The National Energy Board is downplaying concerns it is ill-equipped to protect Canada’s freshwater lakes and rivers.
On December 16th the board took over responsibility for assessing whether reviews are needed for projects that could impact fish habitats.
Up to that point the responsibility primarily fell on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to determine whether a review was required.
This means that if a pipeline is ever built from the oilsands to the Hudson Bay, it will now be the energy board that determines whether a review of the project is needed.
Kurt McAllister works for the Energy Board as a technical specialist and laid out the details of the MOU.
“The National Energy Board will now be the sole reviewer of projects for impacts to fish and fish habitats to determine if there will be serious harm to fish of a fishery.”
He says the new arrangement streamlines the process and the same protections that were in place before will remain:
“OK, through this MOU there won’t be any impact on the protection fish habitat or fisheries resources. The same level of protection for fisheries resources that DFO provided shall be continued on any deregulated pipeline or power-line by the National Energy Board.”
He adds inspectors with the board will also do follow-up monitoring through the life-cycle of the project to ensure the environment is looked after.
Meantime the Green Party is slamming the MOU.
Critic Janice Harvey worries the board’s main focus won’t be on the environment, but rather energy and economics:
“What has happened here is the Harper government is turning the supervision of the chicken coop over to the fox.”
However McCallister stresses they have the best interest of the environment in mind and it’s also woven into their mandate:
“Yes, part of the National Energy Board’s mandate is to make sure that a project is done in the public interest and as part of that we have to make sure that the environment’s protected because that is part of the public’s interest as well.”
Janice Harvey says the Energy Board can talk about how things need to be streamlined, but she feels much of the government’s focus is aimed at reducing the amount of oversight on industry:
“So you know the intent here is not to simply streamline and to make more efficient our watch-dog work it is to downgrade and to gut the watchdog work of the Federal government.”
She argues that in some cases the board could simply find there’s no commercial fishery in a particular water-body so a review isn’t required.
Harvey adds the Fisheries Act was the most potent environmental protection tool in Canada, but the government is essentially bypassing it through this new arrangement.