Tag Archives: Donald Arseneault

Jun 03 2015
Leave a comment
Economy, Energy, Oil and Gas, Politics

Lies our province tells them

IMG_0261

When I go abroad, I never fail to remind my felicitous hosts that New Brunswick enjoys the finest temperatures in the western world: Here, it never drops below zero, and, here, it never rises above room temperature.

Gosh, friends, it hardly ever snows.

I also tell my international confreres that the province where I currently hang my many toques bustles with sustainable, environmentally benign industries; its rural communities are economic dynamos that support entrepreneurial vigor and verve; its cities are jewels of downtown, cultural development; its public accounts are balanced; and, oh gee-whiz let’s just be honest, its future is as bright as the North Star on a late November night.

When I yak this way the English think I’m mildly amusing; the Scots couldn’t care less. In fact, only the Irish know that I am lying through my rose-colored shot glasses (after all, in their post Celtic-tiger phase, they should know blarney when they hear it). Fortunately, for representatives of this provincial government, the Americans are just a wee bit more gullible.

For, when New Brunswick’s cohort of trade officers and assorted politicos tells a Texas crowd of energy poo-bahs just how wonderful shale-gas development opportunities in New Brunswick might someday become, they may as well be speaking to a roomful of kindergartners. (Oddly enough, that’s exactly how New Brunswick’s cabinet members prefer to address the citizens who elected them on just about every subject anyway).

As John Chilibeck of the Saint John Telegraph-Journal reported earlier this week, “a moratorium on fracking hasn’t stopped the New Brunswick government from advertising the potential for a shale gas industry in the province. At an energy conference in Houston, an officer with Opportunities New Brunswick recently set up a booth showing a poster of shale gas formations in North America, including the possibility of deposits in New Brunswick.”

Did someone not get the memo?

It reads something like this, courtesy of the provincial government’s own website on the matter: “The moratorium (on fracking) will not be lifted unless there is social license in place; clear and credible information about the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on our health, environment and water, allowing us to develop country-leading regulatory regime with sufficient enforcement capabilities; a plan that mitigates the impacts on our public infrastructure and that addresses issues such as waste water disposal; a process in place to respect our obligations under the duty to consult with First Nations; a mechanism in place to ensure that benefits are maximized for New Brunswickers, including the development of a proper royalty structure.”

That’s a fairly tall order and, if I’m not very much mistaken, you can’t put it on a poster even if your eat-and-have-cake heart desires to.

Lamentably, Energy and Mines Minister Donald Arseneault appears to struggle with the conundrum. Responding to the news, he noted, somewhat confusingly, “Putting a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing doesn’t mean you can’t have conventional drilling as well. And a moratorium does not mean you have to stop promoting the province as a place to invest. We can’t hide from the fact we have a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing.”

Fine, but then why advertise to an international audience the province’s vast shale-gas reserves – resources that can only be obtained through fracking – when we have not yet crafted a commercially viable plan for lifting the injunction on the very technology that makes the business rational?

When this government goes abroad, it should remember that truth is a far better drawing card for investment than the banal and wretched alternative.

Tagged , , , , ,
Nov 11 2014
Leave a comment
Business, Energy, Environment, Government, Oil and Gas

A moratorium that’s missing in action

DSC_0026

Something has put the swagger back into Steve Moran’s step. The CEO of Corridor Resources is pulling his best impression of Mad Magazine’s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, these days. What, him fret?

“We’re a little bit worried about the short term, but over the long term, no, we’re not as concerned,” he told the Telegraph-Journal last week, regarding the New Brunswick government’s decision to slap a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in shale gas development.

“We think government officials understand the potential of the resource here and we think that once they feel they have addressed their issues in terms of health and safety that they will come around and that we’ll be back to work. . .We are confident that, over time, we will work our way through this moratorium.”

All of which raises an interesting question: What moratorium would that be?

The new Liberal government of Brian Gallant has been threatening to level a temporary ban on fracking since long before their election win.

Indeed, it’s not too hyperbolic to say that more words have been expended on the potential perils to human health of hydraulic fracturing than there has been gas extracted from the ground.

Here’s the new premier on the subject two weeks ago: “We believe there should be a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing due to the lack of information concerning the risks to our environment, our health, and our water. I think it’s important for people to know what we’re concerned about – it’s the process of extraction called hydraulic fracturing.”

Now, here’s Energy Minister Donald Arseneault just last week at the New Brunswick Exploration, Mining and Petroleum conference: “We have a clear mandate from the people and a very consistent message over the last two years that we want a moratorium on the shale gas industry. We had a clear mandate on election day to move forward on that and that’s what we are going to bring forward in the near future.”

Again, when, exactly, would that be?

In reality, it is not at all clear that the Liberals have received a “clear mandate from the people” on this issue. Some surveys conducted before, during and after the election campaign indicated that the public in this province is deeply divided on hydraulic fracturing. If anything, the edge seems to go to the pro-gas lobby as long as the industry can provide credible, verifiable assurances about its safety practices and environmental stewardship.

Neither is it clear that Messrs. Gallant and Arseneault are singing the same tune, let alone from the same song sheet.

There’s a big difference between slapping a ban on the shale gas industry, as Mr. Arseneault is mumbling about doing, and carefully parsing the distinction between hydraulic fracturing and other methods of resource extraction, as Premier Gallant is wont to do.

One definitively slams the door; the other leaves it open just a crack.

Of course, in this parade of mixed messages, Mr. Aresneault has been a marvelous band leader.

On the tricky position into which any sort of moratorium would put Corridor Resources and its gas customer Potash Corp., the minister weaved for the Telegraph-Journal earlier this month:

“The last thing we want to do is potentially put certain operations in jeopardy. For me, PotashCorp is a major player in New Brunswick. It’s a concern for me. It doesn’t mean that it gives everybody a green light, but it’s definitely in the back of my mind that I’ve got to be conscious and responsible going forward.”

As to the fate of PotashCorp’s new Picadilly mine without ready supplies of fracked natural gas, Mr. Arseneault said, “Those are the questions we are going to be asking the company. If we didn’t impose a moratorium, what is the activity they have planned for the next couple of years? Having a moratorium, how will it impact their operation? Will it impact potash? We haven’t settled on a specific menu other than we know there will be a moratorium.”

But, I wonder if that’s even certain anymore.

Indeed, Steve Moran, is there something you’re not telling us?

Tagged , , , ,
Nov 01 2014
Leave a comment
Energy, Environment, Oil and Gas

What’s the fracking story, already?

On the endlessly controversial subject of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in this province, New Brunswick’s Liberal leadership has, in the span of just one month, gone from reliably hard-headed to unpredictably incoherent.

Here’s Premier-designate Brian Gallant talking to the CBC, following his election win last month: “There will be a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing and those businesses (oil and gas explorers), I’m sure, are not surprised. This has been talked about, discussed and debated as a province for months if not years now. . .I think we have jurisdictions around us where I think we’ll be able to pull some of their experiences, how exactly this should be instituted, what’s the best way to go about it and what are the next steps.”

He even speculated almost sanguinely about the possibility that one or more of the drilling operations might sue the province as a result of his determination to the toe the environmentally expedient line: “(A legal action) is certainly something that could become a reality. We recognize that. We will certainly meet with (shale gas companies) and we will explain why our position is what it is.”

Now, here’s newly appointed Minister of Energy and Mines Donald Arseneault explaining to the Telegraph-Journal this week that he is well aware of the relationship between Corridor Resources and PotashCorp – in which the former supplies the latter with fracked, New Brunswick gas and has for years.

“The last thing we want to do is potentially put certain operations in jeopardy. For me, PotashCorp is a major player in New Brunswick. It’s a concern for me. It doesn’t mean that it gives everybody a green light, but it’s definitely in the back of my mind that I’ve got to be conscious and responsible going forward.”

To which the averagely informed, casually interested follower of the public-policy follies that constitute a permanent entertainment event in Fredericton (regardless of the party in power) might react thusly: Huh?

Does this mean the Grits are backtracking on their promise to temporarily forbid fracking? Or is their position merely, as the spin doctors like to say, “evolving”?

A more urgent question concerns the fate of PotashCorp’s new Picadilly mine without ready supplies of fracked natural gas. “That’s a valid point,” Mr. Arseneault told the T-J. “And those are the questions we are going to be asking the company. If we didn’t impose a moratorium, what is the activity they have planned for the next couple of years? Having a moratorium, how will it impact their operation? Will it impact potash? We haven’t settled on a specific menu other than we know there will be a moratorium.”

Again: Huh?

Dear reader, now to recap:

There will be a moratorium on fracking at some point in the near, to mid-term, to distant, future. But whether or not it will be a comprehensive, province-wide ban or a series of selective prohibitions depends entirely on whether or not the injunction injures the fortunes of one of the province’s largest industries.

In this instance, concern for the water table – the moral justification of the moratorium in the first place – takes a back seat to the more pragmatic realities of economic development.

Then again, the mere fact that Corridor has been operating in New Brunswick without incident for 10 years at least raises the possibility that drilling for tight shale gas – either hydraulically or with propane – can, in fact, be done both safely and responsibly. And, so, the purpose of a moratorium becomes what, exactly?

Mr. Arseneault appears to suggest it’s partly about election-campaign promise fulfillment – the Grit’s analogue to the previous Tory government’s refusal to consider raising the HST even a little just because, while running for office, they said they wouldn’t.

“At the end of the day,” the minister said, “our principals don’t change – we are going to implement a moratorium. I didn’t lie about it (to industry). I made that very clear. But we just need to determine now with the information that we gathered from them and other stakeholders as well as what kind of moratorium we want to implement.”

In other words, just as soon as this new government gets its story straight.

Tagged , , , ,
%d bloggers like this: