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

Source: The Canadian Press
Jan 22, 2016

TORONTO _ Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says municipal leaders who don’t recognize that the proposed Energy East pipeline would be beneficial to all Canadians are being “short-sighted.”

Notley, in Toronto today meeting with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, was responding to Montreal-area mayors who oppose the TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) project and say the environmental risks far outweigh any economic benefits for that region.

Notley says denying the fact that resource-based industries are part of Canada’s economy “weakens all parts of the country.”

TransCanada has said pipelines are safer and more environmentally friendly than rail for transporting oil, and Notley also echoed those comments today.

The proposed pipeline would take Alberta crude as far east as an Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, N.B., and would be capable of carrying up to 1.1 million barrels a day from the West to the East.

Wynne says that many of Ontario’s conditions for supporting the pipeline _ including working with communities and aboriginal groups and making sure climate change is taken into account _ are “starting to be addressed.”

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