Drilling in lakes and rivers: it’s too much!

52 organizations launch a final appeal to Philippe Couillard to ask him to make an about-face on the exploitation of hydrocarbons

OPEN LETTER

Montreal, August 10, 2018 – Two of the first actions of the Couillard government, in 2014, were to launch its Action plan on hydrocarbons and to allocate 1.25 billion $ to the exploitation of non-renewable resources, including oil and gas. Unless there is a change of heart, one of the last things he will ask before dissolving the National Assembly by the end of August will be the adoption of regulations on hydrocarbons. In doing so, it would kick off the entry into force of the Hydrocarbons Act and, thus, to the oil and gas projects in progress in the territory.

From the start to the end of its mandate, this government will have put all its weight behind the fossil fuel sector, in defiance of science, its climate commitments, social peace and simple economic common sense, while seeking to give a veneer of democratic, scientific and regulatory rigor to a fictitious approach whose purpose was known in advance: to remove all possible obstacles to the establishment of this industry which is harmful to our living environments, to ecosystems and to the climate. Time and again, he has used artifices such as omissions, sophisms and contradictions to try to allow drilling and fracking in Quebec.

Sad record.

Presumably, we will therefore soon find ourselves with a regulatory framework which will enshrine the supremacy of private oil and gas interests over huge swaths of Quebec territory – a legacy of successive governments who gave in to insiders, behind closed doors and for 10 cents per hectare per year, real real estate rights on private and public lands in Quebec. These “claims” today cover almost the entire densely populated part of the Saint-Laurent valley, between the extreme west of Montérégie and Quebec, as well as almost the entire Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie.

Certainly, the second version of the draft regulations published in June prohibits the fracturing of shale, but it defines shale in a very precise manner without it being possible to know which portions of the territory or layers of rock of the Saint-Pierre lowlands. Laurent correspond to the proposed definition. Other rock formations which are likely to contain hydrocarbons – sandstone, limestone, dolomites – are not protected by this ban. These formations are present in the Saint-Laurent lowlands, in Gaspésie and in the Bas-Saint-Laurent. Neither acid stimulation nor matrix acidification nor any other process is prohibited. Social acceptability, without which the Prime Minister swears that no project will take place, is nowhere mentioned in the Hydrocarbons Act or its regulations.

Final episode and climax of four years of disinformation, on the afternoon of August 3, when the 45 days of consultation on these draft regulations ended, the duty revealed that the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources had not told the truth, until then, regarding drilling in lakes and rivers: far from being prohibited, they would be permitted in almost all rivers. water from Quebec.

This is too much! The cup of distrust overflows, despite the (much too late) step back from the minister, who now says he is willing to “correct” the draft regulations.

Delivering the subsoil of Quebec to private interests who would plunder our territory and our bodies of water, leaving us only crumbs to repair their damage, would be a historic error. An error all the more costly since the vast majority of them are foreign companies, mainly Alberta, which would sell us our own gas and oil for the benefit of their shareholders, before packing up and bequeathing us their abandoned wells.

It’s one minute to midnight, Mr. Couillard. It is time to turn our backs on the exploitation of fossil fuels by throwing the Hydrocarbons Act and its draft regulations from another century. The real energy transition will be the major project of the 21st century.

Signatories:

Gabriel Cliche, Fondation Rivières
Agathe Désilets, Bécancour Responsible Citizens Committee
Alain Marois, Autonomous Education Federation
Amélie Drainville, Islands Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee
André Bélisle, Quebec Association for the Fight against Atmospheric Pollution
Annabelle T. Palardy, Citizens' Committee for the Protection of the Maskoutain Environment
Anne-Marie Beauregard, Maricourt Citizens’ Committee
Audrey Yank, Oil Pipeline Vigilance Coalition
Aurore Fauret, 350.org
Carole Dupuis, Hydrocarbon Vigilance Group Quebec
Céline Lachapelle, Lower Laurentides Environmental Action
Chantale Gamache, Hydrocarbon Vigilance Saint-Marc sur Richelieu
Claude Perron Suroît Shale Gas Vigilance Committee
Christian Daigle, Quebec Public and Parapublic Service Union
Denise Laprise, Montmagny in transition
Éric Ferland, ECOSPHERE Fair
France Lamonde, Association of Private, Agricultural, (sugar) and Forestry Owners – Appaf
France Guimond, l'EAUbinière, Lotbinière
France Lemieux, Crivert de Valleyfield
Francine Salvas, RVHQ Reply Committee
Geneviève Richard, Fondation Coule pas chez nous
Germaine Roy, Beauce-Etchemin Citizen Coalition
Gisèle Comtois, Ahuntsic-Cartierville Environmental Mobilization (MEAC)
Guy Boudreau, Lavaltrie Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee
Hugues Bonenfant, Vigilance Committee of St-Valérien-de-Milton
Huguette Manseau, AREQ Environment Committee, Drummondville
Irène Dupuis, Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee of the Lotbinière MRC
Jean Falaise, South Durham Citizens Committee
Jean-Claude Thibault, Racine CCER Environmental Advisory Committee
Jean Marcaurelle Nicolet-Yamaska Vigilance Committee
Johanne Dion, Montreal for all
Joyce Renaud, Climate Mobilization Trois-Rivières
Lise Houle, Verchères Shale Gas Committee
Louis Casavant, Hydrocarbon Vigilance Deschaillons
Louise Morand, Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee of L’Assomption
Marc Ferland, Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly – Living environment
Martin Poirier, NO to an oil spill in the St. Lawrence
Michel Côté, Transition Capitale-Nationale
Michelle Théroux, Drummondville
Marc St-Cyr, Sainte-Christine Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee
Marie-Eve Doré, APRiT of Quebec – Saint-Louis-de-Blandford
Marie-Josée Renaud, Peasant Union
Martine Chatelain, Water Relief Coalition
Odette Sarrazin, Brandon Hydrocarbons Vigilance Committee
Pascal Bergeron, Green Environment Plus
Pierre Foisy, Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee of the municipalities of the MRC of Maskinongé
Pierre Gagnon, Saint-Norbert Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee
Réal Lalande, Outaouais Climate Action
Serge Fortier, Ste-Marie de Blandford Citizen Vigilance Committee
Serge Giard, St-Hugues Vigilance Committee
Solange Gingras, CMBE
Thérèse Jean, Hydrocarbon Vigilance Committee of the MRC des Chenaux