Quebec, shale gas and Pandora’s Box

Quebec, shale gas and Pandora’s Box by David Campbell, September 28, 2012, Special to The Globe and Mail
British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan are all pushing ahead with shale gas development using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Newfoundland and Labrador, the only other have-province in Canada, has also green-lighted exploration for shale gas. … No jurisdiction should be compelled or cajoled to implement any industrial development that is deemed to have a substantial environmental risk, but it becomes complicated when the jurisdictions using that argument are in the minority. … This challenge will not be isolated to Quebec. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia both have considerable shale gas deposits, and also considerable opposition to developing the resource.
David Campbell is the President of Jupia Consultants Inc., an economic development consulting firm based in Moncton. He is a Research Fellow with the Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy and Public Administration at the Université de Moncton. [Emphasis added]