VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The province is about to cross-examine Enbridge about its Northern Gateway pipeline plans.

Former attorney general Geoff Plant has been hired by the provincial government to oversee the hearings. Plant says the questions will be “primarily focused on issues relating to Enbridge’s financial and corporate capacity to make good the consequences of disastrous spills or accidents.”

“No one should ever mistake it for an episode of Law and Order or Matlock. But it is a very important opportunity for us to have a chance to ask the project proponent the questions that British Columbians want answered,” he adds.

Premier Christy Clark says Plant is worth the $325 an hour he’ll be paid. “It’s not just another pipeline. I really felt like we had to make sure we brought in the A-team to make sure that we [get] the answers that we require.”

Plant was with the BC Liberals from 1996 through 2005.

For her part, Clark wants her demands answered around environmental risk and economic benefit.

“Alberta needs to come to the table to talk about those issues. The ball is very, very firmly in Alberta’s court, right now. My phone is on the hook, ready to ring. They’ve got my phone number. It hasn’t started ringing yet,” she explains.

She says BC has bigger economic priorities, like Liquified Natural Gas. “It’s a trillion-and-a-half dollar industry and I’ve never seen a duck wash up on the shore, covered in natural gas.”

Clark and Alberta Premier Allison Redford will likely be forced to talk next week, when the topic of oil comes up at a trade mission in China.

Wilderness Committee has questions it wants asked

Ben West with the Wilderness Committee has a couple of questions that he feels the government should ask the panel in regards to the environment.

He wants to know more about diluted bitumen and based on what happened in previous disasters, how difficult would a clean-up be.

“The obvious question is what are you going to do differently to deal with this kind of oil spill — that report from Kalamazoo stated clearly that the environmental protection agency and the local health authorities were unprepared,” notes West.

He’d also like to ask Enbridge why the company decided to spend more money on safety only after the Kalamazoo River spill.

“Why [did] Enbridge decide to spend more money when they had a public relations nightmare? Were they not actually providing…the safest possible options to begin with?” asks West.

Earlier this week, BC Environment Minister Terry Lake said he wants to know how spill monitoring and response will be handled, and how to ensure Enbridge would exceed world standards in prevention.

The hearings continue into December.