PIPELINE POUT
Protesters disrupt day 2 of Enbridge’s Line 9 hearings.
Protesters disrupted the second day of National Energy Board hearings in Montreal on Enbridge Inc.’s controversial Line 9 pipeline reversal project, prompting a warning from NEB panel chair Lyne Mercier that the board has the power to remove all non-scheduled participants if the disturbances continued.
The NEB did not exercise that power in the end as security personnel were given the time to remove the protesters.
The protesters stood up one at a time, interrupting a presentation by the Association industrielle de l’est de Montréal, which supports the plan. Speaking in English and in French, they recited prepared scripts telling a fictional story about “Mr. Enbridge.”
“Mr. Enbridge has a lot of pipelines that break and that make big yucky messes,” one woman said before she was escorted away by police for trespassing.
“These hearings give the right of speech to a few dozen organizations that you, the NEB, considers qualified though it is the whole of Canada’s population that is affected,” another woman said before she was similarly taken out of the room by police. “We are speaking for all of those who do not have the right to speak today.”
NEB hearings on the project began Tuesday in Montreal with Enbridge’s final arguments and continue to the end of the week.
Enbridge is seeking approval from the board for a plan to reverse the flow of an existing 639-kilometre oil pipeline between Sarnia, Ont. and Montreal while boosting its capacity 25% to 300,000 barrels per day. The pipeline would carry largely sweet light crude with a smaller percentage of heavier oil.
The plan seeks to respond to a demand by refiners in Quebec and Ontario for western crude, which is currently cheaper than international imports. Three shippers including Valero Energy and Suncor Energy confirmed they want the Line 9 oil supply on 10-year initial commitments.
Since Enbridge first unveiled details of the plan, environmentalists have taken up arms against it. At every opportunity, they’ve highlighted the company’s 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill, one of the costliest in U.S. history, warning that a similar incident can happen in Canada as the Line 9 path passes across sensitive farmland and bodies of water.
On Wednesday, Quebec environmental groups held a news conference outside the convention centre, where they said the NEB’s review is too narrow and that public participation in the process is too limited. They called again on the Quebec government to do its own review of the project.
“It’s surprising that a year after Enbridge submitted its project to the NEB, Quebec hasn’t done its own consultation, which is has promised many times to do,” said Équiterre’s Sidney Ribaux. “We want Quebec to take over from the federal government — which has abandoned its responsibility — and do its own evaluation of the project.”
Supporters argue there are tremendous economic benefits from the project, including securing the business case for Montreal’s petrochemical industry. Quebec has pledged to hold its own consultations on the project in the fall.
In addition to the Association industrielle de l’est, the panel heard from the Manufacturiers et exportateurs du Québec and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which all support the project. The MEQ said a secure, reliable source of oil is necessary for Quebec’s economic development.
“This would be to the benefit of the entire Quebec society,” said MEQ president Simon Prévost.