Feds must act on pipeline: Prentice
First nations, tanker traffic are priorities
The federal government must increase its involvement, consulting with first nations and developing an ocean management plan for tanker traffic if the Enbridge pipeline is to go ahead as planned, former cabinet minister Jim Prentice said at a Vancouver Board of Trade lunch Thursday.
The National Energy Board is holding hearings on the $ 5.5- billion dollar pipeline project that will carry bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands across northern B. C. to Kitimat, from where it will be shipped by tanker to Asia.
That process should continue, said Prentice, who is now senior executive vice- president and vice- chairman at CIBC.
But at the same time other steps need to be taken, said Prentice, who served as Minister of the Environment, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Minister responsible for major pipeline projects when in the government.
First, there needs to be more aggressive consultation with first nations about their unresolved land claims.
There are now 40 such claims across northern B. C. and the first nations need to be assured that allowing development does not relinquish their rights, Prentice said in an interview before his speech.
“There’s years of heavy lifting to be done there, so we’re advocating that the government take the lead and see that that happens,” he said.
Second, many of the issues surrounding the pipeline revolve around the danger of tanker traffic. The opposition to the pipeline really began in earnest with the Coastal first nations, Prentice said.
So an ocean management plan that will regulate tanker traffic and ensure tankers along the coast meet the highest safety and environmental standards is needed, he said.
Those two steps — consultations with first nations and developing an ocean management plan — must start now, while the NEB hearings are in progress.
“I’d be astounded if the National Energy Board wasn’t at the end of the day going to recommend exactly those kinds of efforts in any event,” Prentice said.
“The worst outcome is not regulatory delay,” Prentice said. “The worst outcome is a regulatory process that doesn’t withstand subsequent judicial review.”
That will take time, he said. But there is time with the pipeline not needed until 2017 at the earliest.
“That gives us clear running room of 3- 5 years to work through the regulatory process, to begin the consultation on land claims [ and] to do the consultation on the coastal management regime.”
Prentice is in favour of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline and other oil and gas corridors to the west coast he believes are necessary to give Canada access to Asia.
In his speech, Prentice compared the pipeline with the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, St. Lawrence Seaway, and other major transportation networks, calling them all “transformational to this country.”
“These projects all have things in common,” Prentice said. “They all took years to build, they all created massive employment while they were being constructed and they all had incredible spinoff benefits.
“And each in its day was subject to intense scrutiny and stoked public debate and controversy.”