The National Energy Board has officially launched its review of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline and announced that the hearings, which are taking place in communities along the pipeline route, will kick off in Saint John, N.B. — the proposed project’s end point.
The NEB’s director for the review of the Energy East project Jean-Denis Charlebois delivered the update today, saying that this review will be unlike any other in the NEB’s history. He explains what will happen at the hearings which begin on August 8 and will take place in New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
“At those sessions intervenors will be able to make a short statement and ask high-level questions of the applicants. [The] objective of the panel sessions is to establish the key issues of interest to intervenors.”
The NEB has 21 months for the review. No later than March 16, 2018 the NEB has to send a report to the federal Minister of Natural Resources, Jim Carr, on whether or not the project should get the green light along with any recommended conditions.
This announcement comes right on the heels of the East Coast Energy Conference in Saint John, where high-profile Canadians including Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall and former Manitoba premier and Canada’s former ambassador to the US Gary Doer, announced their support for the Energy East project. There has been strong opposition to the project, however, including from Indigenous groups.
“The NEB recognizes that Indigenous people have an oral tradition of sharing stories and knowlege from generation to generation, this is why the NEB hearing panel will continue to collect oral traditional evidence as part of its hearing process,” says Charlebois. “The oral traditional evidence will be an important component of the evidence to be considered by the panel.”
A campaign has also been launched by the Green Party and Bloc Quebecois to derail the pipeline. Deputy Green Party leader Daniel Green claims the pipeline will increase the risk of an oil spill through the more than 800 watercourses along the planned pipeline cooridor, with the loss of agricultural lands and forests.
President of Energy East John Soini says, in a press release, “Today’s announcement by the National Energy Board is an important and welcomed milestone in what has so far been three years of scientific analysis, study and engagement with thousands of Canadians along the Energy East route since the project was first announced.”
