Energy East pipeline route

A couple of local groups are among the more than 50 Canadian environmental and activist organizations asking the prime minister to shut down the National Energy Board review process until reforms are implemented.

North Bay-based Northwatch and Nipissing Environmental Watch are signatories.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has long criticized the N-E-B process and has promised to reform it.

Patrick DeRochie, Climate and Energy Program Manager at Environmental Defence, says interim measures to allow the NEB to review the Kinder Morgan and TransCanada pipeline proposals while the NEB is overhauled are not acceptable.

“Firing a couple of conflict-of-interest tainted appointees and rescheduling a hearing is not going to fix the broken and discredited NEB,” said DeRochie, “It’s time for the federal government to pull the plug on the Energy East pipeline review and overhaul the NEB.”

DeRochie says that aside from overhauling the pipeline review process, Trudeau needs to show how Canada can build new pipelines and meet its greenhouse gas emission targets.

“The new federal government has said they’ll reform the NEB process, but are poised to let Energy East go through the flawed and failing system. It makes no sense. TransCanada still hasn’t got a complete application on file, so there is no rush – if the review is going to proceed, the review process must be fixed first,” said Brennain Lloyd, project coordinator with Northwatch.