By Roy L Hales

According to the City of Burnaby’s lawyer, Greg McDade,  there will not be a real hearing on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline project.  Despite the many public statements by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Premier Christy Clark and Kinder Morgan, people opposing  the project will not get an opportunity to properly present their case or to cross examine Kinder Morgan. They will submit written statements to the National Energy Board, with no assurance the panel will even read them.

McDade says that Burnaby has preparing for a public hearing since December, when Kinder Morgan filed it 55,000 page application.

“We had intended, in these hearings, to put on on quite a significant evidentiary  basis in front of the national Energy Board, because we think that is what it will take to have this project go elsewhere,” McDade said,

Burnaby will not be given that opportunity. Kinder Morgan will be allowed to challenge the evidence given against it by questioning, but this opportunity will not be given to the public.  The intervenors will not be allowed to speak until the end of the “hearings” when they can give a rebuttal.

“What we have here is a mere paperwork exercise,” McDade said. “It is not a hearing and it is not public.”

Nor is it independent, as all three members of the panel are from the gas and oil industry.