The B.C. Utilities Commission on Wednesday appointed a four-member panel to conduct the cabinet-ordered review of Site C, under guidelines for public participation that reflected the tight time frame and narrow scope of the exercise.
For starters, the commission won’t be extending formal recognition to expert witnesses, persons with a particular stake in the project and other interveners, as happens with longer-term project reviews.
Given the six- to 12-week schedule set down in the terms of reference from the new NDP cabinet, “there is not sufficient time to qualify interveners and to group parties with similar interests,” says the statement posted on the commission’s website.
Instead interested parties are invited to submit data, analysis and other relevant material directly to the commission — and to do so by Aug. 30, three weeks hence.
Those submissions will be incorporated into a preliminary report due out Sept. 20. Then comes three weeks of public consultations — open houses and written submissions but no hearings — on the initial findings, before a final report goes to cabinet Nov. 1.
Vaughn Palmer – Vancouver Sun – August 10, 2017
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