The allure of game seven of the Stanley Cup finals kept almost everyone in Prince Rupert away from the Enbridge Northern Gateway public information meeting held the same night at the North Coast Convention Centre.
Representatives of the Joint Review Panel, which is holding hearing on controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway project, held the event in order to explain to Prince Rupert residents about the hearing process and how they can become involved and let the panel know what their views on the project are. Instead, the meeting amounted to not much more than government employees standing in front of booths in an empty room.
“I’ve actually been thinking about my involvement; whether I’ll be a making an oral statement or applying for intervener status,” says local MLA Gary Coons, one of the few people to turn up.
According to the panel’s representatives, there are three different ways that individual people and organizations can get their views on the pipeline to be heard and considered by the three panel members.
The first, and the most hassle-free option is to send a letter of comment to the panel. The letters don’t have to be anything more complicated than just someone’s thoughts and opinions on the proposed pipeline project.
According to the panel’s representatives, every letter sent to them will be read by all the panel members before they give their recommendations to the Federal Government. All letters need to be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to the panel before March 13, 2012.
The second option is to give a 10-minute oral statement to the panelists in person at one of the public hearings that will be taking place in communities around the province. In an oral statement participants are expected to explain their stake in the issue and provide any supporting information along with their statement.
People giving statements are expected to appear in person, but arrangements such as a teleconference can be made if that’s not possible. Community hearing are scheduled to begin next January, but it hasn’t been decided which communities will have hearings yet. Anyone who wants to give an oral statement must register before October 6, 2011.
The third option is to become an intervener during the hearing process, which is the most complicated and involved way of participating. Interveners can submit questions and evidence, request information from other interveners, receive all the documents from the hearings and are able to give a closing statement at the last hearing. Any person or organization that wants to be an intervener must register by July 14, 2011.
The whole process is likely to go half way through 2013 before all the hearings have been concluded and the panelists begin to create their suggestions, but even then the Federal Government is not obligated to implement the plan. But according to the representatives, the government won’ be able to just cherry-pick the recommendations they do like; “it’s a take it or leave it deal”.
Coons says the whole process will be worth it just for the awareness about the issue the hearings will continue to generate over the next year or two.
“I think its important to follow the process, but I think its even more important to listen to the people, and I think the people of this region and the rest of the province have spoken and said that they don’t want tankers on the coast,” says Coons.