EUB still flawed: opponents

EUB still flawed: opponents by Paul Cowley, October 2, 2007, Red Deer Advocate
No one in a position of authority has been taken to task for the use of a private security firm to covertly monitor public hearings in Rimbey, he said And landowner rights, already trod upon in the last round of hearings, are further threatened by the new legislation. Anglin said if the Alberta government is serious about starting the power line approval process with a clean slate, it must rewrite the legislation to ensure landowners’ rights are protected. Anglin said the EUB had little choice but to trash the three years spent on the application to build a 320-km power line from Genesee substation near Edmonton to Langdon near Calgary.

Landowners and the EUB were due in Court of Queen’s Bench today to deal with an appeal to quash the hearings because of the perception of bias. “They knew what was going to happen once it went into court and they didn’t want to go there.” The EUB and landowners are also scheduled to go to the Alberta Court of Appeal in November for hearing on a motion to quash the entire approval process.

Gayle Troitsky, who farms just west of Rimbey with her husband Greg, also has a lot of questions about the proposed legislation. “I’m glad that the hearings have been stopped and going to be taken back to step one.  “I’m also very concerned about Bill 46.” While the legislation is not all bad, landowners’ rights must be respected. “And it does not.”

Matt Huston said the legislation will give the EUB too much power. “What it will effectively do is these guys can ramrod anything through, power lines, pipelines, and landowners have no say,” said Huston, who farms about 10 km north of Delburne. “It reduces landowners to renters.”

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