{"id":193048,"date":"2018-12-08T01:47:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-08T06:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=193048"},"modified":"2018-12-08T01:47:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-08T06:47:35","slug":"quebec-slams-door-on-new-brunswicks-pipeline-dream-at-premiers-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/12\/08\/quebec-slams-door-on-new-brunswicks-pipeline-dream-at-premiers-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec slams door on New Brunswick’s pipeline dream at premiers’ meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs remained optimistic Friday that, someday, a pipeline would be built to bring western crude oil to ports in his region for transport overseas. (File Photo<\/a>
By Blaine Higgs\/Wikimedia <\/a>commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONTREAL \u2014 New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs remained optimistic Friday that, someday, a pipeline would be built to bring western crude oil to ports in his region for transport overseas. But the Quebec premier tried his best to kill that dream.<\/p>\n

While the prime minister and\u00a0Canada’s premiers found common ground on issues such as trade during their meeting in Montreal, they were confronted with the harsh reality that Quebec will not accept a pipeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that Alberta and the other provinces that produce oil want to find ways to get it (to tidewater), but I was very, very clear,\u201d Francois Legault told reporters after the closed-door meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no social acceptability for a pipeline that would pass through Quebec territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legault saw no contradiction in lobbying premiers Friday to buy more hydroelectricity from his province while rejecting western energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are offering an energy that is not expensive and is clean,\u201d Legault said. \u201cI am not embarrassed to refuse dirty energy while we are offering clean energy at a competitive price.\u201d<\/p>\n

TransCanada Corporation had proposed the $15.7-billion Energy East pipeline to bring western crude through Quebec and onwards to New Brunswick before being shipped overseas.<\/p>\n

The company abandoned the project more than a year ago, and a spokesperson recently said it has no plan to revive it.<\/p>\n

But despite the hurdles placed by TransCanada and Quebec, Higgs told reporters Friday he isn’t giving up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time I had a discussion with Mr. Legault (about the pipeline),\u201d Higgs said. \u201cI understand the political sensitivities. And the first process (for Energy East) was a flawed one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New Brunswick premier acknowledged Legault gave him \u201cno indication (the pipeline) will be a possibility \u2014 so I won’t pretend otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I am optimistic that if we work together with people in our province and his province and across the nation that we’ll find solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he remained hopeful, Higgs also offered a warning.<\/p>\n

The country is still very much dependent on oil revenues and if Alberta continues to suffer economically, it will hurt the entire country \u2014 regardless of how much hydroelectricity Quebec has.<\/p>\n

He said New Brunswick continues to receive federal equalization payments, which represent 30 per cent of the province’s budget.<\/p>\n

Quebec is also a major benefactor of equalization, while Alberta remains a \u201chave province\u201d that subsidizes others.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlberta has been feeding our kids for a long time with the royalties, with the money that has come from oil,\u201d Higgs said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern is how will the federal government continue to pay, how will transfer payments survive in the current form? Will the next message be that transfer payments need to be cut because the revenue is no longer there?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs remained optimistic Friday that, someday, a pipeline would be built to bring western …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":193052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-giuseppe-valiante","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}