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TRUMP REVEALED HIGHLY CLASSIFIED INFORMATION TO RUSSIANS: REPORT metroNEWS High 12°C/Low 8°C Cloudy with showers
TUESDAY, MAY 16, 2017 The nest is empty — but many baby boomers are staying in their homes for a range of reasons, says Michael Geller, a Vancouver architect and real estate developer. JEN ST. DENIS/METRO
‘The crisis of confidence’ ENVIRONMENT
Dismantle National Energy Board, report recommends Matt Kieltyka
Metro | Vancouver
EMPTY NEST
In the midst of the Vancouver’s rental vacancy crisis, a new report finds there are 800,000 empty bedrooms metroNEWS
HOW TO waterproof YOUR CITY
A report recommending the dismantling of the National Energy Board hits the right notes, according to local environmentalists. The Expert Panel on the Modernization of the National Energy Board released its final report and recommendations to the federal government Monday, proposing to split the regulators’ responsibilities up between government and two new agencies: The Canadian Energy Information Agency and the Canadian Energy Transmission Commission. Under the proposed framework, the federal government would first need to determine whether a major project — such as Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline — is in the country’s national interest and fits into its climate plan before going to a two-year joint review done by the CETC and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Panel co-chair Gary Meratsy told Metro it was obvious the NEB needed a serious overhaul during the team’s consultation process.
“The crisis of confidence certainly came through during the entire process,” said Meratsy. “I think the absence of national policy and that impersonal, transactional approach fostered a lot of confidence and trust issues. The early reviews seem mostly positive. “It’s clear that they understood that there was a massive lack of confidence in the NEB as it stood and they’ve clearly proposed very major changes to the way that decisions are made,” said Eugene Kung, staff counsel at West Coast Environmental Law. The plan is not perfect, Kung warned. Specifically, he said the panel failed to take into account a separate federal review of the environmental assessment process in its final report. “That’s where there is a disconnect,” Kung said. “The disappointing part of the NEB panel report is that they seem to be stuck on this older conception of what environmental assessment is. We’ll be really interested moving forward in terms of how the government takes these various recommendations and meld them together, because they don’t happen in a vacuum.” The federal government is accepting consultations on the report until June 14 and will then have to decide whether or not to accept the panel’s recommendations.
After recent flooding, we look at ways to curb effects of global warming
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