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OK, I realize this is a tough sell.

It’s August and probably the last thing you want to do is sit in your house and watch television, unless of course you’re watching the Olympics.

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But there is a TV show, of sorts, on this week that’s of crucial importance to all of us in Alberta.

It’s the online feed from the National Energy Board hearings into the Energy East pipeline project.

The hearings on the $15-billion project to pump oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to the East Coast opened in Saint John, N.B., on Monday and will run for three days before moving to Fredericton next week. In fact, over the next four months, there will be hearings in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

All of them will be broadcast online via the NEB webpage.

The good news: if you can’t watch NEB hearings this week, you have the next four months to catch up.

The bad news: sitting through an NEB public hearing is about as exciting as watching Olympic lawn bowling. I realize lawn bowling is not an Olympic event but you’d wish it were if you had a choice between that and an NEB hearing.