"Just wait until your father gets home!"
Many children, current and past, have heard that frightening threat from their mother at one time or another. The message is clear to kids. Mom has lots of authority but Dad gets the tough stuff.
In the case of the joint review panel's findings on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, Mom has listened to the kids and has said what she thinks should happen. But the real decision will get made by Dad, which in this case is Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet.
There will be plenty of discussion in the coming days about the findings and who won and who lost and what happens next. There is one clear fact, however, which must not be ignored. There is nothing binding about the recommendations. In other words, the federal government can accept all, part or absolutely nothing put forward by the panel.
And that's the way it should be.
An appointed trio of unelected individuals hired staff, held public hearings, collected evidence, interviewed experts and has now made a series of recommendations to government. Since they are not responsible to voters, the joint review panel examined the viability of the pipeline strictly as an intellectual exercise in which there would be no repercussions for wrong answers (or rewards for right ones).
Put another way, they had no skin in the game.
There's no doubt the panel took its job seriously and made the best suggestions it could but it has no authority.
Both the provincial and federal governments have taken great latitude with the findings made from similar assessments in the past regarding major resource development proposals. In some cases, governments have dismissed the recommendations and made the opposite decision, either allowing a development to go ahead when a panel rejected the proposal or dismissing the endorsement of a panel and refusing to issue a permit for the project to proceed. In the case of the first review of Taseko's New Prosperity mine near Williams Lake, the provincial government gave the go-ahead but the federal government said no.
Ultimately, science and engineering only counts for so much and the decision become political.
The recommendations of experts are important but decisions as important as the approval or rejection of large-scale projects with national and international implications must fall to the men and women chosen by voters to lead. Whether we voted for them or not, whether we trust them to do the right thing or not, whether we agree with them or not, these are the people we have empowered to make decisions like this one.
The aftermath of the findings from the second review of New Prosperity show that January will bring legal challenges against the Northern Gateway recommendations, arguing that the panel ignored crucial evidence, misinterpreted minor evidence or both. Those protests will be based on the mistaken impression that the government is bound by the recommendations, when it clearly isn't.
This is small fry, anyway.
The much bigger question ahead for the courts will be over the jurisdiction of First Nations over their traditional territories. The Harper government has made no secret of its support for Northern Gateway, even while the joint review panel was doing its work, so the lawyers and the courts will be busy on this file in the months - and years- ahead.
Thursday's findings are simply the warmup act for what's to come, when the final fate of the Northern Gateway pipeline will be decided by the Conservative government. The only surprise ahead will be if the Harper cabinet rejects the project.
Get ready, kids. Dad's supposed to get home this coming spring.
