Ottawa

Pipeline to Atlantic Canada: the ball’s in your court, Mme Marois

TransCanada moves ahead with east-west pipeline

Keep an eye on those subordinate clauses:

The Energy East pipeline would deliver some 850,000 barrels of crude a day from Western Canada to Quebec and New Brunswick, serving the three refineries in the two provinces. The project – labelled a “nation builder” by New Brunswick Premier David Alward – has been endorsed by provincial and federal politicians, though Quebec Premier Pauline Marois said last week her province would have to study the proposal once TransCanada releases its detailed plans.

I wrote in March about Marois’s surprising turn away from ostentatious environmentalism toward low-key but diligent courting of Alberta oil companies. Note especially, in that article, the bit about how the province’s environmentalist groups, which had considered Marois a steady ally, suddenly feel a bit like Charlie Brown after his annual shot at Lucy’s football.

How would public hearings on the TransCanada project go? What effect would they have on what has been, since its election not quite a year ago, one of the least popular governments in Canada? Surely Marois is asking herself the same question.

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