Gateway pipeline community hearings get underway

The first round of community hearings for the Northern Gateway Pipeline are taking place in Edmonton for six days beginning Jan. 24. Most of the interveners giving evidence in the first round, which ends in March, will be First Nations and Métis organizations. A second round, lasting until July, will hear from a wide variety of people. Interveners will have a chance to cross-examine Enbridge officials in formal hearings in September and October. A final report is not expected to be sent to the federal government for a decision until early in 2013. Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline is a $5.5-billion project that would carry bitumen from Edmonton to Kitimat, B.C.