Enemies of the State? The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, Landowners, Spies, a 500kV Transmission Line and Why Procedure Matters

Abstract

In the spring of 2007 the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (the ‘Board’) employed private investigators to covertly observe interveners in a hearing into the proposed construction of a transmission facility. This decision led to public outrage and, as well, to the Board’s vacation of all its decisions related to the transmission facility on the basis that a reasonable apprehension of bias had arisen. This article places the Board’s retention of the private investigators in the context of a number of other procedural decisions made by the Board in its consideration of the proposed transmission facility. It then reviews the totality of those decisions to suggest that, in designing an appropriate process, a regulatory decision-maker must be mindful of both the rules of procedural fairness and of the principles that underpin procedural fairness as a whole.

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Alice Woolley

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Alice Woolley is Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary. She can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected].