Northern Gateway’s biggest risk to Canada is not approving pipeline: Enbridge – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – June 18, 2013)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

TERRACE, B.C. – One of the most consequential choices facing Canada today is coming to a head in a modest hotel banquet room just off the CN railway tracks, where a few dozen people have assembled for a final shot at influencing a decision on whether the proposed Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline should reshape the country’s economic future or be cast aside for the angst it has provoked.

After 10 years of planning, recrimination and debate, proponent Enbridge Inc., First Nations leaders, union and provincial government interests, environmental organizations, are putting forward final oral arguments before a joint panel of the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

In contrast to the pomp and ceremony that ushered the hearings’ beginnings in nearby Kitimat 18 months ago, the first day of the final hearings Monday was all business after an exhaustive process that drew in all those affected around the right of way, pitted Albertans against British Columbians and has cost Enbridge alone so far nearly half a billion dollars.

In its final words to the panel, Enbridge said the proposed oil sands pipeline from Edmonton to the northern B.C. Coast is making enormous and costly commitments to avoid accidents and that the biggest risk to the country would be to not approve it.

Enbridge lawyer Richard Neufeld said Canada is vulnerable to its only market for oil, the United States, deciding it no longer wants Canadian oil.

“You want to see an economic Black Swan for Canada?” Mr. Neufeld said in addressing fears the pipeline exposes the country to an unpredictable event of massive proportions.

“How about a decision from the U.S. that it will no longer need Canadian oil? … The $30-billion in export price discounting … would be a drop in the bucket. Canadians would be facing, we suggest, an economic catastrophe of unprecedented proportion.”

Mr. Neufeld dismissed the most common criticism of the project — that Enbridge hasn’t provided enough information about its risks and the benefits for regulators to approve it.

“Given the volume of information that comprises the hearing record, it’s an argument that appears quite hollow to use,” he said.

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