Staff Stories Archive

Celebrating 50 Years

Glenn Booth joined the NEB in 1985. He brings extensive experience with regulatory issues, strategic planning and leadership to his current position as Business Unit Leader of the People and Communication Services Business Unit. In drawing on his experiences, Glenn cites the credibility, independence and respectful culture of the Board as keystones of a fulfilling career.

What is your most memorable work experience at the NEB?

In 1991 the government announced in the budget that the NEB would relocate from Ottawa to Calgary. The news caught everyone by surprise. That morning Dave Walker showed up wearing cowboy boots and a bolo tie. He'd just done it for fun, not expecting the announcement. Then he heard that we'd be moving to Calgary. He was a little worried that a lot of people would be upset because they'd have to pull up their families and move across the country. The part that stood out most in my mind was that only a little over a third of the staff actually moved so we lost almost two-thirds of our staff. That's a huge blow to an organization.

When we moved out here, we had to re-hire, really fast. I was part of the management team that started interviewing people and hiring. We basically re-staffed the whole Board within six months and maintained the functionality of the Board throughout the move. We didn't miss a heartbeat. In looking back, I'm still impressed by what a great job of hiring we did. Many of those people we hired at that time are still with us, including folks like Sandy Lapointe and Chris van Egmond.

Those of us who moved to Calgary also experienced a great sense of renewal. Most of us who moved did so because we were excited about the decision and were really committed to it. So it was a real tremendous renewal in the culture of the organization and I think a tremendous cultural change.

Coming to Calgary, you just couldn't help being influenced by the entrepreneurial environment in the city. I think since then, we've tried to be more like a small or mid-sized company rather than an “Ottawa' government agency. I think we've largely achieved that.

During your time at the NEB, has anything significantly impacted your career?

One of the things I've been most proud of is that the NEB is an independent agency that works at arm's length from the government. That's critical. Our credibility rests on our reputation for being independent, objective and technically competent. Our Board members are appointed by Cabinet, but once they are appointed, it's for seven years and there's no direction from the Government of Canada. All our decisions are made independently. As an independent agency, we hold a public hearing and consider all facets of the public interest when we receive an application to build a major pipeline or new power line. Then we make a decision in the Canadian public interest.

In the late 90s, natural gas was discovered offshore Nova Scotia in the Sable Island gas field. Producers were ready to develop it and made an application to the Board to build a pipeline from the offshore field extending onshore through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick then south to New England. The plan sparked huge political pressure and live press coverage in the Maritimes and Quebec that argued Canadian gas should stay in Canada for the benefit of Canadians.

The NEB eventually decided that the best way to ensure that the Maritimes would have access to natural gas was to approve this project and establish special conditions to encourage lateral lines to ship gas to Fredericton, Saint John, Truro, and other communities. The reality is that for a large project like the Sable Island gas field, you need a very large market to make it economic. So we approved a tolling structure that made it attractive to build laterals off the mainline to deliver natural gas in the Maritimes while the majority of the gas still went to New England and the northeastern United States.

Awhile after the decision was announced, I flew to the Maritimes and was interviewed by the press as well as several TV reporters. I was grilled, so it wasn't a comfortable experience, but our decision stood up really well. Although it wasn't an easy or popular decision in all ways, everyone could see that the NEB made a completely independent decision and wasn't influenced by political pressure or the media.

Are there any other projects you worked on that you think had a major impact on Canadians?

During the mid 90s, I lead a team who significantly changed the way tolls and tariffs were set for pipeline companies. In the late 80s and early 90s, we used to have annual rate hearings. The pipeline companies would come and apply for their rates, then shippers would come in and oppose them, hiring expensive lawyers and having lengthy hearings over what the rates should be. Shippers argued that rates should be lower, pipelines wanted them to be higher, with the Board making a decision somewhere in the middle. It was very clear that the process was not very efficient. It was costly and time consuming for everyone.

During this time I was Manager of Regulatory Economics. I had attended a few conferences in the States. Everyone was talking about incentive-based regulation - a new form of regulation quite different from the existing cost-of-service regulation through which a pipeline is allowed to recover all its costs.

I hired someone to become an expert on incentive regulation and began researching how the NEB could move in this direction. We held a workshop in 1994 and invited pipeline companies to provide their input. We wrote a white paper, hired consultants to talk about pros and cons, and set up discussion panels. The two-and-a-half day workshop didn't seem to go well and, in fact, it was rather acrimonious.

After hearing all the arguments, the Board came out with a very strong statement that we wanted to move towards incentive-based regulation. We established guidelines for what we called negotiated settlements, meaning companies could settle matters without coming to the Board. Within a year, we had several incentive-based agreements filed with us for five year terms. In these agreements, the incentives were such that companies could make more money if they better served their customers - so there were win-win outcomes for everybody. This process changed Canada's regulatory framework in a very fundamental way. It reduced the regulatory burden, improved relationships between pipelines and shippers and improved the way pipelines were operated.

What is your fondest memory of the NEB?

It's hard finding moments in your career where you see that you influenced change, that you made a difference. I'd have to say that my fondest memory is my involvement with the incentive regulation issue, the workshop and the ensuing changes to the regulatory framework.

It wasn't just me. We work in a team environment here. I was proud to be part of that team. Rob Tarvydas was the fellow I hired to research the incentive regulation option. He made a great contribution. Other key people were Jim Fox and Harmit Bajaj.

I also take a lot of pride in the success of the Professional Leaders. In 1997, we had a major re-organization, flattened the structure and created five business units in place of the previous 10 "directorates". The new structure featured multi-disciplinary teams and it has served us well today. At the time, we created four "Professional Leader" positions, which were executive positions responsible for technical leadership in key disciplines including economics, engineering and environment. Twelve years later it is still going strong! I believe that the program survived because it largely delivered what it said it would: great support for staff professional development and the creation of a learning organization.

Who among your colleagues at the NEB has most influenced you?

Ken Vollman, our former Chair. He was just excellent at chairing a meeting so that it stayed focused on facts and issues and never on people or emotion. He modeled the behaviour that we expect of everyone in a respectful organization.

We're all here with the same interests and if we focus on those interests, we work together as a team rather than taking different positions and becoming polarized. I'd have to say that Ken was a great role model in terms of behaviour expectations not only for me, but for all the staff at the NEB in terms of creating a respectful organization. Over the years, employees have confirmed through internal surveys that they are very, very impressed by the NEB. We have a culture of mutual respect, a culture that focuses on issues rather than personalities, turf or territory.

Is there anything you would like to say to today's NEB staff?

I'd like to say to staff that they should always take pride in working for an organization like the NEB. There are countries all around the world like Venezuela, Mexico, and Iran that are blessed with lots of oil and natural gas reserves, but their industries are in various states of chaos for many reasons. Although some people may roll their eyes at the idea of working for the government, I just want to emphasize that organizations such as the NEB create a framework in which our economy can prosper, while respecting the full spectrum of the public interest. We're working in the Canadian public interest and we must never forget that we're providing a lot of value as a leading regulator in the world.

Rather than thinking in terms of regulation, what I like to say is that we create an environment where great things can happen. By setting out rules and regulations, we work for an agency that creates conditions where companies can prosper and run efficient businesses for Canadians.