Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from the status of women committee.
In budget 2012, in an omnibus budget bill, the Conservatives deeply undermined and weakened the role of the National Energy Board, which was done with the hope that it might facilitate pipeline approvals. In fact, I was able to participate from my home on Gabriola Island, where we were concerned about pipeline impacts.
In the northern gateway review, people came to a hearing. They could give their testimony. They could hear each other. However, when it came to the Kinder Morgan review process, which was after the National Energy Board review had been significantly altered by the Harper amendments, there was no cross-examination of evidence. Anybody who had advice for the National Energy Board could only file it in written form. It was called a public hearing, but there was actually no hearing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tried to intervene but was barred as an intervenor. The National Energy Board ruled that the late-breaking evidence that bitumen sinks in a marine environment be barred from the hearing, from the process, based on its being prejudicial to Kinder Morgan. Of course, now we have all these court cases charging that the process was inadequate.
I would like to know my colleague's view, looking back on it, about whether the Conservative amendments to the National Energy Board process, effectively gutting it, might have contributed to these delays.