Days after the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board issued a scathing report on the company’s incompetent response to a Michigan oil spill, Enbridge issued a statement saying that it is willing to spend a further $500 million — yes, a half a billion dollars — on further safety measures on the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline.

The company’s spokesperson seemed tone deaf to the irony of the announcement. For the past seven years during which the company has been promoting the northern tier project, it has repeatedly said that its construction plans would make the pipeline as safe as possible. Yet suddenly Enbridge, in a public relations gambit response to a report on its incompetence in managing a spill two years ago, thousands of kilometres away, acknowledges that the plan for the proposed northern tier pipeline in British Columbia and Alberta had deficiencies and its safety needed improvement.

The question: If Enbridge thought the northern tier proposal was so good for so long, why did it require a report of a spill in Michigan in 2010 for it to hastily announce a half-billion dollars worth of changes to its proposed pipeline in Alberta and B.C.?

Unfortunately for the company, in trying to show greater concern for the environment, it is also showing that its application has been based for the past seven years on misrepresentations and deceit.

Enbridge management should look more closely at the reports on the Michigan spill and the statements of Deborah Hersman, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board. Enbridge was described as a “Keystone Kops” operation. This is devastating criticism for the head of a U.S. government agency to use about the management of North America’s largest pipeline company — quite unprecedented. This is the kind of language one might have heard following the Exxon Valdez disaster, or the Deepwater Horizon blowout. It is based on the flagrant disregard for safety and for safety procedures by Enbridge prior to the spill, the extraordinary level of incompetence displayed during the incident that increased the amount spilled fivefold, and finally the failure to follow proper procedures after the spill. All this is outlined in the National Transportation Safety Board’s report, and the companion report of the responsible administrative agency overseeing pipelines, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Hersman did not speak in haste or carelessly. It is a fair and reasonable characterization of Enbridge’s management style and operations.

Given the detailed exposure by the U.S. agencies of the cowboy culture characteristic of Enbridge’s management approach, whatever the meagre merits of a Northern Gateway pipeline and oil port at Kitimat might be, it is now clear that Enbridge is the last pipeline company on the continent that should be given the mandate to build and operate it. Accident after accident in industry after industry has shown that corporate culture is an extremely important factor in worker and environmental safety. The U.S. reports make clear Enbridge, like the Keystone Kops, just doesn’t have what it takes to do things right.

The announcement of a half billion in extra safety measures is probably a desperation move, a Hail Mary pass by corporate executives that have seen their project take serious hits. Public relations ploys just aren’t working, in fact they are being greeted with derision. There is sharply diminishing political appetite for supporting Enbridge. One straw in the wind as to how attitudes have changed: even B.C. Premier Christie Clark, previously thought to be a supporter of Enbridge, has come out in opposition to the way the company operates. “If they think they’re going to operate like that in B.C., forget it,” she said. Well, as the U.S. agencies have pointed out, that is exactly how they have been operating for years. And it will take more years for that management culture to be replaced by something more acceptable. So far, the change hasn’t begun. So Clark’s advice to “forget it” is exactly what Enbridge should do.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper also must be having misgivings about his unqualified support for the project. He must now realize, not that he would admit it, that were the Northern Gateway pipeline project to be approved under Enbridge management and control, few B.C. Conservative MPs would survive an election. Yes, he wants the pipeline. But he wants to be prime minister a great deal more.

It is high time for the Enbridge application to be withdrawn, for the NEB hearings to terminate, and for this expensive fiasco to come to an end.

David Anderson served in the cabinets of prime minister Jean Chrétien between 1993 and 2004 as fisheries and oceans minister and as environment minister.