Ottawa names review panel to ‘modernize’ NEB

Poor consultation with aboriginals over pipelines prompts overhaul

The need for Canada to adopt better aboriginal consultation practices is “at the heart” of a newly appointed National Energy Board review panel, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said Tuesday.

Ottawa announced a five-person team that will consult with aboriginals, industry, environmentalists and members of the public on how to “modernize” the NEB, Canada’s energy regulator.

“It’s right at the heart of my mandate letter from the Prime Minister,” Carr said in an interview from Winnipeg. “We know through other reviews that consultation and accommodation has been insufficient, both from a legal perspective and from what we believe to be morally right.”

Carr said there hasn’t been a “serious review” of the NEB since 1959, and recent court rulings that criticized the federal government’s consultations with aboriginals — including the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision overturning the approval of Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline from Edmonton to Kitimat, B.C. — highlight the need for new processes.

“We learned from other experiences that we’re not good enough,” Carr said, in reference to consultation on Northern Gateway.

Quebec environmental lawyer Hélène Lauzon and former Liberal MP Gary Merasty, who is also president and chief operating officer at a Saskatoon-based First Nations-owned business, will cochair the panel. New Brunswick Energy Institute president David Besner, former Musqueam chief Wendy Grant-John and former Canadian Energy Pipeline Association president Brenda Kenny round out the group.

Duane Bratt, a Mount Royal University political science professor, noted the presence of Merasty and Grant-John “shows the importance (Ottawa is) placing on aboriginal groups and part of that is around the duty to consult.”

“The courts have talked about how critical this is and they’ve struck down the Northern Gateway pipeline because of the duty to consult, but they haven’t provided guidelines on what that means,” Bratt said.

Carr said no topic was off-limits to the panel, which is free to issue recommendations on legislative powers, decision-making for pipelines and consultation processes.

Bratt said while it’s “tough to predict how substantial the overhaul of the NEB will be ... it looks like a very carefully chosen panel to look at a lot of different options.”

Asked whether any changes would affect current NEB reviews, such as TransCanada Corp.’s Energy East application, Carr said it’s “too early to know how the pacing of these reforms will play out.”

“I’m hopeful that when we finally introduce these permanent reforms they will see that we’ve hit the sweet spot of that balance between indigenous accommodation, economic growth and environmental stewardship,” Carr said.

Erin Flanagan, federal policy director of environmental advocacy group The Pembina Institute, said the NEB’s “structure, role and mandate must all be reconsidered to maintain the agency’s relevance and re-establish its credibility.”