ARCHIVED – National Energy Board – 2018–19 Departmental Plan

Planned results: what we want to achieve this year and beyond

Core Responsibilities

Energy Adjudication

Description

Making decisions or recommendations to the Governor in Council on applica

tions, which include environmental assessments, using processes that are fair, transparent, timely and accessible. These applications pertain to pipelines and related facilities, international power lines, tolls and tariffs, energy exports and imports, and oil and gas exploration and drilling in certain northern and offshore areas of Canada.

Planning highlights

The NEB never waivers from its commitment to keep people safe, to protect the environment, and to support efficient markets. The NEB’s adjudication processes are designed to hear from - and engage with - those affected by the projects it regulates so that informed decisions and recommendations are made in the Canadian public interest.

Often there is a heightened awareness of the NEB’s adjudication activities when major project applications are before the NEB: Enbridge Line 3 or Trans Mountain Expansion projects, for example. But adjudication activity encompasses more than major project reviews. Over the past year, the NEB has experienced an increase in the number of applications for the approval of smaller pipeline projects, as well as an increase in interest from affected groups or individuals who wish to participate in adjudication processes. We are also seeing an increase in the number of land matter complaints that require NEB adjudication.

• In the past two fiscal years, there have been a total of five small pipeline projects that have warranted a public hearing. By comparison, this equals the total number of small pipeline hearings that were held over the previous four years (2012–13 to 2015–16). The number of pipeline abandonment hearings has increased over the past two years. And the number of NEB detailed route hearings has also increased, mainly due to the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. In the 2017–18 fiscal year, over ninety NEB detailed route hearings will have been initiated, whereas there had been only one detailed route hearing in all the previous five fiscal years, from 2012–13 to 2016–17.
• The number of active land matter complaints in 2017–18 has been high at 23. This high volume is not attributable to any one issue, however we are seeing an increase in Indigenous concerns around heritage resources, which is consistent with observations in adjudication processes.

Hearings and/or adjudication applications (including land matter complaints) are typically triggered by public interest in specific projects and there are issues in need of adjudication. Increased construction and/or abandonment activity will trigger an increase in adjudication activity, and we need to ensure we undertake that work with our core results in mind: that decisions are procedurally fair, that they are timely, that our processes are transparent (predictable, clear) and that our processes are accessible. These are not results that compete against each other – but rather are complementary, and we need to ensure we balance our approach to meet all of our core results.

Despite results that indicate we are achieving our targets, our performance data to date is showing that in some cases, we are not able to meet our service standards for process reviews^Footnote 1. We also know that we can do better in terms of ensuring participants in our processes see them as transparent and accessible.

As a result, we are reviewing our processes and updating our management systems to support timely and efficient reviews. The NEB is taking action to engage with Indigenous Peoples, landowners and other stakeholders much earlier and more actively in the adjudicative process, as the public has demonstrated a keen interest in participating in proposed pipeline projects. We are also investing more in our capacity to support alternative dispute resolution to issues that arise with respect to regulated activities. Lastly, in response to feedback from Indigenous groups and the implications of recent court decisions relating to Indigenous consultation, the NEB is making specific improvements to its adjudication processes to improve how it tracks, validates, reflects and addresses the specific concerns and issues raised by Indigenous groups in our adjudication processes.

The NEB’s planned results in this core responsibility area highlight the importance of continually improving its program and service delivery to meet the needs of Canadians (relying on participant feedback, and acting on that feedback), and ensuring that the NEB demonstrates regulatory excellence in meeting legislative requirements and service standards.

In support of the Energy Adjudication core responsibility in 2018–19, the NEB will:

• Deliver energy adjudication processes that are fair and timely. The NEB will ensure the detailed route hearing and route realignment processes for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project will be fair and occur in a timely manner. The NEB will also focus on the use of alternative dispute resolution as part of this process.
• Ensure energy adjudication processes are transparent and accessible. The NEB will enhance opportunities for public and Indigenous participation in NEB adjudication processes to ensure it responds to issues of concern to Canadians, and to improve the effectiveness and relevance of the organization’s decision-making processes.

Gender-based analysis plus (GBA+)

• Our socio-economic specialists are specifically focused on ensuring public participation in our adjudicative processes respond to the diverse needs of Canadians, and in ensuring that our assessment of applications and filings consider all aspects of a potential project’s impacts and considerations. A particular challenge is ensuring our adjudication processes are working for Indigenous Peoples. The NEB is working to address this through our Engagement core responsibility programs and activities.

Planned results

Budgetary financial resources (dollars)

Human resources (full-time equivalents)

Financial, human resources and performance information for the NEB’s Program Inventory is available in the GC InfoBase.

Safety and Environment Oversight

Description

Setting and enforcing regulatory expectations for National Energy Board-regulated companies over the full lifecycle – construction, operation and abandonment – of energy-related activities. These activities pertain to pipelines and related facilities, international power lines, tolls and tariffs, energy exports and imports, and oil and gas exploration and drilling in certain northern and offshore areas of Canada.

Planning highlights

The NEB continually strives to improve its oversight of the full lifecycle – including the construction, operation and abandonment – of energy-related infrastructure. The NEB knows that its approach to achieving meaningful results for Canadians has to include, but not be limited to, traditional regulatory compliance and enforcement activities. To that end, the NEB continually works to extend its influence beyond solely rules and regulations. This work includes focusing on safety culture with industry, pipeline quality assurance, and pipeline damage prevention^Footnote 2 activities with municipal stakeholders.

The NEB knows that the number of incidents that harm people or the environment with respect to activities it regulates has increased in recent years^Footnote 3. With pipeline construction activity underway, the NEB is seeing an increasing number of incidents that harm people or the environment in fiscal year 2017-18 over fiscal year 2016–17. The NEB also knows that these incidents are related to the increase in construction activity and often correlate with the use of third party contractors for construction.

With this in mind, and as pipeline construction activity increases in 2018–19 and 2019–20 for Enbridge Line 3 and Trans Mountain Expansion, the NEB is taking action to raise awareness of issues related to worker safety, and it is working proactively with industry to take action to prevent such incidents.

The NEB is also working hard to close out incident investigations in a timely manner. It has set timeframes and targets to ensure it learns from each incident, and identifies actions that help prevent the reoccurrence of these incidents. The NEB is not there yet – although 59.8% of incidents are closed within the target timeframes (the target is 80%) – the NEB has a plan to address this performance gap in 2018–19. This plan requires systematic investments in organizational management systems, and that starts with an understanding of the NEB’s performance to date and areas it needs to improve.

The NEB’s safety culture plan includes implementing indicators for inspections as well as engaging with industry so the NEB can share its perspectives on safety culture and facilitate shared learnings on how companies can improve their own corporate safety culture. This data informs the NEB’s oversight plans and activities including ongoing engagement with companies on culture and how it impacts their safety and environmental outcomes.

A Pipeline Quality Assurance Workshop^Footnote 4 in 2017 identified areas within the pipeline supply chain, many of which are outside of the NEB’s regulatory scope, that have an impact on the quality of pipe. The NEB will continue to influence improvements in pipeline quality through the recommendations from the workshop and continue dialogue with manufacturers, standards organizations, pipe buyers and resellers and regulated companies.

In support of the Safety and Environment Oversight core responsibility in 2018–19, the NEB will work to ensure harm to people or the environment, throughout the lifecycle of energy-related activities, is prevented.

• The NEB will implement an integrated project management process for the oversight of the Enbridge Line 3 and Trans Mountain Expansion projects which will provide for the timely identification of critical path items and risks; it will also provide as an early warning system for issues across all streams of regulatory oversight. This process is in response to increasing public awareness of these two pipeline projects and the public’s desire for more information and understanding of the regulatory measures in place.
• The NEB will develop and implement an enhanced worker safety oversight plan which will increase the NEB’s scope relating to those working on energy infrastructure. The plan will include more timely and focused monitoring of all workplace injuries and a more proactive and dynamic adjustment of NEB oversight activities to prevent worker injuries at NEB-regulated work sites. This approach will include both company-specific and industry-wide approaches.

Gender-based analysis plus

• GBA+ considerations do not generally weigh in on the determination or implementation of Safety and Environmental Oversight work, unless the NEB has placed a specific condition on an applicant related to GBA+ matters in the application assessment that needs to be considered in a subsequent safety oversight activity. When this does occur, the NEB will account for this factor in its oversight activities.

Planned results

Budgetary financial resources (dollars)

Human resources (full-time equivalents)

Financial, human resources and performance information for the NEB’s Program Inventory is available in the GC InfoBase.

Energy Information

Description

Collecting, monitoring, analyzing and publishing information on energy markets and supply, sources of energy, and the safety and security of pipelines and international power lines.

Planning highlights

The NEB’s Energy Information efforts focus on collecting and providing data and analyses that supports the NEB’s regulatory responsibilities and facilitates discussion and research by stakeholders interested in energy, pipeline safety and regulation. While the NEB’s Energy Information program has grown significantly over the past years, the NEB is committed to continuing to expand and improve the information products it provides to Canadians and to make it easier for stakeholders to access that data. The first opportunity is to seek feedback from Canadians and stakeholders regarding the types of information they want from the NEB. Opportunities for collaboration and partnership in data sharing is another area where the NEB needs to do more. The NEB will also seek increased partnership opportunities with other organizations on the development of new and innovative pipeline safety and energy market information products.

In support of the Energy Information core responsibility in 2018–19, the NEB will:

• Seek feedback from Canadians and stakeholders regarding what types of information they want from the NEB to help ensure they have access to the pipeline safety and energy market information they need for their knowledge, research, and decision making. The NEB will create a robust strategy to gather the opinions of Canadians that will include the use of interactive data visualization technology for users and more sources of input for NEB stakeholders regarding their opinions on the NEB’s energy information products. This data-driven strategy will include new methods for assessing what issues are of most interest to Canadians and what data and products are most effective in demonstrating industry outcomes, public safety and NEB performance.
• Provide Canadians, other regulators and non-government organizations with opportunities to collaborate and work in partnership with the NEB on pipeline safety and energy market information products. The NEB wants to provide Canadians with the most useful energy and pipeline safety information possible and the NEB believes by partnering with other organizations a suite of products can be developed that is more wide-ranging and better able to meet the needs of Canadians and other stakeholders. A previous example of this type of type of collaboration is the assessment of the Duvernay Shale Play^Footnote 5 that the NEB conducted together with the Alberta Energy Regulator, in 2017.

Gender-based analysis plus

• Energy Information products are designed not to discriminate. Where there are issues for accessibility the NEB is working on addressing these issues (ie. The NEB complies with the Government of Canada’s Content Style Guide, which sets standards for website content to improve web accessibility for those with reading and visual impairments).

Planned results

Budgetary financial resources (dollars)

Human resources (full-time equivalents)

Financial, human resources and performance information for the NEB’s Program Inventory is available in the GC InfoBase.

Engagement

Description

Engaging with stakeholders and Indigenous Peoples on topics within the National Energy Board’s mandate and role, beyond engagement on specific projects.

Planning highlights

Engaging with Indigenous Peoples and other stakeholders is a NEB core responsibility area that has experienced a significant increase in focus in recent years. The NEB believes it will deliver better outcomes in Energy Adjudication and in Safety and Environment Oversight through increased engagement efforts. Improving, growing and integrating its Indigenous and stakeholder engagement work, and better integrating its engagement planning across the NEB, is essential to the organization’s efforts to increase public confidence in Canada’s energy regulatory framework.

The NEB is committed to listening to the concerns and thoughts that Indigenous Peoples, municipalities, landowners, and other stakeholders have about energy infrastructure, and applying those insights to its work as Canada’s national energy regulator. The NEB will increase its ability to analyze data and feedback that will allow for more focus on trends and regional issues. Systematic solutions will be driven through multi-stakeholder frameworks where various interests are considered and leveraged; this includes a more focused approach to address the gaps that exist in the delivery of engagement from the NEB’s regional offices. The NEB is also committed to the outcomes of the IAMCs and will improve and enhance its own processes through these innovative committees.

In support of the Engagement core responsibility in 2018–19, the NEB will:

• NEB Regional Presence: Better leverage its regional presence in Vancouver and Montreal. The NEB has regional offices in Montreal, Vancouver and Yellowknife in addition to its head office in Calgary. Engagement activities are conducted on a regular basis from all four offices.
  
  The organization’s priority in 2018–19 will be to better leverage its Vancouver and Montreal regional offices. This will be accomplished by investing further resources and integrating more NEB technical staff into the work of those two regional offices, this will include subject matter experts on damage prevention, emergency management, environmental protection and pipeline integrity. This will also be done through the use of integrated engagement planning across the NEB.
  
  The NEB will continue to expand the use of the Client Relationship Management System to capture and analyze data in order to inform and improve its regional engagement planning and reporting capabilities across the organization.
  
  
• Multi-Stakeholder Frameworks: The NEB is committed to enhancing regulatory outcomes through system-wide approaches. The organization firmly believes that outcomes in all of its core responsibility areas are enhanced through engagement frameworks. The NEB will strengthen its commitment to the ‘Land Matters Group’^Footnote 6 in addressing land-related issues and the newly-formed ‘Municipal Roundtable’ will be a key framework for addressing municipal issues, primarily in the areas of pipeline damage prevention and emergency management.
  
  The NEB will also strengthen and provide further resources for its work with IAMCs. These innovative committees provide participating Indigenous groups and communities with direct participation in monitoring activities alongside NEB inspectors. The NEB will also continue to formalize ways for Indigenous Peoples to participate directly in the NEB’s regulatory processes in a sustainable manner.

Gender-based analysis plus

• While the NEB considers many factors when planning engagement activities relating to GBA+ matters, there is room to improve. In particular, the NEB needs to ensure engagement with Indigenous Peoples is meaningful. The NEB is moving forward with collecting and testing feedback provided on our engagement efforts so we can improve our approach to how we meaningfully engage with Indigenous Peoples and Canadians.

Planned results

Budgetary financial resources (dollars)

Human resources (full-time equivalents)

Financial, human resources and performance information for the NEB’s Program Inventory is available in the GC InfoBase.

Internal Services

Description

Internal Services are those groups of related activities and resources that the federal government considers to be services in support of programs and/or required to meet corporate obligations of an organization. Internal Services refers to the activities and resources of the 10 distinct service categories that support Program delivery in the organization, regardless of the Internal Services delivery model in a department. The 10 service categories are: Management and Oversight Services; Communications Services; Legal Services; Human Resources Management Services; Financial Management Services; Information Management Services; Information Technology Services; Real Property Services; Materiel Services; and Acquisition Services.

Planning highlights

Our planning context has been informed by a number of important initiatives affecting our internal services programs, including:

• Ensuring we are strategic and proactive in identifying future workforce needs for the organization, including ensuring we have the right people, in the right positions, with the right skills and competencies to respond to the changes underway;
• The need to invest in, and enhance, our capacity to receive, manage and use data as a strategic asset – including updating our information technology and information management systems to support all of our departmental programs;
• Phoenix implementation –collaborating closely with the Public Service Commission to address ongoing challenges associated with the implementations of the Phoenix pay system;
• Bargaining and implementing the NEB and PIPSC collective agreement and;
• Preparing for planned updates to our financial management software to align with Government of Canada requirements.

We know that while our staff attrition rates are relatively low (3.7% for fiscal year 2016–17), this has not always been the case, and we need to be prepared to deal with specific attraction and retention challenges in high demand job families such as engineering, engagement, data and information management, and legal services.

The NEB continues to dedicate significant time and effort to implementing its new management system in support of the organization’s focus on regulatory and management excellence. Through the management system, the NEB continues to measure and report on performance, and invest in organization-wide improvements to ensure the effective delivery of our mandate and priorities. The NEB is also developing a strategic workforce plan to align the organization’s talent with the needs of its programs to ensure the NEB has the right people, in the right place, at the right time – and remain an employer of choice^Footnote 7.

Gender-based analysis plus

• A diverse workforce that mirrors the community strengthens the NEB and plays a critical role in the attraction and retention of talented employees. The NEB’s Employment Equity and Diversity Program recognizes the need to embrace diversity across the workforce, and in doing so, enables the NEB to achieve excellence through its workforce. The NEB takes Employment Equity and Diversity considerations into account during staffing activities.

Budgetary financial resources (dollars)

Human resources (full-time equivalents)

Date modified:

2023-11-30