October 5, 2017 – “The Building Trades regrets the opportunities that have been lost in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario and on the Prairies,” said Robert Blakely of Canada’s Building Trades Unions (CBTU) on the news that TransCanada has cancelled the $12-billion “nation-building” Energy East Pipeline.

“After careful review of changed circumstances, we will be informing the National Energy Board that we will no longer be proceeding with our Energy East and Eastern Mainline applications,” said TransCanada Corp. president & CEO Russ Girling.

“TransCanada Pipelines’ decision to cancel the Energy East Pipeline project was a business decision,” said Jim Carr, Minister of Natural Resources, who insists, “Canada is open for business.”

“Unlike most other pipeline proposals being discussed today, Energy East had significant benefit for Canadians,” said Jerry Dias of Unifor, which notes the project would have created “good, long-term jobs in Canada in the refining industry, something absent from the proposed Keystone XL, Northern Gateway, and the massive expansion of the Transmountain pipeline through Burnaby”.

SEE ALSO Energy East Pipeline to boost Canadian economy by billions (September 2013).

“The National Energy Board’s inability to secure this project only underscores how ineffective it has become,” said Dias.

“What has been gained seems to be things like the continuity of oil tankers on the St. Lawrence River [and] railcars loaded with hydrocarbons passing through our cities […],” said Blakely. “We lose the environmental advantages that the pipeline could have provided.”

“Canadians need to understand that, at the end of the day, project approvals are a political decision,” added Blakely. “A political decision seems to have been made here, and it is not one that is necessarily in the interests of Canadians […].”