The long tally sheet of rejections just got even longer after TransCanada refused three more opportunities here in New Brunswick to answer questions in public about Energy East:
– TransCanada stays away from CBC phone-in show because of “scheduling conflicts” on a Sunday afternoon (hear podcast CBC Maritime Connection, Jan. 30, 2016)
– TransCanada refuses to hold a public meeting with the residents of Red Head (see CBC article, Feb. 1, 2016). This latest rejection is the most distressing one for their community. TransCanada recently announced their Energy East proposal to expand the marine terminal in the middle of their community to an astonishing 22 storage tanks holding 13.2 million barrels and a marine terminal bringing in up to 280 supertankers per year.
– TransCanada responds to a public meeting on Energy East announced by the City of Edmundston on February 11th by scheduling a tradeshow style Open House in Saint John on the same night of February 11th. The City of Edmundston’s format will be a question-and-answer format for the audience with simultaneous translation, whereas TransCanada will again limit their Open House to one-on-one conversations and threaten people with arrest if they take pictures or video.
Ironically, these 3 rejections by TransCanada came just days after the company was the ‘Premier’s Reception Sponsor’ of the NB Premier Brian Gallant’s State of the Province Address in Fredericton last Thursday. TransCanada found the time and money to mingle with the 1000 people who gathered from the business community of the province ($200-$250/ticket), but not the +1500 residents of Red Head.
The local Fredericton chapter of the Council of Canadians is speaking up about this mounting secrecy by TransCanada in New Brunswick. Even the City of Fredericton’s request for a public meeting was refused by TransCanada. The absurb and unacceptable practice of TransCanada not answering questions in public lead the chapter to “punk” TransCanada at last Thursday’s Premier’s Reception and State of the Province Address. They handed out ‘Free Drink Tickets’ to people coming into the Conference Centre, tickets that used the logo from Save-Canada.com and included messages of the risks to drinking water and prosperity from these large export tar sands pipelines.
The Fredericton chapter is sending their Press Release (see below) together with a formal complaint letter to the National Energy Board (NEB) about the lack of public consultation and trustworthy information from TransCanada. They want this filed as evidence in the NEB’s review process for the Energy East Project.
Stay tuned as the welcome mat for TransCanada has worn out here in New Brunswick.
