Speaking to a business crowd on Monday Morning, Ambrose said one community will likely be the death of the TransCanada project. “I’ve got to be totally honest with you, I just don’t see how it’s going to happen,” Ambrose told Conservative Party audience members at the Toronto Region Board of Trade, reports CTV News.
Back in November last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the Trans Mountain and Line 3 pipeline expansions while killing the Northern Gateway pipeline project that would have run through northern British Columbia’s Great Bear Rain Forest.
Ambrose was not subtle, suggesting that Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, who has voiced strong opposition to the 4,500-kilometer (2,796 mile) pipeline, will “never change his mind,” according to Canada’s Global News.
Ambrose explained that even if Energy East gets through all the National Energy Board hearings, there are still hundreds of conditions attached to it when it is approved. Trudeau’s Liberal government has already said the project must have a “social license” attached if it wants to move forward.
What is a “social license?” Simply put, a social license is a community’s acceptance or approval of a project. It has become a generally acceptable prerequisite to development or a prolonged presence in the community. Quite often, it is intangible and informal, but this type of “good feelings” license is just as powerful as any regulatory license.
Ambrose has been touting the benefits of the Energy East pipeline, pointing out she was specifically talking about “Atlantic Canada,” saying, “it’s not a booming economy. These are really important jobs in a place like New Brunswick. Potentially a new refinery could be built, we’re talking thousands of jobs.”
Energy East has responded to the opposition, saying they have been listening to the opposition and issues raised by the mayors and stakeholders in the Montreal region as well as those citizens with objections along the proposed Energy East route.
“Energy East is a project serving markets including refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick, which currently depend on hundreds of thousands of barrels of imported crude oil every day. That demand has not changed, nor has our commitment,” spokesman Tim Duboyce said in an email to CTV News Canada.
The Energy East website points to a study conducted by the Conference Board of Canada that points out that “Energy East will support approximately 14,000 full-time jobs across the country during the development and construction stages of the project. Of these, more than 3,771 full-time and spinoff jobs will go to people in New Brunswick.”
