Canada PM laments "foreign money" at oil hearings

06 Jan 2012 23:03 Source: Reuters // Reuters * Doesn't want hearings "hijacked" by foreign money * Will take "close look" avoiding delays in decisions * Hearings into Northern Gateway begin next week (Adds reaction from environmental group) By Jeffrey Jones CALGARY, Alberta, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will look at ways to curb the ability of foreign-based groups to slow regulatory decisions for energy projects after thousands of people signed up to participate in hearings for Enbridge Inc's Northern Gateway pipeline. Public hearings into the contentious C$5.5 billion ($5.4 billion) oil sands line to the West Coast start next week, and supporters have complained that opposition groups funded from outside Canada should be barred from the process, saying they only want to disrupt and clog up the proceedings. Harper, an enthusiastic promoter of new markets in Asia for the country's vast oil sands crude, told reporters in Edmonton that he wants to make sure that the regulatory process protects the environment and community interests. "We have to have processes in Canada that come to a decision in a reasonable amount of time, and processes that cannot be hijacked," he said. "In particular, growing concern has been expressed to me about the use of foreign money to really overload the public consultation phase of regulatory hearings just for the purposes of slowing down the process." That is bad for the economy and the government will take a "close look" at ways to make sure decisions on such developments are made in reasonable time, Harper said. Last month, regulators hearing the Northern Gateway application extended their review by about a year to the end of 2013, partly to accommodate the more than 4,000 people who have registered to participate. Some represent environmental groups with links outside Canada, but many are with companies that have interests in the oil sands, including foreign-based ones, or with aboriginal communities in British Columbia and Alberta. Others are private citizens who want to join the discussions. This week, the pro-oil sands advocacy group EthicalOil.org launched a campaign urging Canadians to write to the country's natural resources minister to tell him to "ban foreigners and their local puppets" from the hearings. It singled out such non-governmental organizations as Environmental Defence Canada, EcoJustice and the Pembina Foundation as tentacles of "foreign billionaires" bent on sabotaging the hearings. Foreign funding makes up about 10 percent of the total for the Pembina Foundation, said Ed Whittingham, executive director of the affiliated Pembina Institute, the Alberta-based environmental think tank. However, environmental issues surrounding the oil sands, such as reducing carbon emissions and limiting damage to land and waterways, are international in nature, Whittingham said. "To put on strict geographic boundaries and say it's just Canada's problem and only Canadians should work on it seems antithetical to the open and global society Canada has tried to build for itself," he said. Ottawa and the oil industry see opening up new markets for growing volumes of tar sands-derived crude as key to building up the economy, especially after the U.S. government delayed a decision on approving TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline that would transport Canadian oil to Texas. The Canadian government has lobbied intensively in Washington in support of that project. Northern Gateway would move 525,000 barrels a day of Alberta crude to the Port of Kitimat, British Columbia, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped across the Pacific. Several aboriginal communities have voiced strong opposition, saying they do not want the pipeline to cross their lands or bring increased tanker traffic to coastal waters. Harper said the federal government does not take a position on Northern Gateway, but believes Canada must broaden the markets for its oil and gas. "I think it is particularly essential for this country that, over time, we have the capacity to sell our energy products into the growing markets of Asia," he said. "In terms of the hearings that are taking place, we're watching this with great interest." ($1=$1.02 Canadian) (Additional reporting by Randall Palmer; editing by Rob Wilson)