ABSTRACT
Following consultation with First Nations and public stakeholders, if concerns are still submitted about a particular oil sands project proposal then the energy regulator holds a public hearing. This allows the agency to make a decision on whether construction of a project is in the ‘public interest’. This chapter contains an analysis of the twelve public hearings that have occurred on large-scale projects since 1997. Presented according to the three periods in which Panel decisions on expansion were clustered, 1997–1999, 2004–2007, and 2011–2013, this chapter demonstrates that the process of determining the ‘public interest’ is founded on a particular pattern of reasoning. Through recourse to a future point in time, where anticipated techno-scientific advances are expected to mitigate the risks raised by First Nations in the present, the Panels repeatedly grant approvals despite lacking data on the possible impacts which could arise, or the effectiveness of possible mitigation measures. This is visible throughout each of the three sections analysed: water quantity, water quality, and the more general area of cumulative effects management. It demonstrates that the same techno-scientific risk-based approach to approving projects under the rubric of the ‘public interest’ has been utilised time and time again, over almost two decades and without deviation.
