The Alberta government seems to have overcome its temporary embarassment at having its environmental review process called out as ”biased” and ”tainted” by an Alberta Queen’s Bench judge last fall in a ruling that was so harshly worded, the province didn’t dare appeal.

Despite the court finding that Alberta Environment had erred in excluding several environmental groups from the regulatory review of an oilsands project in 2012 – in a move that Justice Marceau said shed doubts on his ability ”to envision a more direct apprehension of bias” – the department went ahead and barred the same groups from commenting on a new project by the same company once again.

In a Mar. 27 letter, Alberta Environment told the partly Fort McMurray-based Oilsands Environmental Coalition it would not be allowed to participate in upcoming hearings on Southern Pacific Resource Corp.’s MacKay River project despite the call from Justice Marceau last fall urging the government to err on the side of openness in determining who gets to participate.

Southern Pacific’s application proposes expanding its steam-assisted gravity drainage project to extract an additional 24,000 barrels of bitumen per day.

Echoing the same view that the judge found to be ”fatally flawed” and hinging on ”irrelevant and improper reasons” – which barred the groups from the hearing based on an impression that they would be uncooperative, had previously published negative media on the oilsands and were not ”directly” impacted by the project – Alberta Environment official Kevin Wilkinson once again denied them access to the review process.

Wilkinson told the coalition, which includes environmental groups such as the Pembina Institute and Fort McMurray Environmental Association, that it is not a legal entity and therefore can’t be considered directly affected, and that even a home in Fort McMurray – 45 km away – is too distant to get someone a spot at the hearings, though he said their concerns would be heard even if they aren’t considered relevant.

That decision comes despite Marceau’s advice that ”the process of identifying who is ‘directly affected’ should not be decided by the application of rigid rules,” noting that barring the coalition would remove the sole environmentalist perspective from the Southern Pacific hearings.

At the time of Marceau’s ruling, the department’s reaction was slightly more reserved.

“Justice Marceau’s ruling has provided us with an opportunity to assess the work my staff does relative to statement of concerns,” then-Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Minister Diana McQueen said in an official statement last November.

“Albertans can have confidence that directly affected decisions made by my staff are unbiased and meet all the legal requirements set out by the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and the Water Act.”

The twice-barred coalition, which has appeared at many other provincial hearings in the past and continues to be granted standing at federal-provincial joint review panel hearings, is planning to appeal the latest decision, as they did when their statement of concern was disregarded in 2012.

It’s not the first time the Alberta government has been called out on its review process. Back in late 2012, members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation of Fort Chipewyan claimed they were unfairly left out (archival; use SRJ for both username and password) of the joint review panel hearing on Shell’s Jackpine Mine expansion, located on their traditional territory.

At least two dozen people living downstream of the oilsands development, including elders, were told their applications were incomplete and could not be approved. Those denied included Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus.

While the review board made attempts to bring them into the hearing process after the deadline, ACFN spokespeople said it was too late for many to make the trip down to Fort McMurray after a month of uncertainty.