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• Then, in spring 2018, word surfaced that the commission had deliberately held onto another damaging report, again for four years. That report showed that oil and gas companies systematically violated rules to protect some of B.C.’s most critically threatened caribou populations.

All these violations and more happened under the previous government’s watch, which should mean the door is wide open for the current government to reform the agency as Premier John Horgan indicated he was prepared to do more than a year-and-a-half ago.

“At the end of the day, our systems fail if the public has no confidence in them,” Horgan told veteran political affairs columnist Vaughn Palmer. “We’re going to do what we can to make sure that the existing Oil and Gas Commission regulatory regime is either being enforced, and if it’s not, we’ll bring in others to do so.”

But with less than half its mandate remaining, the government is running out of time. It needs to act quickly to reform the commission or it won’t happen at all. One of the most effective things it could do is create an arm’s-length agency to oversee compliance and enforcement efforts in the fossil fuel sector.

Currently, the commission both issues approvals for oil and gas industry activities like fracking and is responsible for ensuring that companies abide by the rules.

Clearly, the latter is not working as the shockingly long list of violations attests.

There is precedent for recommending such a separation of powers. In the horrific aftermath of the Mount Polley mine tailings dam failure, B.C. Auditor-General Carol Bellringer said there was an inherent tension within the Ministry of Energy and Mines between promoting mining activities and policing them.