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NEWS: Council of Canadians calls on Ontario’s next premier to ban fracking

Photo in NOW magazine.

Photo in NOW magazine.

NOW magazine in Toronto reports, “Is fracking in Ontario’s future? A three-year drilling program to assess the province’s shale gas development potential supposedly shows ‘no indication that Ontario hosts economic reserves of shale gas,’ according to one Liberal government spokesperson. But the government has left open the possibility, should reserves be found, that it could allow the controversial technique known as fracking, which uses millions of gallons of water mixed with toxic chemicals to tap natural gas deep underground. The Council of Canadians has called for a province-wide moratorium on fracking, but none of the six candidates running for the Liberal leadership has yet committed to a ban. PC leader Tim Hudak, who’s pushing for a moratorium on wind farms, met late last year with Enbridge execs to talk shale gas development. In the U.S., fracking has caused widespread contamination of groundwater.”

The leadership convention will take place January 25-26 in Toronto. The winner will become Ontario’s next premier, replacing Dalton McGuinty. A recent poll shows that the front-runners are Sandra Pupatelllo (with the support of 27 per cent of elected delegates), Kathleen Wynne (25 per cent), and Gerard Kennedy (14 per cent).

To tell the Ontario Liberal leadership candidates that you don’t support fracking, please go to ‘ACTION ALERT: Shale gas in Ontario? No fracking way!’, written by Council of Canadians water campaigner Emma Lui, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=18573.

To read about this demand reported in the Globe and Mail, Chatham Daily News, and the Fort Erie Times, go to http://canadians.org/blog/?p=18058. The NOW magazine article is at http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=190814.