Northern Gateway hearings resume
Enbridge officials say they welcome chance to build public’s confidence in project
VANCOUVER — Officials with Enbridge Northern Gateway say they are looking forward to a return to British Columbia of the environmental review panel, which resumes final hearings next week.
Environmental protection and emergency preparedness will be up for questioning when the hearings, which began in Edmonton last month, get underway in Prince George on Tuesday.
“As the project proponent, we intend to demonstrate to British Columbians and to all Canadians through the examination of the facts and science upon which this project application is based that there is a path forward that provides for prosperity while protecting the environment,” Janet Holder, the company’s vice-president of western access, said Friday.
“The (panel) is the appropriate forum for this confidence-building exercise with Canadians.”
Dozens of First Nations and conservation groups have been vocal opponents, citing the risk of an oil leak on land or a tanker spill off the coast, and many of them say they, too, are looking forward to the panel’s return to B.C.
Art Sterritt, executive director of Coastal First Nations, an alliance of aboriginal bands along the B.C. coast, said his group will focus on hearings slated for Prince Rupert beginning in November.
“This is intended to go at Enbridge’s experts and point out the flaws that they have in their assumptions around shipping and navigation, their flaws in emergency preparedness and response, flaws in environmental socioeconomic stuff, flaws in aboriginal engagement,” Sterritt said.
The information Enbridge has supplied to the panel, and to British Columbians, is “coming up short,” he said.
“We’re going at Enbridge’s witness panels in a way that we hope will give the joint review panel the information they need to make a learned decision,” Sterritt said.
Enbridge said the Northern Gateway project will open up Asian markets to Canadian oil. That will increase the country’s gross domestic product by more than $270 billion in 30 years, Enbridge said, and contribute $80 billion in tax revenues.