Login / RegisterNDP pledges to launch B.C. review of Northern Gateway pipeline
A B.C. New Democrat government would launch a provincial environmental review of the $6-billion Northern Gateway project, party leader Adrian Dix announced today (August 22).
If the NDP wins the May 2013 election, the province would withdraw from an agreement that ensures there is only a federal environmental review of the oil-pipeline proposal, Dix said.
A clause in the environmental assessment equivalency agreement, signed in June 2010, allows both the federal and provincial governments to back out of the deal with 30 days of notice.
“Because of the equivalency agreement, the decision on this project would be made by the federal cabinet and British Columbia has to reassert its authority on these questions,” Dix told reporters during a news conference.
“I think the reality is that people in B.C. have a strongly held and different view than their federal government on this question and I think that view has to be heard.”
The NDP has expressed opposition to the Enbridge proposal, which would see a twin-pipeline system built between northern Alberta and the B.C. coast. Dix said the pipeline is not in the environmental or economic interests of B.C.
