BC’s two-faced approach to regulation – by Doug Firby (Troy Media – August 14, 2014)

http://www.troymedia.com/

Doug Firby is Editor-in-Chief and National Affairs columnist for Troy Media.

Doug FirbyCALGARY, AB, Aug. 14, 2014/ Troy Media/ – Several organizations have egg on their faces after the tailings pond disaster in central British Columbia. But no one has more than the government of British Columbia.

Yes, Imperial Metals Corp. looks like a bad corporate citizen for failing to anticipate and prevent the collapse of the dam. The mishap unleashed an estimated 10 million cubic meters of water and 4.5 million cubic meters of ground-up rock. The local folks are still waiting to hear when it will be safe to drink the water.

B.C., however, looks even worse and here’s why. As one recent poll found, citizens trust resource industries because they believe they are highly regulated. That is, they expect their governments to protect their interests. By that measure, the bureaucrats have betrayed that trust.

Accidents don’t happen when it comes to this sort of thing. Dams don’t just collapse without warning. They do when people aren’t paying close enough attention to them. Clearly, neither Imperial Metals nor the government of B.C. were paying close enough attention to this dam.

There’s more. It turns out Imperial may not have the cash on hand to pay the cost of the “cleanup”, estimated at $200 million. (Cleanup is in quotes because it is ironic; the damage can be reduced, but it will be decades at least before the long term effects are mitigated.) Nor does Imperial have sufficient insurance to cover the cost.

Who allowed this happen? You know who. The bureaucrats in Victoria who by accident or design failed to ensure the citizens of that province were protected from such industrial activity.

There’s a much richer and deeper irony to this story, however, and that is how the B.C. government imposes different standards on different industries. Just ask Enbridge.

The beleaguered Northern Gateway pipeline remains mired in a regulatory cat’s cradle that threatens its completion. The premier of the province has imposed her infamous “five conditions” for approval that are so far-reaching that you could easily construe them to be deliberately obstructionist.

The 209 conditions imposed by the National Energy Board are the most comprehensive ever required for any such project in Canada. Taken on their own merits, you could judge those conditions to be a good thing. If Northern Gateway did get built, it would be a world model for precautionary industrial development.

The question, however, is why the sauce is good for the goose but not for the gander. Why is an Alberta-based oil-and-gas company subjected to such intense scrutiny while a B.C.-based mining company gets a relatively light pass? The citizens of B.C. are entitled to a full explanation.

When our regulatory regime fails, there are two victims: the public, which must endure the environmental consequences (and often the costs), and industry, which ends up taking the blame. And yet industry is often driven primarily by the will of its shareholders; any mature government knows that.

Governments which live up to their responsibilities set fair and comprehensive regulations and then put the systems in place to ensure those rules are enforced. Stiff penalties are all well and good, but if someone isn’t out there checking on compliance, then the big stick is meaningless.

To be clear, companies have their own social responsibilities, but we shouldn’t be naive about who they exist to serve. They serve the people who own them.

Let us hope that there is a full exploration of the mistakes that led to this disaster. And that everyone learns from them. Accidents are always regrettable. Mishaps that result from negligence are unforgivable.

For the original site of this column, click here: http://www.troymedia.com/2014/08/14/bcs-two-faced-approach-to-regulation/