Enbridge

The Enbridge Gateway Project Assignment

The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project is a proposed project by Enbridge Inc. to construct two parallel pipelines that will carry oilsands bitumen from Northern Alberta to Kitimat, BC. Once the bitumen reaches Kitimat it will then be transferred to marine vessels that will travel through the Douglas Channel in order to reach Asia and the Western United States. The pipelines will also transport natural gas condensate from Kitimat back to Alberta. The major stakeholders in this project are Enbridge and its investors and employees, the Alberta and BC governments, environmentalists, the communities that lie along the proposed route, and the First Nations people who live in the affected communities.

The primary issues that drive the controversy over this project are the economic benefits of the pipelines versus the harmful effects on the sensitive environment that the pipelines will pass through. Supporters promote the economic benefit of the pipelines such as job creation, tax credits, trade, and Canadian business development (Pulla 2012). Those that are opposed are concerned with the negative environmental impact, the rights of the First Nations communities, and the risks to fisheries and wildlife.

In the media it has become a provincial debate between Alberta and BC, with Alberta in support and BC against. Alberta, led by Premier Alison Redford, supports the project because of the huge economic gain to the province if the project gets approved. The BC premier, Christy Clark, initially did not choose a side but eventually took a position against the pipelines. She outlined five requirements her party deemed necessary to be met before BC would consider agreeing to the project. Three of the five requirements are environmental, one involves Aboriginal rights, and the fifth is economic. According to Christy Clark, BC wants its fair share of the economic benefit of the project (Visconti 2012). Although this...