National Energy Board announces new panel members to review Energy East pipeline

The National Energy Board (NEB) of Canada has announced its new three-member panel to review the Energy East pipeline, the largest of its kind ever proposed in Canada.

Don Ferguson, a former senior civil servant in New Brunswick, will head the new three-member panel that will be tasked with assessing Trans Canada Corp.’s proposed Energy East pipeline. The other panelists include Carole Malo and Marc Paquin. Malo is a Toronto-based consultant specializing in infrastructure and energy projects, while Paquin has had a career in environmental and sustainable development law Ferguson, Malo and Paquin were all initially appointed to the NEB in December by Natural Resources Canada.

You can read the NEB media release and find more background on panel members here.

The project’s 2016 hearings were suspended late last August, after complaints were filed against two NEB board members – Jacques Gauthier and Lyne Mercier– who met privately with former Quebec premier Jean Charest while he was being paid as a consultant to TransCanada Corp. The review panel recused itself shortly afterwards, prompting demands that the review process be restarted.

“We support a restart of the process,” said Fundy Baykeeper Matt Abbott, during an interview with CBC last fall. Abbott said he’s particularly concerned at what he sees as a downplaying of the impact the project could have on the marine environment. “Certainly there’s issues with the scope of the process and depth of analysis into the impacts on marine environments like the Bay of Fundy.”

TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline route through N.B.

For more information on how the proposed Energy East pipeline would affect the Bay of Fundy, read the National Resource Defense Council’s report on tanker traffic in the Bay of Fundy: Sensitive Marine Ecosystems Threatened by Energy East’s ‘Aquatic Pipeline.’

For a full list of New Brunswick waterways at risk from Energy East, check out our interactive map.

For more information on the risks of Energy East to the communities of the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine, read the Conservation Council’s report: Tanker Traffic and Tar Balls: What TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline Means for the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine.

For more on the Energy East pipeline, check out:

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