Being a lawyer, I'm thinking of levels of a court. For example, at one level you have a judge, and as the matter becomes more serious you have three judges. Then you have five to nine judges reviewing it, because more people can provide you with additional analysis and perspective on difficult-to-make decisions.
On these larger projects like pipelines, where the NEB is looking at them, we have derived a great benefit from having more than one mind making decisions. If we have one mind making a decision about who is directly affected, and making an entire recommendation on a project that could affect multiple provinces, hundreds of first nations, and thousands of waterways, that's a lot of responsibility to put on one person. Ultimately we're putting it on the minister anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter.
But we are definitely in favour of having a three-person panel, and including first nations representation on every panel.