The new head of the National Energy Board wants to do things differently

It's been just two months since Peter Watson became chair of the National Energy Board, but already the board has halted a project to pipe diluted bitumen across Ontario and Quebec. He says the board had concerns about the safety of the pipe as it crossed waterways, so it gave Enbridge a list of conditions to meet before it could turn on the spigot. But the NEB was not satisfied by the response: "We ended up concluding that Enbridge hadn't yet submitted sufficient information, and we needed them to do some additional work, and that work has to be completed before we'll consider an application to open the line."

So what does that decision say about Peter Watson? He told Jim that safety is one of his biggest priorities in his new job.

One of the priorities that I have as the chair of the NEB is to ensure that safety continues to be top of mind for companies and for the industry, and that the NEB is doing everything we can to continuously improve our approach to overall safety and operating performance of the sector.Peter Watson

He says no one should be surprised when the board halts a project, because it's just doing its job. "We're just going through what's a standard process from our perspective, ensuring that all the requirements have been filed, and they actually meet our technical standards and our guidelines and we have everything we need to assure ourselves that the project can be put into operation safely."

But safety isn't his only priority. Watson also wants to strengthen relationships with all Canadians-- not just the ones who might be involved in hearings.

I think we're often only seen in some of our application review processes, and I think we need to do more to get out from behind the hearing dais and panels and get out into communities and help them understand what we do on a day-in, day-out basis to ensure that the infrastructure is safe in the communities.Peter Watson

The challenge, of course, is that no community thinks the same way. Jim asked him how the NEB can make decisions that account for the public interest, as well as public opinion. Watson admits it's hard to balance economic, environmental, and social interests.

We have the difficult task of understanding all of the interests that are at play and the information in front of us, but then having to come to a decision, and balance and weigh those things. So we take that responsibility very seriously, but it is in the face of a wide range of views on these things and that's the difficult part of the job. Our job is to go in there and to assess that and come to a conclusion at the end of the day.Peter Watson

And Watson tells Jim both he and the board are independent and strive hard to demonstrate that with their decisions and recommendations.