Burnaby city council is questioning whether the Conservatives’ appointment of oil industry expert Steven Kelly to the National Energy Board was a strategic move to stall the hearings until after the federal election.
Kinder Morgan submitted Kelly’s economic analysis to the NEB hearing, to support the pipeline expansion, but last week, the board announced the hearings are on hold and Kelly’s evidence will now be stricken from the record.
At Monday night’s council meeting, Coun. Dan Johnston suggested the timing of everything was “a little suspicious.”
“They’re saying it’s unfortunate they have to suspend the process, but I think it’s intentional in the fact that by stalling it. They’re not getting the political flak from those opposed to it,” he said.
Mayor Derek Corrigan wouldn’t go as far as agreeing with Johnston but did say he found last week’s events “surprising” and “coincidental.”
“It’s clear that the chairman of the board, Peter Watson, was informed about and discussed the appointment of Mr. Kelly,” Corrigan told the NOW. “He initially came out and defended the appointment of Mr. Kelly and then several weeks later, they’re suddenly throwing out all this evidence from the Kinder Morgan hearing. I think that almost every citizen, as soon as Mr. Kelly was appointed, immediately said, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a conflict.’ I wonder why it took Mr. Watson so long to figure that out.”
It’s not clear how long the hearings will be postponed, but the federal election is set for Oct. 19. Kinder Morgan was set to present its plan to replace Kelly’s evidence on Friday, as per the NEB’s direction, so the hearings could be back on track soon.
Kelly’s appointment starts on Oct. 13, and he will not sit on the three-person panel reviewing the Kinder Morgan file, nor will the panel consult with Kelly when deliberating their final recommendation to cabinet, which is due Jan. 26, 2016.
The NOW briefly spoke with David Hamilton, one of the three panel members. The decision to halt the hearing and remove Kelly’s evidence came from the panel, not the larger board, Hamilton confirmed. The order was issued in a letter dated Aug. 21.
“It was the panel absolutely,” Hamilton said. “The letter speaks for itself, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to make any comment on it than what was in the letter decision.”
When asked how much the NEB knew about Kelly’s appointment, Hamilton referred the NOW to Watson, chair of the board, but Watson is refusing to do interviews on the matter, according to Tara O’Donovan, an NEB communications staffer.
“I’m clarifying for you what we already said: we will not answer any other questions regarding the appointment process. That’s Privy Council’s jurisdiction to speak to, not ours, and our panel has already issued a statement regarding the hearing process. Our letter and our news release is our statement on that issue,” O’Donovan said.
But the letter and news release leave many unanswered questions: Did Watson raise the conflict-of-interest issue when Kelley’s appointment was being discussed? If not, why?
The NOW also contacted the Office of the Privy Council, which did not respond by deadline.
