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Premier speaks out against Quebec’s energy injunction

Mar 2, 2016 | 4:23 PM

Quebec’s injunction against TransCanada Corp’s Energy East pipeline does not sit well with the Saskatchewan Premier.

At the opening, March 1, of Husky Energy’s new Edam East project in Edam, Sask., Brad Wall accused Quebec Quebec is pitting East against West, “even if that was not their intent.”

Wall said he was disappointed with Quebec’s move and asked whether Canadians had forgotten their better natures in allowing this to happen to the energy sector.

“There is a certain generosity of spirit about Canadians when it comes to each other’s economic engines and economic viability, and that’s missing it seems with respect to energy of late,” he said.

Wall continued, saying that the Quebec government was promoting Canada’s reliance on foreign oil and putting the environment at risk by using rail rather than pipeline as transportation.

A study done last year by the Vancouver based Fraser Institute has shown that pipelines are 4 ½ times safer to transport oil through than transporting it by train or truck.

“Here is a shovel ready job that doesn’t require any federal dollars at all: the Energy East pipeline,” Wall said. “And, we have Quebec opposing it.”

Wall asked for a little support for the energy sector by having the Energy East pipeline approved, saying that the energy sector has “helped support transfer payments to have-not parts of the country now for decades.”

The Energy East Pipeline Project is a proposed pipeline network that will carry 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to Eastern Canadian refineries and an export terminal in Saint John, N.B. A substantial part of the pipeline already exists as a natural gas network and will be converted to carry oil.

The Quebec Government is seeking the injunction on the grounds that TransCanada Corp comply with Quebec’s provincial environmental laws and submit the Energy East project for a provincial environmental assessment.

 

dcairnsbrenner@jpbg.ca