Participation: Local versus Expert Knowledge at the Environmental Public Hearings for a Pulp Mill in Northern Alberta, Canada

Abstract

This paper draws from a larger study of the environmental public hearings into a pulp and paper mill project proposed for northern Alberta, Canada.⁵ It explores the merits and shortcomings of public participation during these environmental impact hearings with an emphasis upon how members of the public contested the professional hegemony of state managers and confronted the ‘expertocracy’ of specialists hired to review the pulp mill’s impacts.

We cannot afford any more of the obfuscational rhetoric with which industry and government try to evade the truth with stupid, meaningless phrases like ‘leading edge technology.’

(Kristin Reed, Proceedings, p. 555)²

I have learned that people that have the name ‘Doctor’ in front of their names don’t always know everything. I used to be intimidated by people like that, but that will be no longer. The same with government. I always thought government was consistent, and I found that isn’t the case.

(Ron Epp, Review Board member, Proceedings, p. 7633)

Such public hearings provide the only opportunity for minority groups to have their positions brought into the public domain. They are essential protection against the tyranny of the majority, and they should become mandatory adjuncts in the democratic process of informed decision-making.

(Harry Garfinkle for the Green Party of Canada, Filed Document O-111:1)³

In most countries I would have been shot or jailed for what [the public criticism and environmental activism] … I have done, and so I feel pretty proud to have a country that allows me to take on a government, two governments, Canada and Alberta, in the way that I have and still have the freedoms that I have. So, yes, I get criticized but that’s part of democracy. And, if people aren’t willing to do that, then we have lost our democracy.⁴