National Energy Board

www.neb-one.gc.ca

Common menu bar

• Français
• Home
• Contact Us
• Help
• Search
• canada.gc.ca

Breadcrumb

Video Stories - Diana Valiela - Transcript

Hello I'm Diana Valiela and I was a member of the National Energy Board from 1997 to 1999. I have some very fond memories and a high degree of respect for the National Energy Board. When I was first appointed it was Roland Priddle who was the Chair, unfortunately he was just leaving as I joined the Board but he was there when I was appointed and he came out to Vancouver to talk to me a couple of times and he was extremely inspiring. He emphasized the aspects of the National Energy Board that make it, what I feel is the premier if not one of the premier administrative tribunals in Canada and he talked about the public interest orientation of the Board and the various activities they were involved in.

I think it was a week or two later that I was off to the eastern townships and to Montreal on a hearing by the on the PNGTS (Portland Natural Gas Transmission System) extension project for the, for the Trans Québec and Maritime company to extend down to join the Portland Natural Gas System. And at that time Gaétan Caron was COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the National Energy Board and he was appointed as a temporary member to chair that panel. And that was both an inspiring and a sometimes humorous experience because we went through the eastern townships and we had a lot of intervenors. Landowners were extremely upset and extremely mad at us, and, and at the proposal so Gaétan did a fabulous job of trying to calm the proceedings down but allow a full chance for all intervenors to be heard, so that was really inspiring but sometimes quite humorous at the same time because he had to use every skill level to try to control the proceedings without seeming to be oppressive.

So it was a wonderful experience and also it really brought out the extremely dedicated way in which the National Energy Board deals with applications and hearings and the way in which it is extremely careful about administrative law concepts and fairness and the opportunity to be heard.

I served on the Board for two years and then I had to come back for some family issues to Vancouver so I did not stay for my full appointment of seven years but I certainly, I think, learned a lot, enjoyed it a great deal and was very inspired by the experience. I hope that I contributed, I really enjoyed working with not only the other Board Members, but also the staff, we had wonderful staff at all levels. The biologists on the Board were very, very inspired by the attention that was being paid to the environmental issues on the Board, our lawyers, our legal staff was superb in handling all kinds of difficult issues that came up and the other Board Members were a pleasure to work with. So, I have very good memories of the National Energy Board and I wish them all the future success after their 50 year celebration.

Primary navigation (left column)

Date Modified:

2011-10-26