LandKeepers News Archive
Not Everyone is Taking Enbridge Money Pipeline Company Offers Honorariums to Attend Meetings
February 23 2010 | News Articles | Terrace Standard
TWO KITIMAT-STIKINE regional district directors say they aren’t taking honorariums to attend Enbridge-sponsored meetings intended to help steer its $4.5 billion pipeline plan through environmental review.
But one of the directors, Ted Ramsey, says he will file for expenses.
“At some point I will. I’m not buying gas for them [Enbridge],” he said last week of attending two Enbridge community advisory board meetings in Kitimat.
“I don’t have a problem politically [with the honorarium money]. But I don’t need it so I’m not taking it,” he said.
Ramsey’s comments follow statements from Terrace mayor Dave Pernarowski and city councillor Brian Downie that both were accepting payments as well as expenses to attend these meetings.
Those payments were $200 per meeting but have since been increased to $250.
Ramsey’s fellow regional district director, Allan Lanctot, echoed his comments.
Lanctot has attended two advisory board meetings in Kitimat, which are in his region.
He said as the meetings are in his area, he won’t be taking honorariums or travel expenses.
If he happens to attend a meeting in Smithers or Prince George though, then he may file for travel expenses.
Lanctot said he attends these meetings as an observer, and therefore goes to listen only, saying he does not participate in the working groups or votew on issues.
“As an ex-officio, I’m not there to put forward my beliefs….I represent the public,” he said.
Ramsey said members of the board have talked about the situation and they’ve decided that if a person needs the honorarium, then taking it is fine.
“A lot of people have to travel a long ways to come to a meeting so claiming expenses is fine,” he said.
Enbridge wants to build a pipeline across B.C. connecting Alberta oil with an export terminal at Kitimat but needs federal environmental approval.
Its advisory boards are intended to identify and deal with any problems associated with the project.
Terrace city counsellor Lynn Christiansen, who attended her first Enbridge community advisory board meeting in Terrace last week, said the group discussed honorariums and travel expenses in the meeting, explaining that the honorariums were for compensation for missing a day’s work.
Christiansen didn’t request an honorarium, saying it sounded too much like a bribe.
Councillor Brian Downie, who had previously accepted an honorarium for an advisory meeting in Kitimat, said he thinks getting compensated for travelling and giving up a day of work is fair, but said he would not take it for attending meetings in Terrace.
He attended the meeting in Terrace last week and said there was clarification on what the compensation is intended to cover.
Mayor Dave Pernarowski, who has accepted money for two advisory board meetings he attended, did not attend last week’s meeting in Terrace or Kitimat.
In the Bulkey Valley, Telkwa mayor Carman Graf is taking money in addition to expenses, but adds he is attending Enbridge advisory meetings as a private citizen, not as a person holding elected office.
“I’m only there as myself. I never involve the Village of Telkwa in it,” he said.
“They pay us $200 for the meeting which you know is not a hellava lot because I have to drive to Prince George,” he said, referring to the next planned session. “I’m gone two days from home here … so it’s not a lot of money.”
He said meetings occur every few months and he didn’t take any compensation at all for two prior meetings.
He said the meetings are very productive and that Enbridge has done a lot of work leading up to filing for an environmental review which is expected to happen early this spring.
“I imagine they will gauge the support or the opposition by these meetings,” Graf said. “They’re certainly doing it right so far.”
Enbridge officials were not immediately available last week for comment.
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