Thousands overload comment system to demand that climate change, Indigenous rights and oil spill risk must be part of new pipeline review
Vancouver, BC – Facing a one week deadline to comment on the scope of the National Energy Board’s redo of the TransMountain pipeline review, more than 5000 people from all across Canada have faxed in messages demanding the NEB meaningfully include climate change, Indigenous rights and a complete marine risk assessment in their process. Due to the restrictions on how comments are submitted, many of these submissions could be ignored.
“The National Energy Board only gave people a week to weigh in on this, and they made a fax machine the easiest way to submit a comment,” said Atiya Jaffar, Canada Digital Campaigner with 350.org. “Now we’re hearing that the Board doesn’t have the capacity to accept all these faxes in time, potentially leaving hundreds, even thousands of voices, out of this process. This is unacceptable.”
The NEB was given 22 weeks to redo the TransMountain review after a Federal Court of Appeals decision quashed Justin Trudeau’s 2016 pipeline approval.
“It’s not just the NEB’s choice of technology that’s stuck in a different century. It’s appalling that in 2018, they are conducting a major pipeline review that ignores climate change, communities, Indigenous rights and marine risks,” Jaffar added. “The NEB is already one of the most distrusted institutions in Canada, and if they ignore the thousands of people weighing in on this review, they will confirm widespread assumptions that this process is a sham.”
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Contact: Cameron Fenton, [email protected], 604-369-2155