Those who suspect that Steve Harper has "fixed" the environmental assessment of the Northern Gateway pipeline initiative won't be surprised to learn the board reviewing the proposal has ruled the U.S. Transportation Safety Board report into the Enbridge pipeline fiasco on the Kalamazoo River in Michigan won't be admitted into evidence.
"...the board's report won't be viewed as reliable evidence and won't be considered in the panel's final ruling, a spokeswoman said Monday.
Annie Roy, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, said the board's reports can only be used as "an aid to cross-examination" during the oral questioning period.
"An aid to cross-examination is generally not considered evidence and cannot be relied on for the truth of its content," Roy said in an email.
"[The TSB Kalamazoo report] will not typically be included on the public registry and will not be considered by the panel when making its recommendations. The panel will however consider the answers provided to questions using the aid."
In other words, Enbridge gets to spin this any way it likes and that will be accepted by Harper's rigged jury.
6 comments:
Paul Simon must have had Stephen Harper in mind when he wrote in The Boxer:
"Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
This is just another provocation to fuel popular resistance to these pipelines among British Columbians. That the review board would pull something so blatant demonstrates their conclusions are pre-ordained and, hence, to British Columbians, corrupt.
Its another Harper Shuffle.. he's running the 'con' and Canadians are the 'marks'. Canadian resources, laws, truth and democracy are the prize. Where is the national media ? Or are the majority of journalists dazzled by the sleight of hand and constant bafflegarb spewed from cabinet ministers and even more dubiously, by their respective spokespersons, secretaries or insiders 'familiar with the facts but not authorized blah spew blah'. Do they fear ethical Ezra and his fellow drones will start hurling thunderbolts at them?
Joe Oliver can actually get away with saying on CBC the other day
"I personally have not said that this pipeline should go through". He's also a lawyer so I note he's phrased it all very carefully.. but I just about fell over in shock on reading that, then downloaded the audio and listened to him say it ! Stephen himself says he will let science be the arbiter yet obscures his legislated cancellation of the NEB powers and transfer of the sole decision power to himself and his loyal cabinet.
Oliver was questioned about whether the US Transportation Board Report should be included evidence in our NEB hearings and the initial shocked silence then hemming and hawing was eloquent. Oh he' s not going to go there.. a slippery slope said the suddenly alert minister, no doubt worried that Chinese tar sand ownership and contractual export agreements might be the next loaded question.
The Pacific Trail gas pipeline if I'm not mistaken was to start clearing, bulldozing and earthscaping right of way August 6th. That's following much of the projected path of Northern Gateway west to Kitimaat. Where is the national media on this? Yes there are some media and journalists doing fine honest work, but the heavy lifting, the deep digging, the dogged persistent objective and illuminating work is being done almost completely by independent bloggers.. charitable or environmental entities and First Nations that have withstood Harper, Oliver, Petroleum Corporations and the foul stench of cronyism, lobbyists, The Fraser 'Institute' and the sanctimonious Ethical Oil soapbox, who's dull witted membership seems to flit back and forth, in & out of The Prime Ministers Office.
Yes yes ... we're all waiting from sea to sea to melting sea with bated breath for Poutine to cry out, for Elections Canada to lower the boom, for CBC .. or The Supreme Court to suddenly tell us its all been just a bad dream, a nightmare.. and Stephen Harper didn't really take a majority, we're going to do the 2012 federal election all over again. It was some sort of 'glitch' dontcha know ! And so we don't have to worry about the staggering eventual catastrophic risks of diluted bitumen released in the boreal, the wetlands, mountain streams, the rain forest or the coastal waters.
We won't need to worry about F45's, the tar sands, carbon or deficits, Israel or Afghanistan.. or infected salmon or why Peter Kent needs to poison boreal wolves, or the Pension Plan, or G20 gazebos, or whether we will recognize Canada when Harper is through with it.. Hell, we'll just wake up and smile at the delicious thought of getting a second chance at a fair election and we'll have jobs prosperity, and good transparent and accountable government.
Thank goodness... whew and what a relief.. if it were just a nightmare.. Otherwise it would be up to The First Nations and those other few Canadians that realize what's going down here, to wake up the entire country, try to shake us out of our dream state while they're making their last stand.. and Canada's last stand in the forests, on the coast and in the courts .... All this while the rest of us sit and watch American reality TV, fantasy time on Sun TV.. shop at Walmart, worry about the weather and wonder if there will be hockey on tv.
My sentiments exactly.
The panel is now asking the Enbridge to provide them the report.
http://www.vancouversun.com/spill+report+demanded/7092400/story.html
So that is good. No word on how they are going to do that, since, according to our media, "rules" prevent Enbridge from do so.
The Victoria Times Colonist report is a little incomplete I think. I read somewhere in The Vancouver Sun a few days ago that Enbridge was saying that, even if they wanted to, they couldn't voluntarily give the commission the US report due to some "rules". But the article (typically of our media) did not explore whether this claim of Enbridge's was fully true. (Boring exploration truth claims get in the way of the Soap Opera plots the media wants to write). Did the panel change the rules, or are the Media and Enbridge bullshitting in their earlier stories?
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Study+will+ignore+spill+report/7086364/story.html
Enbridge spokesman Todd Nogier said rules prevent the company from submitting the NTSB findings.
"As we are not the authors of the NTSB report, we cannot file it for evidence into the Joint Review Panel pro-cess," he said in an email.
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