Are you sitting and scratching your head over the pipeline protests in Montreal? The National Energy Board (NEB) hearings seemed to be planned to fail. Three years ago the Toronto hearings on Enbridge’s Line 9 shut down because of protests. And if you noticed that, why would you want the same outcome for TransCanada’s Energy East hearings in Montreal? Who benefits?
We should pay attention to the outcome in Toronto because despite the protests and the many thousands of written objections received, the NEB approved the very dangerous Line 9 across southern Ontario.
And the Energy East pipeline has all the same problems even though it does not cross over Toronto’s Young Street subway. It is the same because it is mainly older pipe that is to be modified to carry high pressure diluted bitumen. It will have a new section down to Saint John, New Brunswick that will end at a marine terminal that can put the bitumen onto ocean tankers.
There are more than 70,000 Saskatchewan residents who can currently tell you about the problems in getting potable water when some bitumen was spilled from a pipeline into the North Saskatchewan River.
But in Montreal there were two types of protestors at the start of the NEB hearings about Energy East. There were of course environmentalists stating their objections. There were also some well organized purported construction workers with professional signs supporting the few construction jobs to run the pipe through Quebec. We wonder who hired those people?
But the person who interrupted the start of the hearing. He was on all the newscasts. He was the big guy in the green plaid shirt. It was hard to tell what he was protesting but his objective was clear. He was there to disrupt the proceedings. The NEB commissioners, there to hold the meeting, immediately cancelled the meeting. And is it not strange that it is the same outcome as we saw in the NEB’s meeting in Toronto three years ago. It seems it is just Canada’s news media that has a very short memory. Hell, they even tell people that the pipeline is to carry crude oil!
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre was obviously disappointed that he did not get to give his speech against the pipeline. Mind you, he was calling for the suspension of the hearing anyway because of the obvious conflict of interest exhibited by two of the three commissioners running the hearing.
It is little wonder that people might suggest that the Calgary based NEB commissioners might be biased. Bear in mind that former Prime Minister Harper extended the terms of some of their colleagues last year before leaving office. This is just his legacy!
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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