Federation of Canadian Municipalities Board passes resolution calling for restoration of a full public hearing process to the National Energy Board’s consideration of all applications

March 11, 2015

At their Burnaby board meeting last week, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities passed a resolution, calling for the reinstitution of a full public hearing process to the National Energy Board’s consideration of all applications, including the Kinder Morgan application that proposes to build and operate a $5.4 billion pipeline project that would almost triple oil capacity (from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day) in pipelines running to Burnaby from the Alberta oilsands, and bring approximately six times as many tankers per year into Burrard Inlet (up from about 60 to 400), shipping heavy crude oil (bitumen) for export from the Westridge Marine Terminal (where three new loading docks and a utility dock would be constructed).

“I am so pleased,” says Mayor Derek Corrigan, “that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities passed this important resolution. It demonstrates that cities across the country share the tremendous concern that has been expressed in Burnaby and British Columbia about negative implications of the National Energy Board’s arbitrary removal of a fair hearing process, from major industrial project reviews. In September, Union of BC Municipalities delegates passed this same resolution, demonstrating broad concern among cities throughout the province. This FCM resolution demonstrates that concerns about this deeply flawed hearing process are shared nationally and must be addressed by the National Energy Board.”

Following is the resolution that was passed by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and is now FCM official policy: