The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
VANCOUVER — There’s a lot of talk in British Columbia these days about Enbridge Inc. and its challenges advancing its Northern Gateway pipeline project.
But Roger Harris offers something extra to the conversation. From 2008 to 2010, the one-term BC Liberal MLA for Skeena was working for Enbridge, mostly as a vice-president of aboriginal and community partnerships. He says he left, by mutual agreement, because he advocated a broader approach to engaging with communities and stakeholders than the company was interested in.
Now, the consultant to business, government and first nations says Gateway may be beyond saving – though he continues to believe in shipping Canadian energy to foreign markets.
Is it reaching the point where this project is going to be a non-starter? If Enbridge continues to do probably a number of things, [this project] has the potential to meet the legal threshold and, with the current federal changes to the environmental assessment, the political threshold that would allow someone to say, ‘You will get a permit to build this. It will have some conditions on it, but here it goes.’
But the ability to translate that permit into a project you can construct is another question altogether.
And you only have to see how first nations are talking today about the litigation and the levels of interference and activity they are going to bring to this project that if it does proceed, chances of actually building it are [not] going to be pretty significant to the point that most investors will probably just call it quits.
Having worked with Enbridge, you have a perspective that most of us don’t. Given that, what do you think when you look at current events vis-à-vis Northern Gateway?
[Gateway] has captured so much of the headlines and gives the impression B.C. is not open for business; specifically, it gives the impression that first nations are not open for business. I look at the Northwest and the whole northern corridor and the number of [liquid natural gas) plants that are being proposed. It isn’t that first nations are opposed to development or trying to attract investment to B.C., they’re just opposed to this project.
For the rest of this article, please go to the Globe and Mail website: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/former-mla-and-enbridge-vp-weighs-in-on-northern-gateway/article4466276/