RICHMOND, B.C. -- The B.C. government has hired a former attorney general to oversee the province's grilling of Enbridge on its proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Premier Christy Clark says Geoff Plant will lead the province's legal team during the cross-examination of the company at the joint review panel hearings currently under way in Edmonton and follow-up hearings in B.C.

She says Plant is one of the best legal minds in the country and will help B.C. get the answers it needs about the proposal to build the pipeline from Alberta to a tanker port in Kitimat.

Clark says the impact of the pipeline is vital to British Columbians and there's no price that can be put on environmental protection.

Plant says the cross examination in Edmonton will focus on Enbridge's financial and corporate capacity to deal with oil spills, while the later hearings in Prince George and Prince Rupert will focus on technical questions involving the handling of spills on land and at sea.

He says the hearings are an important opportunity to ask the questions that British Columbians want answered.

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