Montreal-area mayors’ Energy East criticisms ‘short sighted,’ Notley says

When Coderre made his announcement Thursday on behalf of 82 communities in the Montreal area, he said the pipeline “still represents significant environmental threats and too few economic benefits for greater Montreal”.

TransCanada’s proposed 4600 km and CAN$15.7 billion Energy East pipeline is set to transport 1.1 million bpd of oil from the Alberta oilsands and Saskatchewan, to the East Coast. We realized that when you build it, you can say it will bring this or that, and it will create so many jobs.

“Everyone loses if we destroy our resource economy”.

Brad Wall had a sharp response, saying in a statement it was a “sad day for our country”, that the mayors were being “parochial” about the project, and that it would benefit all of Canada including the Montreal municipalities.

Coderre said the project is worth about $2 million a year in economic benefits to the Montreal area, while the cleanup of a major oil spill could cost between $1 billion and $10 billion.

Jan 22 Canadian pipeline operator TransCanada Corp has started trading oil through a new liquids trading group based in Calgary, Alberta, a spokesman for the company confirmed on Friday.

Municipal leaders who don’t recognize that the proposed Energy East pipeline would be beneficial to all Canadians are being “short-sighted”, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said Friday as an east-versus-west energy brawl percolated.

Earlier in the day, Jean called the mayor’s opposition to the pipeline “disgraceful” and noted that Quebec has taken $72 billion in transfer payments over the past decade, with much of that money coming from Alberta.

“Montreal buys millions of barrels of foreign oil from dictatorships, but it is rejecting oil from their friends in Confederation”.

Maybe he would have been impressed by Notley’s plan to reduce Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out coal-fired electricity plants, putting a cap on oilsands emissions and introducing a carbon tax.

In December, TransCanada filed an amended application to remove an export terminal in Quebec – one of two originally planned for the project – because of opposition by environmentalists.

“Trudeau already said that pipelines projects must be accepted by the local communities before they get approved”, said spokesman Patrick Bonin.