Category: Coalition news

CRED-NB Champion Juliette Bulmer and her colleagues Terry Jones and Kristen LeBlanc live near NB Power’s proposed gas plant. They organized a community meeting in August in Midgic, the community just south of the proposed site.

About 80 people from local communities and the wider region, including Moncton, showed up on the hot August evening in the Midgic Church basement to hear about the project.

By the following evening, a new Facebook group “Stop the Tantramar Gas Plant Facebook group” had more than 200 members.

Read the story in the NB Media Co-op, HERE.

Over the summer, New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt mused to journalists about building a second CANDU reactor at the Point Lepreau nuclear site on the Bay of Fundy.

“A second CANDU is not far-fetched,” she told the Telegraph Journal. On the weekend, Holt enthused about the idea in a CBC story about the Eastern Energy Partnership pitch to Prime Minister Mark Carney.

A new CANDU reactor for New Brunswick? It’s a puzzling thought, worth pondering.

Read the article by CRED-NB core member Susan O’Donnell and nuclear scientist Frank Greening in The Energy Mix, HERE.

A shorter version was published in French in Acadie Nouvelle, HERE.

Opposition is building to NB Power’s proposal for a fossil gas plant with diesel storage backup north of Sackville. The utility will sign a long-term power purchase agreement with a U.S. company, PROENERGY, that will build and operate the plant. Stories by Bruce Wark (New Wark Times) about the project are HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) was accepting comments on the project description until earlier this week. They are posted on the project registry. 271 comments were submitted (!!) indicating a very high public interest in this project.

The comment submitted to the IAAC by CRED-NB is HERE.

Comments submitted to the IAAC by CRED-NB core members:

Tom McLean – comment is HERE

Sam Arnold, Sustainable Energy Group – comment is HERE

Susan O’Donnell, CEDAR project at STU – comment is HERE

Comments submitted to the IAAC by CRED-NB Champions include:

New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA) – comment is HERE

If you are a CRED-NB Champion and would like us to link to your comment on this blog post, send us an email and your comment number on the IAAC registry.

The David Suzuki Foundation is hosting a petition, ready to sign, asking the federal government to build an east-west electricity grid powered by renewables. We’re asking all CRED-NB Champions to please consider signing the petition, HERE.

A massive build out of renewable energy, connected regionally and nationally, is the best way out of the energy bind we are in with our reliance on fossil fuels. A policy of building only renewable energy and storage systems will boost our fight against plans in New Brunswick for a new fossil gas plant north of Sackville.

This new national petition follows on from a letter on the same theme sent to PM Carney in July, signed by 105 groups across Canada, including CRED-NB and allies in New Brunswick. That letter was also organized by the David Suzuki Foundation as part of their ongoing campaign to encourage our governments to build only renewable energy systems.

NB Lung has an open petition to oppose plans to build new gas infrastructure in Tantramar, expand operations in Belledune, and potentially extend a pipeline from Quebec.

The action alert will be sent to provincial politicians each time you sign. Please sign HERE.

New Brunswick is proposing to build a new fossil gas plant, which has a lovely but deceptive project name: “Centre Village Renewables Integration and Grid Security Project.” Sounds great right? Don’t be fooled: fossil gas is not needed for grid security or to support variable renewable energy. The plan is to put this plant on Route 940 north of Sackville, near Midgic and Centre Village. Local MLA Megan Mitton has strongly objected to the proposed development.

New Brunswick doesn’t need it. Many storage options exist and new ones are developing rapidly – to provide grid security and pair with wind and solar energy without adding more GHGs to the atmosphere when operating. (Read CRED-NB core member Tom McLean’s article on storage HERE.)

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) posted the notice that comments are open on the initial fossil gas project description summary, HERE. The deadline for your comments is August 13. We encourage everyone to put in a comment – even a simple email will help. CRED-NB will submit a comment.

The IAAC will hold two Public Open Houses

Tuesday, August 12, 2025, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Sackville Music Barn
18 Station Rd.
Tantramar, NB

and

Wednesday, August 13, 2025, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre
182 Main St.
Tantramar, NB

Comments can also be provided during Public Open Houses. IAAC will include all comments in their Public Consultation Report.

If you want to stay informed of the latest updates, we encourage you to sign up for the newsletter of CRED-NB member NBASGA – the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance who are active on this file. Website HERE.

CRED-NB Champion Emma Fackenthall published a story in the NB Media Co-op about the new wind energy projects led by Indigenous communities in New Brunswick.

“In what could potentially be a pivotal step toward a just energy transition, NB Power has announced four wind energy agreements with Indigenous communities across the province. The new Power Purchase Agreements total more than 450 megawatts (MW) of wind-generated electricity, enough to power 82,000 New Brunswick homes based on the average residential consumption of 1,700 kWh per month.

Beyond the headline of low-cost wind power lies a deeper narrative: climate justice, Indigenous leadership, and intertwining environmental responsibility with economic reconciliation.”

Read the full article HERE.

A Parliamentary petition, now open for signatures, was developed by Ole Hendrickson, a CRED-NB ally in Ontario concerned about the link between civilian nuclear power and the nuclear weapons industry. We share his concern. Key info from the petition:

• Canada is poised to award a multi-billion dollar contract — the largest federal contract ever — to a consortium of U.S. companies;
• If this happens, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, a former Atomic Energy of Canada Limited subsidiary, will be owned by American firms calling themselves “Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada.”;
• The new contract would last up to 20 years, cost taxpayers over 24 billion dollars, and allow private commercial work at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited sites across Canada;
• Hundreds of millions of dollars in contract management fees would be paid annually to firms that operate U.S. nuclear weapons facilities;
• Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ current projects include a $1+ billion facility to enable plutonium research, and a tritium extraction facility; plutonium and tritium are key explosive ingredients in nuclear weapons;

Read the rest of the petition and sign it HERE.

If you’ve never signed a parliamentary petition before, your name will not be displayed but after signing, you’ll get an email that you click to confirm your email address. You can also choose to get updates on the petition.

CRED-NB member New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA) spokesperson Jim Emberger published a commentary in the Telegraph Journal this week.

“On Earth Day, “Seniors for Climate” rallied at the legislature to remind governments that solutions to recent economic turmoil must reflect climate science.

“Unexpectedly, Premier Susan Holt visited the rally and delivered an enthusiastic address in support of the rally’s message. Days later, she contradicted her uplifting remarks by promoting gas and bitumen pipelines, and LNG exports as Canadian nation-building solutions. That she didn’t recognize her contradictions places her in a new constituency that accepts industry propaganda that climate change can be solved, while burning more fossil fuels.”

Read the full article on the NBASGA website, HERE.

105 environment, labour, Indigenous and community groups, including CRED-NB, released a letter today, July 3, calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney and the federal government to prioritize building out Canada’s east-west electricity grid with renewable energy, while upholding workers’ and Indigenous rights. 

The following is a summary of the priorities listed in the letter. The full letter can be found HERE.

• Commit significant federal funding toward permitting, planning and construction of strategic interprovincial and intra-provincial electricity transmission projects.
  
• The Green Budget Coalition, Green Economy Network and Climate Action Network Canada each identify a funding commitment of at least $20 billion over five years while the Canada Electricity Advisory Council recommends significant investment and reducing barriers for these transmission projects.
  
• Uphold legal and inherent Indigenous rights for Indigenous communities throughout Canada.
  
• Implement key labour supports as a condition for federal funding on electricity projects.
  
• Alongside the work on transmission and generation, the federal government should strengthen its financial support for energy efficiency, demand-side management, energy storage and other electricity system upgrades.
  
• With these priorities in mind, the federal government should update and implement Canada’s Electricity Strategy. This includes implementing the Clean Electricity Regulations, and continuing to advance Canada’s work to achieve a net-zero electricity grid.

See the press release HERE.