Having already come under fire for radically streamlining environmental reviews on projects like pipelines and mines, reducing the number of government departments that can participate in such reviews, and capping their length at between one and two years, the federal Conservatives have decided to further stack the deck in Big Oil’s favour by granting cabinet a veto over any decision made by the National Energy Board on a pipeline proposal.
So in other words, if the NEB turns thumbs down on something like the Northern Gateway pipeline (which would see bitumen transported from from Alberta to the B.C. coast for export to Asia) because of environmental concerns, the Harperites can sigh and in their best Church Lady voice say “Isn’t that special” and approve it anyway. Here’s the CBC report.
