Saint John-Rothesay MP Wayne Long was a big proponent of the Energy East pipeline and is disappointed it won’t be moving ahead.
Long says there were a lot of changed circumstances that TransCanada’s Russ Girling referred to in his statement. According to Long, these included approval of the Keystone pipeline and the drop in the world price of oil.
“I think as a region and a riding there was a lot of hope and high expectations of what Energy East and the pipeline could bring,” says Long.
“You have to have buy-in from the provinces and communities that that pipeline goes through, if you don’t this project would’ve been caught up in litigation and courts for the next 50 years. It’s not realistic to think you can just do something anyway against a province or community’s will.”
He argues the decision would have been the same had the Conservatives been in power.
Meantime, Saint John Mayor Don Darling admits he had a gut feeling the pipeline would not proceed despite recently going to Calgary in support of the project.
“We’re disappointed, nothing is going to change for me, we’re going to get back to work here this morning on growth and trying to keep on our lands on the levers that we can control,” says Darling.
“Hopefully the business climate and the conditions will change someday in the future, projects like Energy East, projects like Point Lepreau II, projects like expansions of industrial assets that we have here may be possible.”
This was an opportunity for our Country to come together and we failed. How would mayor feel if we blocked bombardier or dumping in river? https://t.co/1EPSaCaI1x
— Don Darling (@dondarlingSJ) October 5, 2017
