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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

NDP vows new review of pipeline

By: Vivian Luk

Posted: 08/23/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

VANCOUVER -- B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix has said if he is elected premier next May, his government will withdraw from the current environmental assessment of the Northern Gateway project and set up a "made in B.C." review instead.

That independent review will allow B.C. to "reassert its authority" over the assessment of the controversial Enbridge (TSX: ENB) pipeline, power that Dix says the provincial Liberal government has turned over to the federal cabinet.

"If we do nothing, then the decision of the B.C. government will be made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper," he told reporters Wednesday.

"I don't think that's acceptable to British Columbians. I think the people of B.C. want to have a voice in that process and we intend to provide that."

The panel reviewing the project jointly represents the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Authority. The panel has been holding hearings across Alberta and British Columbia since January and is expected to wrap up hearings next April, with a report due by the end of next year.

One month later, British Columbians will go to the polls in a provincial election.

More than 4,000 people and groups have asked to make oral submissions at the panel review.

The NDP could not say how much a separate review process would cost. Dix acknowledged there would be cost to taxpayers, but he said there is a lot more at stake financially and environmentally for the province.

Dix also acknowledged the federal government ultimately has primary jurisdiction over the fate of the 1,170-kilometre pipeline that would transport oil sands bitumen from Alberta to Kitimat for shipping by tanker to Asian markets.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 23, 2012 B7

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