Five different speakers; five different perspectives on the pipeline
Guelph was reminded of its preoccupation with the Line 9 pipeline saga on Tuesday, Jan. 21 as five speakers – representing five decidedly unique perspectives – gathered at The Cornerstone to share their take on the contentious issue. The newly accredited club, called Multi-Disciplinary Roundtable (MDRT), hosted the forum and ensured that the venue was filled to capacity.
“Our goal was to get people of opposite views, as much as we could, under the same roof,” said Jeff Cheng, the ‘Chief of Ideas’ at MDRT.
The debate centred on Enbridge Pipeline’s 2012 application to the National Energy Board, where the company asked for approval to reverse the flow of Line 9B, an underground pipeline that runs from North Westover (outside of Hamilton) to Montreal. The reversal would allow Enbridge to transport bitumen from Northern Alberta eastward along the line at 20 per cent higher capacity before.
Kate Emond, a socio-economic specialist at the National Energy Board (NEB) spoke first via Skype from Calgary, and though she couldn’t comment on the “merits of the [Enbridge] application,” she did thoroughly review the ins-and-outs of the application process.
Kurt Annen, a Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph, was the next to speak. Annen began by taking a global economic perspective – noting that demand for Albertan oil was bound to increase – and proceeded to reframe the concern over potential spills.
“Having spills is not necessarily just a technological question,” said Annen. “What I strongly believe is that spills are, to a larger extent, an incentive problem.” And as pipelines are already a heavily regulated industry, he argued, it is not inconceivable that they should be regulated to the extent that spills become economically unviable.
Myeengun Henry, an Aboriginal Traditional Counsellor from Chippewa of the Thames, spoke next, principally about the line’s alleged threat to traditional lands. His presentation was lightest on theory and longest on rhetoric. He led the audience in a drum song, talked of the significance of the Wompum Belt, and spoke of past injustices. But in the end, Henry said, “It was not so much that [Enbridge] wanted to run this pipeline through; my argument was with their failure to live up to their responsibilities to consult First Nations people.”
Shai Burette, an organizer for the Guelph Anti-Pipeline Group, was next to speak. She argued that the 38-year-old pipeline was not fit to handle the increased capacity, that spills were already common, that the diluted bitumen was more corrosive than regular crude, and that Line 9 would be “complicit in tar sands expansion.” The fact that Enbridge and other research groups dispute these facts is par for the course.
Ben Bradshaw, Professor of Geography at the University of Guelph, was the last to speak.
“If you’re opposed to the tar sands, you know that the weak spot is on pipelines,” said Bradshaw, as he effectively summed up why everyone was there. And though he spoke against the line, he stressed that all parties must have “the foresight to think about where it is that concessions might make sense to try and build a less oppositional situation.”
MDRT billed the event foremost as a presentation and discussion night, but whatever opportunity there may have been for the speakers to respond to one another directly, or for the audience to participate in a discussion at the end, was regrettably cut short by overlong presentations.
The National Energy Board has until Mar. 19, 2014 to make its decision on whether to approve the reversal of Line 9.