But what if the government of the day tries its utmost to ensure we don’t find out about the decisions it is making?
The announcement by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver Tuesday on the streamlining of regulations for “responsible resource development” was disappointing confirmation that the Conservatives believe open government is an oxymoron – that you can have one or the other.
The bulk of the announcement concerned sensible reforms to streamline the environmental review process for resource projects, with the province being handed sole responsibility for smaller developments.
But buried deep within the background document on the Natural Resources website was one sentence outlining the controversial proposal to hand the federal Cabinet the authority to overrule the National Energy Board on projects like Northern Gateway. It wasn’t mentioned in the press release, the speech or the presentation deck at the lengthy press conference held by Mr. Oliver at a plant of a company involved in oil and gas pipeline construction in Toronto.
The announcement was made away from Ottawa, where most of the reporters who cover environmental issues are based.
There was a technical briefing for reporters on-site but it was not accessible by conference call. Journalists had access to the press conference by phone but Mr. Oliver gave no hint of a move that he must have known would be of intense interest to many Canadians. I called Mr. Oliver’s new communications director, Patricia Best, to see if I could talk to some of the technical experts at the announcement but my call was not returned. I heard from colleagues Wednesday that a technical conference call was assembled hastily later Tuesday but I wasn’t sent the email, which had the link to all the background documents.
You don’t need to be paranoid, or even an opponent of the government’s decision, to conclude there is something rotten at play here. This was a major shift in public policy and Canadians deserve to be told when that happens.
The unfortunate truth is, though, we are not governed as well as we deserve – mainly because lapses in transparency by the government are seen by too many Canadians as endemic to politics and nothing to do with their every-day lives.
The Harper government is pushing its luck. Last year, the Speaker of the House ruled a minister may have misled a Commons committee and said there was a case against the government for breach of privilege for refusing to hand over cost estimates of its crime bill. Earlier this month, the Auditor-General said the government did not provide complete cost information to MPs on the F-35 fighter jet.
The Tories have treated Canadians like fools – and we have obliged them by not kicking up an undue fuss. They justify their actions by saying the people who do protest won’t vote for them anyway. But no-one likes being played for a sucker – as the Liberals found out after the sponsorship scandal. The seeds of future discontent are being sown by this institutional duplicity.
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The Minister was more forthcoming in an interview Wednesday, when he defended the communications strategy over Cabinet’s new authority over the National Energy Board. “It wasn’t highlighted but it was not hidden,” he said.
Mr. Oliver said ultimate decision-making should reside with elected officials, “not appointed bureaucrats.” The NEB still has sole discretion for setting conditions, which cannot be changed by the government (even if Cabinet can ask the board to revisit those recommendations).
The new rules were not created solely in response to Northern Gateway, the Minister said, pointing out that there are other projects like the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s trans-mountain pipeline that will likely be covered too. “This is all done in relation to our major strategic objective of diversifying our foreign markets,” he said.
One obstacle faced by all pipeline projects is public opinion in provinces like British Columbia, which remains resolutely opposed to Northern Gateway. Mr. Oliver said he has been trying to demonstrate that all parts of the country will benefit from responsible development. He refused to comment on the prospect of Ottawa sharing future resource royalties with B.C. and dismissed the idea of the province charging tolls on bitumen as it is transferred for shipment. “We don’t want tariffs between provinces,” he said.
The key is winning support for pipeline development from people who already support market diversification. “There’s an internal inconsistency there,” he said.
It all sounds quite reasonable. You have to wonder why he didn’t say that in the first place.
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: John Ivison
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