The Things That Government And The Oil Industry Does Not Want You To Know!

Transcription by André Faust (June 10, 2017)

André Faust: I’m here with Mark D’Arcy of the Council of Canadians. In your press release, you made reference to secrecy in relationship to the pipeline. In what context do you mean that?

Mark D’Arcy: Energy will be the largest pipeline project ever constructed here in North America. There is a two-year review process, it been held up because a controversy and the original National Energy Board Panel actually was forced to resign and so this whole project has been delayed. One obstacle after another being put off by the government’s unwillingness to be public with the law of risks associated with the tar sands and the bitumen pipeline.

So here in New Brunswick, we had no public meetings only one by the city of Edmunston because of their watershed, drinking water watershed being traversed by the proposed pipeline route that is it!

No other public meetings in the province whatsoever over the last three years four years this project review, and why is that. The waterways you see in behind men the St. John River, the Nashwaak River, multiple crossings by this long pipeline route over the tributaries leading into these rivers system.

Tar sand bitumen is very different from conventional oil it will actually form tar balls and then those sink to the bottom and aggressively stick to the sentiment. Very, very difficult to get the lion’s share 20 to 30 percent of the bitumen will stick to these waterways after a major spill as seen by the North Saskatchewan River as seen last year as well as the Kalamazoo River in Michigan back in 2010.

A lot of these risks of the tar sand bitumen pipeline the government and its proponents, TransCanada and Irving do not want the public to know about them.

The watershed there is catastrophic long-term damage to the waterways and acutely the communities along the pipeline route there is a severe acute health risk to be exposed to a tar sand bitumen pipeline spill.

There would have to be early warning air raid sirens installed in the communities along the waterways where a potential spill would enter. People would have to be evacuated immediately because of the very neural toxic chemicals that are used to dilute the tar sands bitumen.

This is not something you fool around with and unfortunately there are has been no real math provided, no community notification along the pipeline route here in New Brunswick, and you when you look at the accumulative effect of all of that, people have been left in the dark. So there is complete secrecy by TransCanada, by Irving, by the lobbyist which includes the government of New Brunswick and the Government of Canada, and they don’t want the community to know one; the route and two; the extreme risk that tar sands bitumen pipe line will put their watershed at.

André Faust: Thank you, Mark

Mark D’Arcy: Thank you.

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TransCanada and Energy East Kissing New Brunswick Ass to get Pipeline through

Editorial

By André Faust

The propaganda never stops, TransCanada Pipeline and Canada East have invaded social media to persuade public opinion that the pipeline is the magic bullet that is going to pull New Brunswick out of bowels of depth to a have province that will be the of the rest of Canada.

What they don’t tell you is that on average there is 3 major critical malfunctions in the pipeline per year that has cause major environmental damage, and billions of tax payers money to clean up their mess.

What they do tell you is the 100 of thousands a jobs that the construction of the pipeline will create, If those numbers are correct they are not going to be New Brunswick Jobs, that not to say that they will be a few jobs created in New Brunswick to construct the pipeline, a few contractors will stand to make good dollars in the short term, the bulk of the jobs will go to Alberta, possibly Ontario.

There will be a few jobs created at the Irving terminal, but the number of jobs are not going to be significant enough to really effect the New Brunswick Economy. At the end of the project there will be two Winners, Alberta because they will be able to get their land locked bitumen to world Market via the Irving terminal, and Irving. For the rest of us we won’t see much a change in the quality of life.

Currently the Liberal Government has already created more jobs in the province then what the pipeline could create, early indicators are that this tread is going to continue.
According to Fredericton Mayor Mike O’Brien, the population of Fredericton is expected to reach 100,000 by non-pipeline jobs by the year 2035. That is just Fredericton. The rest of New Brunswick is expecting to see significant population growth as well.

We are moving in the direction to depend less on getting energy from fossil fuels, which really is an inefficient use of that resource. Oil is not only used for energy but it is chemical base for many of our products as well. So let’s save our oil for our products, Oil, natural gas and so on is a finite resource that has trap the suns energy. With our current science and physics we still can’t produce artificial oil.

What taken the earth millions of years to create we can consume it in several hundred years if we keep using fossil fuel as a primary source for energy.

Currently it is either Hibernia or Sable island, it one of those two that is going to run out of natural gas in less than five years.

When they come knocking to our doors trying to bullshit us about this magic bullet, we know what finger to use to express thyself.

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The Harmony Project A Response to Aggressive Pipeline Marketing

Transcription of Video by André Faust

Look what they done to my yard ma! The words uttered after a catastrophic environmental disaster cause by Industry and the profiteers.

Today we are launching the harmony project, a pipeline art project throughout over 400 kilometres of proposed pipeline route of the energy east of the pipeline in the Province of New Brunswick, today the people of this province are taking a lead in mapping out the proposed route of this huge 42 inch tar sands pipeline.

This is a public awareness and opposition building campaign. The reason for this campaign is that communities across this province have been kept in the dark about the exact route of the proposed tar sand pipeline and the risk and impact of this pipeline to their communities.

TransCanada, the National Energy board and Brian Gallant’s government have failed to provide even basic information such as easy to read and understandable maps. This is in contrast to the Kinder Morgan trans mountain pipeline proposal on the west coast of Canada where the National Energy board and that company the public can easily access zoomable maps of the pipeline route and easy to read and access detail maps.

Here the TransCanada, National Energy Board, Brian Gallant’s government have failed to provide public meetings. They have failed to provide writes and impacts specific to New Brunswick through province environmental impact assessments, and they have failed to provide even the basic maps of the route through our New Brunswick Communities.

The question that I ask to everyone today. Would you trust a large resource company and government that refuses to answer questions in public? and would you trust large resource company and government that refuses to provide the basic tools and maps to understand where the pipeline is going through their water shed and community?

I really see the Harmony Project, I like just like provide a few closing comments, the Harmony Project really is the people in this province taking command of the situation. The time line has just been announced by the National Energy Board for the Energy East review process, and we have panel meetings starting as early as September this fall here in this province, and TransCanada, the province of New Brunswick, National Energy Board have basically run out of time.
The citizens of this province, the indigenous people who we share this land with we have to take control of the situation.

The Harmony Project I see is a celebration of the intelligence the resilience and the history of this amazing part of the world and Anglophone, francophone we make up a small percentage maybe two or three percent of the human history of this province. The Harmony Project embraces the huge history times an memorial.

We have the creation the tree of life on the Harmony Project poster. The artwork that we are using is from the indigenous culture, and I think that all of us the Anglophone, the Francophone, the indigenous communities are coming together in harmony to show that we are all connected by this huge vast water basin. It is one of the largest watershed on the eastern seaboard and it’s the worst possible location for forty-two-inch tar sand pipeline.

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Poster

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TransCanada Gets Punked At Premier’s Reception

(FREDERICTON) The local Fredericton chapter of the Council of Canadians punked TransCanada last night at the Fredericton Convention Centre. TransCanada was the official ‘Premier’s Reception Sponsor’ of Premier Brian Gallant’s 2016 State of the Province Address.

Volunteer members of the Council of Canadians chapter handed out “Free Drink Tickets” with the logo ‘SaveCanada’ to people entering the Convention Centre (see attached pictures of tickets).  Maggie Connell of the chapter explains, “On the back of the tickets were messages that drew attention to the considerable risks that the Energy East pipeline project would have for our drinking water as well as our future economic prosperity.”

This attention on the dangers of Energy East is well-deserved.

Trans Canada continues to hold out hope for its proposed Energy East pipeline that would see tar sands BITUMEN pumped from Alberta to the Fundy Bay for storage and export, 1.1 million barrels of the stuff every day. Doesn’t sound too bad if you say it fast. 281 is not really such a big number either – that’s how many critical waterways it would cross along its journey through New Brunswick, many of those representing the sole drinking water supply for entire communities. Shhhh…. TransCanada must plan carefully to bring their pipe dream to fruition without attracting too much public attention. But how?

1.  Negotiate with public officials and without the presence of the public. Last week a leaked document, drafted by the Edmundston City Council, highlighting conditions to be met by TransCanada: 1. That TC must identify an alternate to the area’s sole drinking water source, 2. That TC must construct and maintain a water treatment plant and 3. That TC undertake cleanup costs in the event of a spill. (Note: In speaking of the dangers to the Montreal drinking water, Mayor Denis Coderre said that “A major oil spill in the region could cost $10 billion.”) Council has scheduled an open public meeting on Feb.11th to hear citizen’s concerns. OOPS.

2.  Control information to the public by: a) Holding trade-show style information sessions where discussions are kept to one-on-one. (Citizens must never be able to measure the degree of social opposition.) And evict all citizens who ask too many questions; b) Deny all official requests for open public meetings, especially from the community of Red Head, Fredericton City Council, and the Wolastoq Grand Council;  c) Simply lie. Tell them (with confidence) that bitumen, the heavy tar sands planned for the pipes, floats on water and is easily recovered in the off-chance of a spill, and hope they don’t check the facts. OOPS.

3.  Conduct slight-of-hand spill analysis studies, quietly replacing the offending BITUMEN with Bakken crude oil, thereby generating more favourable data. That the unconventional BITUMEN is vastly different to this shale oil and conventional oil, in both its composition and behaviour, shouldn’t matter much – aren’t New Brunswickers mostly illiterate anyway? OOPS.

4.  Sponsor high-end events where participants are those most likely to cooperate and entrance fees are sufficiently stiff enough to keep out the riffraff.

The 2016 State Of The Province address was held last night at the Fredericton Convention Centre. The $250/person event included a Premier’s Reception, sponsored by none other than TransCanada. The elite event attracted a sold out crowd of business leaders… and some ‘riffraff’. OOPS.

As business folks filed into the convention centre last night, they were met by a number of suits who politely directed them and passed out free tickets, entitling the bearer to the following:
– Free water treatment facility for your community;
– Free location services for alternate drinking water sources for your community;
– First $1 Billion of a possible $2-10 Billion cleanup for a spill in your local waterway or Bay;
– Miss Out on funding from the new $17 Billion Federal Infrastructure program for clean economy projects; and
– Free job counselling services for your community, post-pipeline construction.

Despite the National Energy Board’s recent failing grade from the Federal Commissioner of the Environment, this press release will be sent by registered letter to the National Energy Board from the Council of Canadians, Fredericton Chapter, to be properly documented as part of the review process, under ‘citizen input’. New Brunswickers shall NOT be duped.

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22 groups call for TransCanada to stop planned borehole testing in the Bay of Fundy

(FREDERICTON) A coalition of 22 community and environmental groups have issued a joint letter which has been sent today by registered letter to TransCanada, the National Energy Board, and appropriate heads of government departments at the Federal, Provincial and Municipal level.

A 6-page work plan has come to their attention which shows TransCanada is days away from borehole testing off the shore of Red Head, New Brunswick in the Bay of Fundy. One of the large barges necessary for this work is already being put into position.

“TransCanada has not informed the residents at the end of the line in Red Head in Saint John,” says Lynaya Astephen, spokesperson for Red Head Anthony’s Cove Preservation Association. “No testing of wells or foundations has been done. And this is prime time for migratory birds and the endangered right whale. There’s a lack of transparency with this company.”

“Notice of the imminent work was kept from our people,” confirms Ron Tremblay, spokesperson for the Wolastoq Grand Council. “As a member of the Wolastoq Grand Council and Wolastoq Nation, I stand firm on the protection of our lands, water and air. The area that the proposed testing will take place is our tradition land and shoreline where our people fished, gathered and flourished from the vast supply of food and medicine. Additional damage to the area will further destroy the traditional territory of the Wolastoq People. I strongly oppose any testing or industrial disaster in our homeland.”

“The regulatory and consultation process appears to be missing,” says Caroline Lubbe-D’Arcy, past Co-chair and member of the Council of Canadians – Fredericton chapter. “If TransCanada has failed to follow due diligence with all necessary government agencies, this really is a wake-up call for how this entire Energy East project may proceed.”

In their joint statement, the 22 groups urge TransCanada and appropriate government agencies to act immediately, “Given the lack of consultation and long list of concerns we are requesting that all work on borehole testing be stopped until these concerns are addressed. Why would TransCanada conduct this work just as migratory birds and whales are coming into the Bay of Fundy in increasing numbers in August & September?”

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