Modernizing Hearings – Facilitating Public Engagement In Decision Making

On May 9, 2017, a panel titled "Modernizing Hearings – Facilitating Public Engagement in Decision Making" was presented at the 2017 CAMPUT Conference. The question discussed by the panel was how to address changes in public expectations in the face of important issues such as climate change, local impact of energy projects and rights of Indigenous peoples. The panelists spoke to their personal experience around the issues raised by this question.

As a preliminary item, the moderator of the panel (Michael Cleland of the Positive Energy Program at the University of Ottawa) noted that current regulatory and policy approaches are not well-aligned with meeting emerging new challenges. Confusion arises because it's not always clear who should make decisions about energy issues – there are local and higher-level impacts and many levels of authority (local, provincial and federal) want to be involved. Beyond these issues, there is also the question of how to make decisions