Tag: CRED-NB Action

CRED-NB submission to the West Coast Pipeline consultation

CRED-NB made a submission to the Major Projects Office consultation on the proposed West Coast Pipeline. If built, the pipeline would bring even more oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the Pacific coast for export.

In our submission, we wrote that the proposed pipeline will not strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience, or security. The pipeline will continue to tie the Canadian economy to fossil fuels, ensuring that we remain vulnerable to market booms and busts, and price shocks as the rest of the world builds domestic energy security by committing to the energy transition.

Read the full document HERE. CRED-NB is one of many member groups of Climate Action Network Canada that is opposing the West Coast Pipeline and all new fossil fuel infrastructure during the climate crisis.

Sept 24 Event: ‘Mine, baby, mine.’ But, can we mine our way out of our crises?

Rodrigue Turgeon in conversation with Alain Deneault

UPDATE: The NB Media Co-op will also livestream this event via YouTube: youtube.com/@nbmediacoop/streams

CRED-NB is co-host of this event. More mines – lithium, copper, nickel, tungsten, etc. – are being pitched as the solution to multiple problems – the economy, national sovereignty and security, and even the climate crisis. Mines are touted as nation-building projects and sources of critical strategic metals essential for national defense while the U.S. Department of War has pumped more than a total $78 million into different mines in Canada, including $15 million for the proposed Sisson tungsten and molybdenum mine, 60 km from Fredericton. Mines are also sources of transition metals needed for electric vehicles and renewable energy. 

Hear a critical take on mining as the cure-all solution to various crises of our times. What are the downsides of more mining? Who benefits from mining? Who loses? How can communities push back against proposed mining projects? Are there other solutions to today’s most pressing problems that are worthy of more exploration and support?  

When: Thursday, September 24, 2026, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM AT 

Where: Ted Daigle Auditorium, Edmund Casey Hall, St. Thomas University, 51 Dineen Dr., Fredericton

Rodrigue Turgeon supports many communities affected by mining across the country as the National Program Co-Lead of MiningWatch Canada. A lawyer from Abitibi-Témiscamingue, one of Canada’s most well-known mining regions, Rodrigue understands firsthand the social and environmental impacts of mining. Author of the book Nanikana, he holds a master’s degree in law and life sciences and a graduate degree in common law and transnational law, and is co-spokesperson of the Coalition Québec meilleure mine.

Alain Deneault is a philosopher and author of several books and essays on international finance, globalization, transnational corporations, and corporate tax havens. His books include Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industry, Mediocracy: The Politics of the Extreme Centre, and Noir Canada : Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique. He teaches philosophy and environmental ethics at the Shippagan campus of the Université de Moncton on the Acadian Peninsula.

Hosts: Contesting Energy Discourses through Action Research (CEDAR), Sustainability Learning Lab and partners at St. Thomas University, Coalition for Responsible Energy Development (CRED NB), Wolastoq Grand Council, the Stop Sisson Mine Coalition, Conservation Council of New Brunswick, Socialist Project Fredericton, Conseil de la paix NB Peace Council, NB Media Co-op and MiningWatch Canada. 

For more information, contact Tracy Glynn at tglynn@stu.ca. 

CRED-NB signs submission to government on Major Projects proposal

CRED-NB, a member of Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac), signed the network’s submission to the federal government on its proposal: Getting Major Projects Built in Canada.

The submission states that streamlining regulatory assessments will not solve the problem of project delays, often caused by economic factors like unstable commodities markets, and will not increase the certainty of a project’s economic benefits. Moreover, dismantling environmental protections at this scale will result in lower public trust and loss of social licence, which will make it harder to build major projects in the long run.

Read the full submission HERE. CRED-NB is a CAN-Rac member.

CRED-NB’s statement on the EUB approval of the Tantramar Gas Plant

CRED-NB is deeply disappointed by the approval of the 500-megawatt gas-and-diesel plant proposed for Tantramar by the NB Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) on May 28.

While the plant threatens the sensitive Chignecto ecosystem, human health from toxic and climate-changing emissions, and aenergy affordability, the EUB is not required to consider the added costs these impacts would impose on the public.

As Megan Mitton, MLA for Tantramar, observed, the EUB is only required to determine if the project is “reasonable financially.”

It’s hard to see how approving a project that will contribute to rising electricity bills and increasing costs for health care and climate-related emergency response is reasonable financially.

Despite this setback, opponents are considering next steps, including launching a legal review of the EUB’s decision.

The power of the provincial government to overturn a decision by the EUB was removed by legislation in 2013.

In its decision, the EUB rebuked NB Power for filing insufficient information in support of its application for regulatory approval. In a CBC article, Lisa J Griffin, organizer of the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition, noted that when Prince Edward Island’s energy regulator faced a similar difficulty during its ongoing hearings for gas plants from ProEnergy, the same company building the Tantramar project, it commissioned a study from Synapse Energy Economics of Massachusetts. The study concluded that battery storage was cheaper than gas plants and brought added benefits.

Why didn’t the EUB commission such a study when it found NB Power’s information on alternatives insufficient? Was it because ProEnergy had set June 2 as the deadline for regulatory approval, failing which it would walk away from its contract with NB Power?

Would pausing the hearings to commission a study have fallen outside the EUB’s mandate? In either case, the regulations governing the EUB have not served the public interest. Reform of the EUB Act should be considered. When the information supplied to support the project is insufficient, the EUB should not be bound by proponent “deadlines” and instead be able to extend the timelines to gather sufficient information to make an informed decision.

CRED-NB comment on the Holt government’s response to the NB Power Review

In May, the provincial government responded to the NB Power Review report released in March. Of the Review report’s 50 recommendations, the government accepted 44 and identified six for further study. 

Many of the recommendations are intended to improve NB Power’s operations and organizational culture, including governance, oversight, accountability, staffing levels and training. The government assigned most of these improvements to NB Power to implement, with some external assistance. We can only cross our fingers that the same utility that the Review criticized as lacking operational excellence – including basic project management skills – can somehow get it together to improve itself.

The Review report included a bizarre suggestion that buildings heated with baseboard electric heaters should switch to fossil gas furnaces. Thankfully, the government response did not pounce on this opportunity to promote fracking but instead responded by completing an “analysis of the role of natural gas for heating purposes” and developing recommendations “for government consideration.” Fingers crossed again that these will be quietly binned.

The Review report included considerable discussion of NB Power’s nuclear operations, much of it highly critical, yet recommended that the government consider developing a new large nuclear reactor. Remembering that more than half of NB Power’s $6 billion debt is due to Point Lepreau’s refurbishment and ongoing maintenance and outage expenses, this recommendation appears illogical.

At the media event in March to launch its report, the Review panel pointedly recommended against developing SMRs because they carry “a whole set of risks.” 

Considering this clear advice to avoid SMRs, it is interesting that the government response to the new large reactor recommendation is “short-term action” to “evaluate opportunities for new nuclear (SMR and/or conventional).” CRED-NB was hoping that the Review panel’s criticism of SMRs as well as a new report highlighting the failure of Canada’s SMR strategy would mean the end of New Brunswick’s SMR ambitions, but it seems not.

Dr. Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility has used the term “hopium” to describe the irrational belief in the potential of nuclear energy. In a recent post, Dr. Edwards added: “HOPIUM also requires OPM = Other People’s Money.” Our hope is that the government’s evaluation of opportunities for new nuclear will be a learning opportunity about the reasons why nuclear power has no future.

May 19: CRED-NB co-hosts book launch

CRED-NB co-hosted the Canadian book launch by author Linda Pentz Gunter: No To Nuclear: Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress and Provokes War.

The recording of the event, HERE, features the author in conversation with CRED-NB core member Susan O’Donnell.

The nuclear power industry wants us to believe that theirs is the only technical fix for the climate crisis. No To Nuclear calls the industry’s bluff. Beyond Nuclear Executive Director Linda Pentz Gunter makes the irresistible case that nuclear power is too slow, too expensive, too dangerous and too integrally connected to the nuclear weapons complex, to serve as a rational energy choice. The book also delves into the lives of Indigenous peoples and communities of colour, who have been harmed the most by the nuclear sector, and questions whether the way we devalue nature and the environment is costing us the chance of a genuinely just energy transition.

CRED-NB comment on the DGR project

CRED-NB is engaged in the ongoing process to ensure a rigorous Impact Assessment for the proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR) for high-level nuclear waste. Our latest submission is “Comment to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada on the draft Integrated Tailored Impact Statement Guidelines: Include the Point Lepreau nuclear site and Indigenous nations and communities in New Brunswick.” Read it HERE.