Reaction to NDP claims on pipeline review

A CBC News story about NDP claims that the government is trying to keep its natural resources critic from asking questions at the Northern Gateway pipeline review panel garnered more comments than any other story yesterday.

Many in the CBC Community agreed with the NDP's Nathan Cullen that the government is attempting to silence critics of the pipeline.

• "Nathan Cullen is the MP for my riding and as such I'm appalled that he is being denied the right to raise questions that are of prime concerns to the residents of the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Cullen is generally quite respectful of opposing views and in fact has taken conservative positions. Frankly his manner of respectful discourse is a value that made Canadian democracy great and different from the U.S. Republican-style debate and dirty tricks that Harper has imported from his mentors south of the border," said WillyRimbaud.
  
  
• "Sadly, if the government hadn't rammed through all these changes to our environmental laws under the 'guise' of the budget, opposition MPs wouldn't need to be wasting their time asking questions on these extremely important matters. In the good old days of our government, changes to laws would be debated openly for us citizens who provide feedback to their elected MPs. Unfortunately, those days are gone and it appears our democratic system has been infiltrated by a dictatorial style government," said Imagineallthepeople.
  
  
• "The review process is set up before they make changes in the budget, to the environmental assessment criteria. These criteria are supposedly guiding the review - but we are not allowed to ask questions about the new assessment criteria because it would undermine fairness? So when is the appropriate time to ask these questions? After a decision is made?" asked jsjsjs.
  
  
• "First Harper's government truncates the hearing's length, preventing adequate time for scientifically based assessments. Now Harper's government wants to ban perfectly reasonable questions about this proposed project. Harper's claim that decisions about the project would be based on solid science is yet another of his propagandistic ploys of pretending to do right by British Columbians, but really taking them for a ride to a predetermined outcome," said sealag.

But some commenters agreed with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, saying that Cullen has the right to ask questions at the review panel, but needs to follow the panel's rules.

• "To Nathan, this is a review panel, not a court room. Review panels do not cross-examine people who have just given an opinion. If you want to cross-examine officials from the different departments of the government, then do that at the committees meetings that are held every day in Ottawa when Parliament is in session," said CanGun61.
  
  
• "The panel's purpose is to review the pipeline. Cullen wants to review the legislation affecting the pipeline. Questions about legislation belong in the House of Commons not at a panel trying to determine if the pipeline conforms to that legislation. Either Cullen doesn't understand the difference or he is deliberately trying to interfere with the review," said FooeyNews.

Thanks, as always, for your feedback. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments below.