Quote:
Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
Why would you jump to the conclusion that they would in any way be unconstitutional?
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Because the constitution delegates legislative authority over interprovincial pipelines exclusively to the Federal government. It doesn't matter what the conditions are, only the Feds are allowed to create a system that regulates (i.e. imposes conditions on) projects that cross a provincial or national border.
The policy goal underlying this was to ensure that individual provinces couldn't try to veto or extract undue benefit from projects that are determined to be in the national interest simply because a portion of the project is being built in that province. This applies equally to Coderre's ramblings about Energy East.
EDIT: I should probably note that I'm not saying it's impossible to argue that additional conditions are constitutional. There's probably a view that these conditions supplement the NEB process rather than frustrating it. However, it seems to me that the NEB process is supposed to be an exhaustive regime for reviewing and approving these projects, as they take into account considerations of environmental impact within the province. Adding more conditions would be akin to B.C. passing a "British Columbia criminal code", and arguing that "these criminal laws don't conflict with the Federal Criminal Code, and you can comply with both at the same time, so this is all perfectly constitutional".