Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of ITI and I want to refer to a couple of tabled documents from yesterday, a letter from Imperial Oil updating their economic feasibility to the Mackenzie Gas Project, a letter from Lawson Lundell in which the GNWT declines the opportunity to cross-examine Imperial Oil’s witness at a couple of hearings along with the rest of the public. The economic feasibility update notes that the start-up for the MGP would be 2018 at the earliest, about nine years from now. I am wondering why the government has decided not to participate in that hearing and ask questions and draw out information that could be useful in informing both us and the public. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will try to answer that question in a very short period of time. As the Member knows, the Government of the Northwest Territories and particularly the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment has been fully engaged in the NEB process since the proponents filed their project description in October 2004. We were working on an agreed upon process until late in 2009 when, with the lengthy delay in completing the regulatory process and the delay in getting the JRP report, the National Energy Board in its wisdom decided to change the order in which interveners would respond. So that instead of the responsible Ministers from the various departments responding to the Joint Review Panel first and the NEB holding public hearings, it was decided by NEB, without input from our government or other governments, as far as I know, to hold their hearings in advance of responsible Ministers responding to the Joint Review Panel and primarily to shorten the time period because it had taken so long to receive the Joint Review Panel report. To continue with their original schedule would have added probably another four to six months to an extremely lengthy process. Because of that, there were certain legal implications to our government.
Primarily we are very concerned about allegations of predetermination and apprehension of bias, which could lead to legal proceedings calling for judicial review. We do not want to bias our responsible Minister, who is the Minister of ENR, in responding to the Joint Review Panel recommendations. As such, we are being very careful in determining which hearings we would participate in and we are aiming to primarily participate in final arguments.
That’s an interesting and complicated response. I’d like to explore that a little further, but I’m wondering if it does not serve us to examine the assumptions that are being made on the largest infrastructure project ever conceived for the Northwest Territories and become informed and probe those as this side of the House does for any assumptions that the government comes up with in order to be responsible to our public and to be able to make informed opinions. Obviously the timing of this, there are convolutions to it that are difficult to discuss in this format. I’m wondering how we will deal with that. I think the Minister probably has questions about some of the assumptions in the report from Imperial Oil. I would think that as a responsible authority he certainly should have. I think the question is clear. I’m wondering how we’re going to fulfill that role in a way that serves our public.
As the Member recognized, this is a very complex area and as such we’re relying a lot on legal counsel and advice that we’re receiving. A lot of the quantified support and conditions that our government raised, I think there were 76 conditions that were raised way back in 2005-2006. At that time there was a lot of input sought from all the Members of the Legislative Assembly. Now we have come to the point where in order to be able to present in final arguments to NEB before the Joint Review Panel provides their response, we have to measure our responses in a way so that we do not appear to be predetermining the responsible Minister’s answer. So we will be focusing our final arguments on specific areas of a technical nature that we have identified in the original submissions and we’re not going to stray very far from that.
With regard to the specific hearing on the economic feasibility evidence, we have looked at what was provided and we feel that we are satisfied with the technical evidence that has been put forward.
I’d say one assumption that I think would be worthy of some probing is the assumption that, well, OVRL notes, Imperial Oil notes that natural gas production from shale gas in both Canada and the U.S. is going up. Of course, that’s what has depressed gas prices now. I think that’s a well-established fact. Yet they say that these economic conditions will still be favourable for the project. I would think that would be an obvious one to pursue.
Sort of fundamental to this is there was nothing confidential required to consider this question. Why did the government not come to the Regular MLAs and have their input here? If there was a legal side binder to it, then we would have heard about that, but when are we going to start participating in this project?
All the Members were briefed on the legalities of dealing with the Joint Review Panel. One of the primary issues was the fact that we have three Members of this Legislative Assembly that are interveners in the Joint Review Panel process. As such, we don’t really have a process because there’s been no agreed upon process for dealing with the Members of the Legislative Assembly that are not interveners. According to the regulatory process, if we are to deal with one intervener, we have to deal with all the interveners at the same time.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won’t bother correcting the Minister again on the number of interveners we have. Given that 2018 is the earliest we can envision an operating pipeline and given the ridiculous degree to which this government has hitched its star to this project, what plan is there to proceed with economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable economic development that will benefit our people in the meantime?
Because of the cautions about predetermination, we will be taking a very active role and a lot of it will depend on the recommendations of and the government response to the Joint Review Panel recommendations and the recommendations that are accepted by the National Energy Board. On that basis we will work on the premise that the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, if approved, should be sustainable and should provide for benefits for people in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
