Another Fox Guarding The Hen House

It is hardly news to suggest that the National Energy Board (NEB) is rife with bias favouring the energy sector. Half of its members are professionals from the gas and oil industries, and all but one was appointed by the Harper regime. But now it seems the government is not even trying to pretend that the Board exists for anything but the good of the energy industry.

Mychaylo Prystupa reports the following:

On Tuesday, Conservative Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford appointed Calgary engineering PhD Murray Lytle. "Dr. Lytle brings many years of experience in the oil, gas and mining fields and will prove to be a valuable asset for the National Energy Board as it continues to fulfill its mandate to ensure the safety and security of Canadians and the environment,” said Rickford in a statement.

This appointment is especially egregious given Lytle's background, not just as a consultant and executive to the mining industry and former employee of Imperial Oil, but also as a Conservative Party volunteer:

The Chuck Colson Centre for Christian Worldview website says this about his past: "Mr. Lytle has been heavily involved in national politics (Canada) and is happy to have lived to see the fruition of that labour, and his small part in it, with the election of the ruling Conservative Party,” .

An apparent admirer of theocracy, Lytle has this to say about God's special relationship with the United States:

From his perspective as a Canadian, Mr. Lytle thinks that the American experiment is alive and well - if somewhat fatigued from constant sparring. His understanding of history leads him to believe that God continues to extend His blessing to those who value and offer freedom to other bearers of His image. And no other culture offers that freedom in the abundance of the Americans and for this cause the United States is unquestionably the most creative society in the history of mankind.

Such NEB appointments, to say the least, invite widespread cynicism:

Liberal Environment Critic MP John McKay said public confidence in the NEB has sunk so low that its chair, Peter Watson, just completed a 34-stop “national engagement” tour in an attempt to reverse that sentiment.

“I think he’s doing a national tour known as the ‘No, I’m not a lackey tour,’" said McKay.

"It’s extraordinary that the head of the board feels he has to go from one end of the country to the other... because clearly the NEB has lost credibility of the eyes of the public,” McKay said on Thursday.

“This appointment [of Lytle] just fuels the suspicion, even when they comply with the regulations, that they are beholden politically to Mr. Harper,” he added.

And here is Elizabeth May's take:

Green Party leader Elizabeth May said Harper’s spring 2012 omnibus budget bill fundamentally altered the environmental assessments of pipelines into an “absolute sham of a review process.”

The reforms removed the responsibility to do environmental reviews of oil pipelines from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), and put it in the hands of the NEB, which “doesn’t have the credentials” to do the job said May.

She said the legal reforms also nullified the Species at Risk Act, the Navigable Waters Act and the Fisheries Act from the board's decisions on pipelines.

"So the pipeline ruling trumps all those laws. The NEB is now basically a pipeline approval agency."

But perhaps the Harper regime is once again counting on something that has served them so well for so long: Canadians' apathy and ignorance. I guess this October's election will show if that faith continues to be well-placed.