, while in some of the other cases it offered vague explanations suggesting it was also rejecting recommendations it claimed to accept in principle.
"The panel notes that the governments have qualified their acceptance of some recommendations to such an extent that the difference between 'accept the intent' and outright rejection is not easy to discern," Hornal wrote.
The project proposes the development of three natural gas fields in the Mackenzie delta in the Northwest Territories and related facilities and pipelines to transport the fuels south along the Mackenzie Valley. The $16.2-billion initiative was proposed by a group of companies led by Imperial Oil and including Shell Canada, ConocoPhillips Canada, and the Aboriginal Pipeline Group as partners.
But environmental groups have opposed the development, arguing that there would be cumulative impacts on the habitat of several endangered species, including polar bears, birds as well as the boreal forest. They have also questioned whether the natural gas would be used to increase oilsands production, driving up greenhouse gas emissions.
The recommendations from the panel are not binding, but Carla Sbert, a manager of conservation programs and legal issues at Nature Canada, suggested the government was mainly trying to modify the proposed conservation measures so that it appears to be protecting the environment.
"I have concerns, and many others in the environmental community who are following this, that the plan is to do away with federal role in environmental assessment," said Sbert.
The Environment Canada office that is leading the government's response to the panel review was actually transferred from Industry Canada in October 2008, and consists of several senior officials from the latter department including France Pegeot, an assistant deputy minister, and Eric Dagenais, the director general of the Mackenzie Gas Project Office.
Dagenais, who had more than 20 reported meetings with industry lobbyists from companies such as Imperial Oil and Shell in the summer of 2009 to discuss the project, dismissed questions about whether the office should have also consulted environmental groups, that had also previously made arguments at the joint panel hearings, as part of its research on the project.
"I don't think I've ever had a request to meet with an environmental group," said Dagenais in an interview with Postmedia News.
"The joint review panel hearings had concluded . . . so I don't understand what it is you would have me do."
NDP natural resources critic Nathan Cullen said the government has already demonstrated that it is favouring the industry.
"This is such a pro-oil regime in Ottawa right now, that all that's standing between the oil companies and the destruction of the environment is the review panel," Cullen said.
While Cullen suggested that the government was hiding its request to the panel because it was embarrassed by its own recommendations, Dagenais noted there were numerous hearings and months of public consultations and that Environment Canada intends to release its final recommendations "in a matter of weeks."
"At the point where we are sending the draft response to the panel, we're usually weeks away from a final response being made," said Dagenais.
A spokesman for Imperial Oil also said that the company was waiting for the government's decision and was not involved in discussions following the report released by the panel
.
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