The Office of the Ombudsman in New Brunswick has been inundated by complaints from residents concerned about fracking in that province. The CBC reports, “The acting ombudsman said the letters have been coming in for months and the office is trying to wade through all of them.”
The Council of Canadians helped push that over the top this week with our action alert that generated more than 1200 letters to the Ombudsman in one day. In our action alert, we demand that the Ombudsman advise the provincial Natural Resources minister, the Energy minister and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation minister to implement a moratorium on fracking until a strict set of criteria is met.
We generated so many letters that the Ombudsman has asked us to discontinue our alert. With our message clearly conveyed and heard, we have agreed to do so, but will closely monitor the recommendations that are made by the Ombudsman’s office, as well as the timeliness of that report.
CBC notes, “A new ombudsman, Charles Murray, was appointed on Friday. Murray is a civil servant and former political assistant to one-time Saint John Tory MP Elsie Wayne and to former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Brad Green.” He replaces Acting Ombudsman Jennifer Murray who is named in our action alert.
For more, please read:
Peaceful resistance to shale gas in NB may soon come to a head
UPDATE: Fredericton chapter calls for provincial fracking moratorium
