Carr touts revamped review process,

All Canadians deserve input, minister says

CALGARY• Just as the National Energy Board was cancelling hearings on the Energy East project for the rest of the week due to security concerns Tuesday, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr was telling a business crowd in Calgary that “all Canadians” had the right to participate in the hearings process.

“We are not going to have everybody agree with every decision that we make,” Carr said during a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, adding that although there would be some people who were always opposed to oil and gas projects, “We do not believe that they would carry the country.”

Carr also said that Ottawa’s revamped process for pipeline reviews was designed to restore trust in the NEB and its regulatory processes, and that the government would stick to its announced timelines for project reviews.

His comments were made at the same time the federal pipeline regulator announced it was suspending further hearings in Montreal on TransCanada Corp.’ s Energy East pipeline project after a “violent incident” Monday in which protestors interrupted a hearing.

Sarah Kile y, an NEB spokeswoman, said the hearings would resume as scheduled in Quebec City, but that the regulator was cancelling all sessions in Montreal. She said the NEB is considering other ways to gather comments and information from people scheduled to speak in Montreal.

On Monday, protestors angry about an alleged conflict of interest — an undisclosed meeting between a panel member and former Quebec premier Jean Charest, who was working for TransCanada — disrupted the NEB hearing just before Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre was scheduled to address the panel. After the incident, the hearings were suspended for the rest of the day.

On Tuesday, the NEB issued a statement that said it would consider two motions calling on panel members to recuse themselves from the hearings process and “the board will not proceed with further panel sessions until it reaches a decision.”

“We’ re all frustrated today by what happened in Montreal yesterday,” Calgary Chamber of Commerce president Adam Legge said during the same lunch event attended by Carr.

Legge added that he was concerned “the fringe” had begun to influence the review process for Energy East — a pipeline route that Albertan companies consider necessary to open up new markets for domestic producers.

Chris Bloomer, president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said the protesters’ disruption and subsequent hearing cancellation in Montreal Monday was “in capital letters, unfortunate.”

Recent efforts to reduce emissions and improve environmental performance in the energy sector should help build social licence for pipelines in places like Quebec, Bloomers aid, but acknowledged t here would always be some opposition.

Carr said after his speech that the NEB was an armslength government agency that would determine how to improve security so that “all Canadian would have a chance to participate” in the hearing process once it resumes.

“We were and remain ready to respectfully and constructively begin the sessions in Montreal, which we view as an opportunity to continue our dialogue with Quebecers on Energy East,” TransCanada spokesman Tim Duboyce said in a statement. “At this stage, we will wait for the NEB to provide guidance on how it plans to proceed.”

TransCanada’s Energy East project would move 1.1 million barrels of oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick and to overseas markets. At present, the vast majority of Canadian oil shipments go to the United States and domestic oil companies are looking to access new customers and new markets.

Both Carr and Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKen na were in Calgary Tuesday meeting with executives and telling the chamber that the federal government’s revised review processes would ensure environmental protections, which will in t urn help companies achieve social license for energy projects.

“A dramatic decline in commodity prices is a challenge for all of us ,” McKen na said, referring the recession in Alberta that has resulted from a twoyear- long rout in oil prices.

“We want Alberta to succeed and we’re going to work with you to ensure that happens.”