Quebec farmers against Energy East
With public hearings for TransCanada Corp.’s Energy East pipeline proposal kicking off in Montreal on Monday, the National Energy Board will be fielding concerns from the largest opposition group along the project’s proposed route — Quebec farmers.
The Union des Producteurs Agricoles (UPA), the primary association that represents farmers in Quebec, says it remains firmly against the project due to concerns over potential leaks, as well as qualms over the inherent nature of fossil fuel development.
“We did consult farmers in every region where (the pipeline) would go, and the vast majority of comments were against that project,” says Patrice Juneau, a spokesman for UPA. “So we think we do represent the vast majority of farmers.”
UPA’s membership makes up a significant chunk of the landowners along the new sections of the proposed 4,500-kilometre pipeline, which would funnel crude from oilfields in Alberta and Saskatchewan to Saint John, N.B.
Altogether UPA represents roughly 1,800 landowners that are directly on the route of the pipeline, or about 75 per cent of the total land in Quebec that would be directly affected by the project.
Because of the way land was divided in Quebec, the pipeline will pass through a high number of individual landowners along the roughly 700-km Quebec portion of the route. By comparison, Enbridge Inc. identified just more than 1,400 landowners anywhere within one kilometre of its 1,177km Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, which would have transported heavy oil from Bruderheim, Alta., to a port in Kitimat, B.C.
Land in Quebec was divided into small segments of farmland, known as seigneuries, in the 1600s as part of a bid to attract settlers to what was then New France. Today those divisions are still more or less evident in the long, narrow strips of land — sometimes called “long lots” — running north-south along the St. Lawrence River.
The majority of the Energy East pipeline will be built by converting an existing natural gas pipeline, in addition to new sections of pipeline planned in Alberta, Quebec and New Brunswick.
TransCanada has been in earlystage talks with UPA to establish a framework for discussions with the farmers. If NEB approves the project, the company will then begin negotiating contracts with individual farmers along the route, Juneau said.
“We are against this project but we know that it’s out of our control,” Juneau said. “What we’re trying to do is negotiate a minimum agreement just to be sure that when TransCanada, if ever they get the green light, they do approach every farmer with the same agreement so that one farmer does not get less or more than the next farmer.”
TransCanada said it is confident it will reach consensus with UPA and individual landowners, but stressed it was very early in discussions. “We’ve been in talks with them for over a year now, and they’ve been very healthy, fruitful discussions I would say,” said Tim Duboyce earlier this month.
The company has long maintained that its pipelines are safe and reliable conduits to transport crude, and that its system can be shut off immediately after potential spills are detected.
Juneau said most farmers to whom UPA has spoken are not convinced. He said there are lingering questions about how the company will go about construction and how it will respond in the event of a spill. “On a practical level it’s very difficult for them to accept anything just on the promise that everything is going to be fine and this isn’t the first pipeline they’ve laid down,” Juneau said.
Opposition to the pipeline in Quebec poses TransCanada’s biggest challenge in winning approval for the project.
Last week Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre called for the hearings to be postponed after reports surfaced that former Quebec premier Jean Charest had met privately with members of the NEB in 2015 to discuss the project. Coderre said the meetings presented a “major perception problem.”
TransCanada, along with Canada’s major oil producers, have long argued Canada would benefit from building a major pipeline conduit to tidewater. Public hearings for the $15.7-billion Energy East project will be held in Montreal from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, and in Quebec City from Sept. 3-7.