Premier Mckenna Speaks………….. SAINT JOHN • Former premier Frank McKenna warns New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are in a death spiral and will continue to go the wrong direction if they don’t take bold steps such as developing the shale gas industry. At a major energy conference in Saint John Friday, McKenna told a business audience it was time for local leaders to de-mystify the oil and gas business and explain to people what’s at stake. “Our regional economy is flat-lining, we are depopulating, our population is not just leaving but getting older – it’s aging at twice the rate of Alberta’s,” he said. “We’re in an endless cycle of high deficits, declining population, higher interest rates and payments, an aging population, higher cost of services, less equalization, less personal income, higher taxes and consumption taxes. It’s a death spiral that we’re in if we don’t do something about it.” The speech by the former Liberal premier at the 12th annual Atlantic Canada and Northeast U.S. Energy Summit was more in line with the previous Tory government’s stance on shale gas. Newly elected Liberal Premier Brian Gallant says he will impose a moratorium on shale gas development after pledging to do so during the September election campaign. Nova Scotia’s Liberal government is moving ahead with legislation that will ban fracking, the controversial technique of horizontal drilling used to release shale gas. McKenna did not criticize Gallant’s stance directly. He hopes the new premier will eventually lift the moratorium. “His view is a very thoughtful one,” McKenna told reporters before the speech. “He wants more evidence to satisfy himself on health and safety grounds, and I respect that. He has a mandate to do that, so my view is he needs to follow that mandate and come to a conclusion.” McKenna described shale gas as an opportunity that’s a building block leading to other opportunities. “The Energy East pipeline is a building block that could lead to other development, but we’re not certain of that. If we continue with shale gas exploration, it could lead to bigger things, but we don’t know. The premier has been thoughtful of this from the beginning. He’s not in the camp of Yes or No and damn the evidence, and I respect that.” Bruce Fitch, the interim Tory Opposition leader, believes Gallant should lift the moratorium. “The issues raised by Mr. McKenna should be familiar to everyone by now,” Fitch said Friday. ”Our Progressive Conservative government talked about the concerns we had regarding debt, deficit and demographics over the past four years. Our position on a New Brunswick shale gas industry has not changed.” The former Liberal government of Shawn Graham also supported shale gas development. In 2010, it signed a deal with SWN Resources to spend $47 million exploring the province for shale gas. In his speech at the Delta Hotel, McKenna was strident about the need to develop resources such as natural gas, describing it as a moral choice. “We have to decide if we’re going to sit around for someone else to look after us or are we going to take responsibility for looking after our own future,” he said. “We can’t refuse to exploit our resources and continue to pay our doctors, social workers and civil servants and maintain our robust social safety net. As long as people believe they can have it all, they will not face the hard choices that need to be made.” McKenna, who sits on the board of Canadian Natural, one of the largest independent crude oil and natural gas producers in the world, said it was normal for people to be nervous about an industry or practice they don’t know well. He recounted that when plans for the Point Lepreau nuclear plant near Saint John were first explained to New Brunswickers in the early 1980s, the furious opposition that erupted make today’s shale gas protests seem tame in comparison. Yet there’s now no bigger supporter of nuclear energy in Canada than New Brunswick, he said. There was a similar reaction when his Liberal government decided to close what he called 365 rat-infested dumps and replaced them with 12 new sanitary regional landfills. “You’d think we’d declared war on the citizenry – not in our backyard. It’s virtually a non-issue today. An even bigger issue was when we were trying to build a bridge to Prince Edward Island. It felt like we had just torn out the heart of the fishermen and the farmers, and the people of Prince Edward Island thought we were going to take them over. Today, I would say virtually 100 per cent of people on both sides would say this is a good deal.” Try to build a nuclear plant in Alberta, McKenna said, and you’d probably have enormous protests. By contrast, most Albertans are comfortable with fracking because it’s been done there for a long time. “Familiarity is like sunlight – it illuminates everything in its presence. We need more illumination in the current shale gas debate in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. More light, and less heat.” Oil and gas royalties raked in by other provinces are sizable: Alberta will score $7.7 billion worth, Saskatchewan $1.4 billion and Newfoundland $2 billion. New Brunswick, meanwhile, will earn less than $100 million this year and remains a poorer, have-not province. New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon said McKenna was suffering from old-school thinking. Instead of oil and gas development, Coon wants to see development of a green building sector, local food and agriculture, renewable energy, renewable power, the bioscience sector, a re-designed forest products sector and a revitalized tourism sector, among others. “Frank McKenna is as gloomy and negative as the just defeated Tory government,” Coon said Friday. “We have the opportunity to build a vibrant new economy in New Brunswick if we set sustainability and fairness as its goals. We have tremendous opportunities to strengthen the economies of both our cities and rural communities, creating meaningful, lasting work for New Brunswickers. Young families will want to move to New Brunswick if we are successful in becoming a beacon of sustainability in Canada.” McKenna believes opposition to shale gas development in New Brunswick isn’t as strong as some people believe. The only party that pledged to stop shale gas development entirely was the Green Party, which won 6.6 per cent of the popular vote, he pointed out. Meanwhile, thousands of people from Atlantic Canada work out west in the oil and gas industry. “Let’s ask them what they think of these industries. Let’s ask them about safety, health, environment, drinking water all those things we worry about here. Let’s ask New Brunswickers who actually work in those industries, the Joe Lunchbucket people who have no reason to lie to us, but actually make their livelihood and bring their money home from working in these industries.”
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 22:29:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015