Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Good morning, honourable members. Mesdames et messieurs les députés, bonjour. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss oil and gas pipelines in Canada. The National Energy Board, known as the NEB, looks after more than 70,000 kilometres o

Natural Resources committee  The only influence that NEB is itself subject to is the influence of the records it gathers by listening to Canadians in an open and transparent way. We are a quasi-judicial board. We do not report to a minister. We report through the Minister of Natural Resources for the purpose

Natural Resources committee  The influence of public statements and opinion polls doesn't apply to us as a quasi-judicial board, because it is our duty to listen to Canadians through the processes we have, which, with few exceptions, are essentially transparent and accessible to all. I must say that on the

Natural Resources committee  I don't have opinions on how my statute could be improved, because--

Natural Resources committee  I'll give you the first one. It's actually happening already. I find that when we look at environmental impact assessments, sometimes there is too much time spent on process. I'd rather have our environmental specialists look at content. For instance, under the Canadian Environ

Natural Resources committee  That's number one. The other improvement I've seen us administer, and we're still learning along the way, is that we now have a participant funding program. We're one of the few institutions in Canada without a program--

Natural Resources committee  Yes, exactly. In our case, we call it participant funding. Our act did not allow for that. Parliament fixed that a few years ago. Now we're learning the hard way to make it efficient and are going to the right people for the right amount of time. We're applying ourselves to that.

Natural Resources committee  We're drawing from best and not so best practices. That's right. We are learning from both sides. You're looking for number three. I'd say that it is safety, pipeline safety in particular. In my opening remarks I talked about the focus on management systems. Our recent study o

Natural Resources committee  The existence of the content of a policy, you'll remember, is something over which we cannot have an opinion. Our job is to administer policy through the legislation. If there were a change in energy policy or strategy in Canada, it would become one more of these things that ar

Natural Resources committee  Normally it's a good case study to speak briefly about. I'd like to correct a fact. The application by Enbridge called “Line 9 Reversal, Phase I Project” was August 8, 2011.

Natural Resources committee  It was still a good case study. It would have shown how long things can take. What happened, honourable member, is that even before we started a process to deal with the application, we received literally 100-plus letters of comment on what we should do about our process. So we

Natural Resources committee  You're right, because the legal standard is natural justice—be fair to all—but at the same time, not have justice delayed become justice denied. As your colleague said, it's a tough job, like yours, and we try to optimize for Canadians the various components of our decisions.

Natural Resources committee  Honourable member, that's an excellent point. If the application were only about reversing the flow, we'd have to find a way to have questions about it, but the fact is that Enbridge applied under section 58 of the National Energy Board Act because there are some facilities bei

Natural Resources committee  That's right. There are some valves and fittings, and they are all within company property lines. There's no new right of way, but the farmers and the landowners have expressed concern to us about this thing that they call “reversal”, which also has some hardware to be proposed.

Natural Resources committee  What I can do is go through the process that would happen if it ever occurred. It has not happened in recent memory. I cannot cite an example for you of when it happened. Typically landowners, if they have participated in the certificate phase when it is a general route, will h