Turn the page on Energy East and set our sights on clean energy construction jobs, says Corbett

Our Executive Director, Lois Corbett, told the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal in a story published Sept. 9 that the promise of thousands of construction jobs for New Brunswickers isn’t dead — it’s just not in building pipelines.

“I think if we turned the page and got serious about investing in the new economy, the new types of jobs in energy efficiency and renewables, we would create those jobs very quickly and we don’t need the National Energy Board’s approval to do it,” Corbett said.

“If we want to create, say, 1,000 jobs, we need to take those young woman and young men in hard hats and get them working on rebuilding in construction. We can employ the same people: electricians, pipefitters, builders in trades.”

Corbett’s comments came on the heels of an announcement by the National Energy Board (NEB) that the review of the proposed Energy East pipeline project had been suspended for 30 days following a request from the proponent, TransCanada.

In a letter filed with the NEB on Sept. 7, the company said it requires more time to study how the NEB’s revised list of issues, which has expanded the scope of evidence the regulator will consider in its review of Energy East, will affect the viability of the project.

The NEB released the revised list of issues on Aug. 23. Most notable among the changes, the country’s energy regulator said it would consider both upstream emissions (pollution at the oil’s source) and downstream emissions (pollution when the oil is refined and burned) in deciding if Energy East should be approved — something the Conservation Council, and many groups across the country, have been pushing for years.

But Corbett said claims from TransCanada that the NEB’s new pollution test is the biggest thing holding the project back aren’t true.

“The real significant change, despite all the caterwauling of the industry, is not environmental regulations — it’s the market,” she told the Telegraph-Journal. “When this big, long, very expensive project was introduced, the price of oil was quite a bit higher than it is now.”

The price of oil has dropped by nearly half since the project was first announced in 2013.

TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline would stretch 4,600 kilometres from Alberta to Saint John, making it the first oil pipeline to span the length of New Brunswick. It would pump diluted bitumen from the oil sands in Alberta and Saskatchewan to Saint John for export via supertankers in the Bay of Fundy.

*Lois Corbett statement (1:12min – 1:35min)

Recommended Links

  • Read more about the Conservation Council’s work to protect freshwater and communities in the Bay of Fundy from TransCanada’s risky Energy East pipeline, here.

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