Premier Brian Gallant served as keynote speaker at a conference of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA) in Fredericton Thursday.
Gallant, who’s staunchly in favour of the Energy East project, spoke to the room of executives and members about the need to converse with residents to lay safety fears to rest and drum up the necessary support.
“We have to show New Brunswickers and Canadians that projects like the Energy East pipeline, your industry, the energy industry, cares deeply about safety.
Edmundston voicing concern over the proposed route is the latest in a growing trend – areas speaking up against the cross-country pipeline.
CEPA executives say they will continue to work with concerned parties to find solutions as they have in the past.
“Over the last two to three years we’ve actually been working very close with Edmundston, listening and talking about the route and looking at options,” said John Soini, President of the Energy East Pipeline Project. “We are more than happy to continue discussions about those options.”
“Pipelines are by far the safest mode of transportation of energy.” – John Soini
Premier Gallant remains optimistic that the Energy East pipeline will become a reality in the next few years but says doing so without the support of New Brunswickers isn’t how they’d like to proceed.
“Dialogue is the most important thing,” says Gallant. “This is a project that would create thousands of jobs but it’s also a very large project in scale so it’s normal that there will be communities that will have some preoccupations, questions, and comments and we certainly will make sure that they’re heard.”
Comments