[CaptainCrunch]

Its the Western Standard so take it for what it is, its pretty slanted, but from the first day of the appeals hearing


https://www.westernstandardonline.co...ss-tmx-appeal/

On Monday, the judicial panel, consisting of three, male, septuagenarians headed by Chief Justice Marc Noel (a Harper government appointee), listened to lawyers from three of the groups (Squamish was yet to come). The general thrust of their submissions was similar: the federal government had, as in the first go-round, failed to “meaningfully” engage the bands, had rushed through the process, behaved as if the pipeline approval was a foregone conclusion, and the “Phase 3” consultations were treated as a chore to be got out of the way ASAP. (The phase three consultations followed on the on the consultations that preceded the initial cabinet approval in 2016 then those that preceded last June’s re-approval.)


The TWN lawyers claimed that the federal representatives had ignored evidence from the band’s experts that put the likelihood of tanker spill as high as 75%, maintained that diluted bitumen could sink and be irretrievable in one-to-two days, and that the noise from increased tanker traffic out of Burrard inlet and into the Strait of Georgia could threaten the survival of the orcas that are already “on the brink of extinction.” (Never mind the 100 or more ships that ply those lanes daily already.)


Coldwater’s lawyers argued that the government’s representatives had given the band too little time to discuss the findings from their hired hydro-geological engineer that recommended alternative routes for the pipe that avoided crossing the creeks. (Never mind the fact that the existing Trans Mountain line has crossed creeks in their territory for 65 years without incident.)


And the lawyer for the Stó:lō complained that the feds spent too little time on the consultations (January to May) after wasting too much time preparing (August to December) and failed to “adequately address” the bands 89 recommendations.
Unlike the previous federal court panels—such as those that killed the Northern Gateway and quashed the TMX in 2017—this triumvirate of judges appears devoid of any who might be described as activist. All three have backgrounds in corporate litigation or tax law and none of them hail from Burnaby—site of the controversial TMX terminal and home of Justice Eleanor Dawson, who wrote the 2017 TMX decision quashing the project, and co-wrote the Northern Gateway killer in September 2016.


Thus, for Alberta and Saskatchewan – both of whom are represented as interveners in this hearing — there is some hope that these judges might put an end to the seemingly interminable opposition of an increasingly smaller group of Indigenous activists.