SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Governments are facing criticism in their dealings with the proposed Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline since the Joint Review Panel (JRP) fired back its final response to federal and territorial agencies earlier this month.

The federal and territorial governments won't publicly release their detailed position on the JRP's 115-government related recommendations until after their report is in the National Energy Board's hands - expected by December.

But the government response, which it asked the JRP to keep confidential, backs only 10 of the recommendations and conditionally supports 77 others, opposing the other findings the panel spent five years reaching.

The JRP's Oct. 4 letter to the department of Industry Canada states that the panel won't heed the governments' private request to change or clarify their own recommendations because doing so "would be a fundamental breach of the basic principles that the panel's process is to be open and transparent."

Now, some NWT residents are decrying the GNWT and the feds for not being more accountable during their review process, while others just want to see the end of regulatory procedures.

Environment and Natural Resources Minister Michael Miltenberger has said governments' decision to keep their position private for now is just part of the process and that the GNWT's full response will be made public in a matter of weeks, after submission to the NEB.

But Kevin O'Reilly of Yellowknife-based Alternatives North, one of the intervenors in the pipeline project, wondered what the governments are hiding.

"Unfortunately we don't get to see what the proposed government response is because they're keeping it secret, and there's absolutely no legal reason to do that," he said.

According to the JRP, most of the recommendations the governments supported listed vague conditions, stating for example that government agencies would consider the recommendation as the project moved forward. Some of the rejected recommendations contained previously agreed-upon government goals, including land use plans, greenhouse gas reductions and protection of species at risk.

"They haven't even proposed alternative wording that would make these recommendations acceptable," O'Reilly said.

"I don't think it's done in the spirit of good faith. I think the governments are obviously trying to hide something here and it's not good news for people in the North."

But now that the JRP's task is complete, intervenors and proponents alike can't do much but wait for the NEB's ruling on whether the project should proceed.

Aboriginal Pipeline Group chair Fred Carmichael said he's glad the regulatory process is another step closer to completion and he's not concerned by the governments' responses to the JRP's regulations.

"Governments are duly-elected bodies responsible to the public, and that's their job. They report to their constituents and it's their job to make sure that these things are done. A seven-member panel, now, it's not up to them to tell the government how to do their business," Carmichael said.

"I think they (the JRP) stepped out of line," he said, adding he feels it's most important for Northerners to look after their own development and environment - a founding principle of the APG, which comprises shareholders from every aboriginal organization in NWT except for the Dehcho.

"We don't need southerners telling Northerners what to do up here," he said, pointing specifically to southern environmentalists who are opposed to the pipeline.

"The North needs this project."

But the proposed natural gas pipeline has a national scope and its impacts would extend far beyond Northern Canada, as the Ottawa-based Sierra Club of Canada argues. Along with other environmental groups, Sierra Club will be awaiting the governments' full responses and the NEB's decision to decide whether they followed the law - specifically the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

"It has implications for the rest of the country as well, and as a national organization, Sierra Club has got just as much right as anybody else to talk about these things," said Sierra representative Stephen Hazell.

"There were ways in which we could've made the Mackenzie Gas Project a green pipeline, and the Joint Review Panel tried to tackle those issues to the best of its ability. But we really needed the Northwest Territories government and the federal government to step up."

The NEB's decision is expected by early next year, and if given the green light, Imperial Oil and other proponents are expected to decide by 2013 whether constructing the pipeline still makes financial sense.

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