This is a guest post by Ecojustice National Program Director Barry Robinson and staff lawyers Charles Hatt and Karen Campbell. It originally appeared on the Ecojustice website.
On January 27, the federal government announced interim measures for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project Review process and the upcoming TransCanada Energy East Pipeline Project Review process. These measures are a welcome first step, but unfortunately still fall short of what is required to restore public faith in National Energy Board (NEB) reviews and environmental assessments in Canada.
The interim measures are part of the Liberal government’s mandate to “regain public trust” and deal with the broken process left behind by the Harper government’s repeal and replacement of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and amendments to the National Energy Board Act. These efforts to fast track approvals for proposed pipeline projects backfired and have brought public confidence in project reviews to an all-time low. Public trust in these reviews is so diminished that communities from coast to coast — Burnaby, Kenora, Montreal and Saint John, to name a few — have organized against proposed projects and regulators. This is unprecedented.