Government Gives OK, but Companies Must Actually Build Pipelines: Carr

All pipeline projects approved by Ottawa are 'good for Canada,' natural resources minister says

Two women hold signs protesting the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain and Dakota Access oil pipeline projects as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes his way through the crowds at the University of Regina on Jan. 26, 2017. The Canadian Press/Michael Bell

OTTAWA—Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr is defending the government’s ability to get major resource projects moving, saying the government has approved a number of proposals and it’s up to their proponents to get them built.

Carr made the comments at the end of a meeting of federal and provincial energy ministers in New Brunswick on Aug. 15, where TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline project was an unofficial topic of discussion.

It has been almost a year since the first round of National Energy Board hearings on Energy East collapsed after protesters shut down Montreal hearings and accused the panellists of bias in favour of the oil industry.

In January the board started the whole review process from scratch and appointed a new, three-member panel to conduct the hearings. New hearings haven’t yet been scheduled as the NEB is still designing how the new hearing process will work.

Energy East is a 4,500-km pipeline to carry 1.1 million barrels of oil a day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Montreal and New Brunswick. The project includes converting an existing natural gas pipeline to carry crude and building new segments of pipeline to complete the route.

Carr said the government has now provided certainty to the review process.

Battles over pipelines in Canada are largely at the provincial level.