NDP Environment critic Rob Fleming slammed a last-minute decision to bar the public from Monday's Enbridge Northern Gateway hearings in Kelowna.  
Speaking in Vernon, Fleming said: "Since the Liberals handed over decision-making power to Ottawa in 2010, the Enbridge pipeline project review has been exclusively a federal process - without a provincial government that will stand up for B.C.'s
interests.
"By avoiding taking a position, the B.C. Liberals are signaling
that they're prepared to sell out the vulnerable people, lands and wildlife that would be destroyed
by an oil spill.
"It speaks volumes that the Liberals would not step in to defend the public's desire to observe the proceedings first hand." 
At the public meeting hosted by Vernon-Monashee NDP candidate Mark Olsen, local residents raised a number of concerns - from the future of provincial parks to protecting water to the encouragement of more "clean" jobs for the Okanagan.