Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Port Methane tanker - Thomas Mulcair denounces the project
Yves Chartrand
Le Journal de Montréal
10/10/2007 06h38
The NDP MP Thomas Mulcair, former minister for the Environment in Quebec, shows his old government to support the project of port Rabaska methane tanker at the expense of the safety of the population of Quebec.
Joint in France yesterday where it makes a pause after its victory in Outremont, Thomas Mulcair is not obstructed any more maintaining to denounce the project which, with that of the privatization of the park of the Orford Mount, cost him its post of Minister for the Environment in January 2006.
Let us recall that last week, the minister Claude Béchard drew aside the Commission of protection of the agricultural territory of the project to accelerate the file.
The promoter of the Rabaska project is made of a conglomerate joining together Gaz Métro, Enbridge and Gaz de France. Let us recall that Gaz de France will be amalgamated in 2008 with the Groupe Suez, controlled partly by Power Corporation, in particular owner in Quebec of the Gesca newspapers. “I am convinced that a port methane tanker at this place, so near to a center to population, St. Lawrence Seaway and significant ecosystems, is a major error, known as Thomas Mulcair. I refused at the time sending it to the BAPE for these reasons and they are always true today. ”
Mulcair is all the more at ease to denounce the project that its new party, the NDP of Layton Jack, is the only federal formation to have deposited a report with the BAPE, relating to Rabaska, to be opposed to the project.
USA
According to him, “it is clear that Rabaska is to supply the market of the nordest of the United States, and anything else”, especially not to diversify the energy wallet of Quebec.
The government of Jean Charest adds “a little sugar around the pill of Rabaska” while announcing to want to be used for itself of natural gas to replace heavy fuel oil. “It is a good idea, ditil, but one does not need Rabaska for that. We have already a sure source of provisioning in the West of Canada which is enough.”
Project of port methane tanker with Cacouna, that it sent in front of the BAPE when he was a Minister for the Environment of Quebec, “did not represent the same risks”, supports it. The human concentration is much less there than in the area of the capital and the river, broader, attenuates the risks of accident.“
I would add that one of the principles of the new law on the durable development is not respected in Rabaska, that to have a support of the medium, which is the case with Cacouna”, judges Mulcair.
Never, for reasons of safety, the American authorities would not authorize a project like Rabaska. “The highest persons in charge for the American coastal Guard confirmed it to me, says it. They would never admit boats methane tankers coming from Russia or of Algeria in their ports. All is under their control.”
# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:22 AM 
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