Carr sets stage for Energy East review with appointments

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr has moved to revive the stalled review of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline by appointing three new, bilingual, temporary members to the National Energy Board.

The move came Monday while the dust was still settling on the Liberal government’s pan-Canadian climate policy framework, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrestled into reality late Friday in a hard-won and lessthan-unanimous agreement with provincial and territorial premiers.

The Trudeau government has been playing off climate policy initiatives and fossil fuel infrastructure approvals in a carefully choreographed dance all fall, hoping to advance the duelling agendas amid deeply divided regional and public opinion perspectives.

With much of the policy fine print of the pan-Canadian climate framework still to be negotiated — such as a low-carbon fuel standard for vehicles — the government is now setting the stage for another major pipeline debate, this time on a proposed 4,500-kilometre line that would carry Alberta and Saskatchewan oil to refineries and ports in New Brunswick.

The Energy East hearings by the National Energy Board were barely underway when they fell apart in September over appearances of conflict of interest by the panel reviewing the application. NEB chairman Peter Watson and vice-chair Lyne Mercier were both implicated for having private meetings with a paid TransCanada consultant to discuss public opinion around the controversial project. Three months later, Carr has named temporary replacement panellists and kicked the issue back to the NEB.

“We have now given the board the resources they need to do the job that has to be done on these hearings and they will determine how they will proceed from there,” Carr said outside the House of Commons on Monday.

In the meantime, the Liberal government is conducting a longer term review of the entire National Energy Board mandate, but the Energy East assessment will go ahead under the amended, interim process announced by the government last January. At the time, Carr set a 21-month timeline for the completion of the Energy East review, but the clock was stopped by the conflict-of-interest allegations.

“The 21 months will be determined by the board on how it chooses to deploy these new members — whether or not they can be briefed up and resume (the former hearings) or whether they would go back to the beginning of the briefings,” Carr said Monday. “And that’s their call.”

The three new members — one each from New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec — were not specifically named to the Energy East review panel by Carr because it’s up to the acting chair of the National Energy Board to assign duties.

The board issued a statement Monday saying it will name the Energy East panel “shortly.”

“The new hearing panel will determine how to move forward with the review process of the Energy East and Eastern Mainline projects,” said the NEB.

TransCanada said it’s awaiting instruction from the board on next steps.

The board appointments, as with all pipeline matters in the current political climate, did not assuage Conservatives.

Conservative critic Shannon Stubbs said the Liberals have created “total uncertainty and chaos” in the regulatory process.