REGINA – Mayors and councillors from municipalities across the province are throwing their support behind the Energy East Pipeline.
An “emergency resolution” was added to the voting agenda at the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) conference on Tuesday, and passed with overwhelming support.
On Monday, the Mayor’s Caucus discussed concerns surrounding changes to the environmental oversight of pipeline projects.
While the Energy East pipeline won’t have to restart the application process, there are more regulatory steps it will have to go through in the approval process.
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This lead to the addition of the emergency resolution.
The approved motion will see SUMA write a letter to the Transport Minister Marc Garneau, voicing their strong support for the pipeline.
“Our cities, towns, villages are 77 per cent of the population that we represent is saying today that we support the Energy East Pipeline and that will be the message we send to the federal transport minister,” said SUMA president and Mayor of Weyburn Debra Button.
“We can reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we can create more jobs right across Canada and the investment would be significant, particularly at a time when our economy is slowing down,” explained Regina Mayor Michael Fougere.
Other resolutions, including advocating for improved fire guards in the northern communities, easily passed.
However there was a tight vote surrounding advocating the province to ban vaping in public places. Basically, the requested law involves banning vaping in areas where smoking is already banned.
On Monday, Button said this was introduced due to the “patch-work” nature of vape bans in the province.
The lone resolution to be defeated involved advocating the province to enact legislation to reduce the practice of burning stubble as an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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