I'm no economist but...

I made the effort to attend the NB finance ministers pre-budget public consultation in Fredericton last night, and took note of some of the numbers he presented. Now as I look at the numbers, I am confused as to why we are struggling to balance the books. It looks easy to me...but I readily admit I am not an economist, or even a great personal financial planner, so maybe I am mistaken.

Here's what I am talking about....Higgs and others have said that NB has a revenue problem, and from what I can see that is true; but based on the numbers presented, I don't see why this is the case. From the 3rd last slide of my Higgs presentation, we could rescind the personal income tax cuts ($320M) and corporate income tax  cuts ($25M) put in place by the previous government and raise $345M in revenue. If we went a step further and raised the HST by 2% we would see $270M in revenue. If I do my math right, that adds up to $615M in new revenue. There has been calls from many sources, including the NB Business Council, to rescind the cuts; so there is support there. The HST increase would be harder to swallow and would be resisted more, but it is do-able; especially if you put programs in place to protect low income earners.

It was announced yesterday that the provincial deficit is now $411M, and the provincial debt is closing in on $11B. So if you put the three changes above in place, you could pay off the deficit and start making $200M payments on the debt. Of course, this is assuming that all proceeds of the tax increases goes directly to the deficit/debt...but that is also do-able.

The government continues to saw that their is legislation in affect that says HST cannot be raised without a referendum. So hold a referendum already; or rescind that legislation as you have done in the past. Recently, the legislation was changed to allow the government to change the civil services pension plan, so it is not unprecedented.

My guess is that any political price to be paid for raising the HST would be offset by the political gain of balancing the books. And even if you say you can't raise the HST, rescinding the tax cuts would still raise $345M, which would but the deficit to $66M.

I must be missing something...it can't be this easy.  If not, then why the hell is it not getting done?

Don't be afraid to Govern!

A note to all current and future politicians....don't be afraid to do your job once elected...govern!

It seems that some politicians have forgotten that when the public elects them, that means the majority have decided that we trust them to run the office they have been elected to, for at least 4 years.

So when you get the majority of the votes to be premier, we have decide that we want to hire you to run our province for the next four years. If you do a good job, and no one better comes along before the next election, we will hire you for another 4 years. We, as voting citizens, have not asked to run the province, as we feel we do not have the knowledge or experience to do so, or the time, so we hired you for the job you asked to have.

So don't feel you have to ask us before making decisions. If you look at the books and determine that the best thing for the province is to raise taxes, then go raise taxes. Tell us why it made sense to you to do it, and we will judge at the end of the 4 years whether we agree. Remember, sometimes the best thing for us is not the thing we want. My kids never want to eat their vegetables, but I still make them do it. I sometimes really want to have a new car, but that doesn't mean I should remortgage my house and go buy one.

The most respected politicians are always ones who govern with confidence. They are intelligent people who consult with experts, look at all sides of the issue, and then go and make the best decision they can. They do what they think is right regardless of public opinion. They make unpopular decisions, but they make intelligent, well informed decisions, and at the end of the day, they are judged on the intelligence of the decision, not the popularity of the decisions. Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, JFK, Pierre Trudeau, Abraham Lincoln and even Frank McKenna, all made unpopular but necessary decisions in their tenures, but all are remembered as people who did what they thought best and their citizens benefited from it, and eventually thanked them for it.

Now don't take this to mean that you should go make decisions without consulting anyone. By all means, talk to experts and use their knowledge in your decision making process. When considering raising taxes, talk to economists and other government financial experts and make sure they agree that this is the only way to responsibly govern the finances of your jurisdiction.

If your 4 years run out and you haven't done anything but ask us what you should do, you are not likely to get hired on for another 4 years. Make an informed and intelligent decision, and stand by it, for good or bad.
If you ask us what to do, then do what we tell you, and things go badly; we will blame you anyway...you can't put it back on us, that doesn't work. We hired you, so you are responsible, good or bad.

Don't be afraid to do what we hired you to do.

Fight the quick news update temptation

This blog has been turning into a place for me to vent frustration...which I guess makes sense since I put Surly in the blog name. I tend to chew on things for a few days before I finally write anything, so most times I end up chewing the thing up and having nothing to write; but if I chew on it and something is left, I write it down.

A long agitation for me has been people not thinking for themselves; and I don't mean that unintelligent people agitate me; they can't help being unintelligent; what bugs me is when intelligent people follow the herd, or speak without thinking. I am not above doing the later at times...sometime passion and desire for a good laugh get ahead of me and something slips out of my mouth that perhaps should have stayed in the brain for a bit longer.

Most current news media depend on the fact that people are busy and don't have time to research a topic on there own, and thus are primed to swallow a news story whole, rather than chewing on it for a bit. When we form opinions based on headlines and sound bites, we are doomed to slide into the unthinking masses. I am not saying that all media sources should be ignored; quite the opposite, I encourage you to look at as many sources as you can. I usually follow no less than 6-8 news sources a day...and the differences you see in the coverage provide by CNN, CBC, BBC and Al-Jezeera are very interesting. They all have a slightly different take on things. The attachment of most western media to advertising dollars for funding can't help but change the way they cover the news. When you are worried about the size of your audience rather than how factual your information is, you tend to lean towards the sensationalism approach. (BTW, if this interests you, you should check out the HBO show Newsroom)

The distrust we have for politicians, and their seeming refusal to do anything meaningful is largely the result of our sound bite and headline world. The main avenue for politicians to communicate with their constituents is the media...be it newspapers, web based sources or social media, and when the media's main driver is getting viewers, the facts are irrelevant and the juiciness of the headline rules all. Case in point...recently Piers Morgan has been embroiled in the gun control debate in the USA, and because he is advocating stricter gun controls has become the target of those opposed to such controls. So rather than stick to fact based debate, which if you follow to a logical end comes to the conclusion that the lack of control on guns in the USA has lead the developed worlds highest gun murder rate, they have provided a platform for gun zealots to rant and rave. So when President Obama tries to do the right thing and introduce stricter (and sane) controls on the guns people can have; the NRA and other gun advocacy groups will dominate the news coverage because they are better funded and thus louder. I really think most Americans are intelligent people who can see that allowing people to collect automatic weapons is not smart, but the protests by gun supporters will be more entertaining, so will get the coverage.

Another, more local, example is the recent restructuring, by the New Brunswick provincial government, of the unconditional grants to municipalities. The government essentially turned the grant program into a municipal equalization program. The whole idea behind an equalization program is that money is distributed so the "have nots" get more money than the "haves". So the idea is that the communities that are prospering help communities that are not. So the prospering community of Fredericton loses $1 million in grants, and the struggling community of Miramichi gets $1 million more, for example.

The news coverage in the days after the announcement made it sound like the city of Fredericton was going to have to make drastic cuts to offset the loss. One pundit said the loss of the grant was "ground shaking". But low and behold, a few weeks later, the city announces a balanced budget with little or no major job losses or service reductions. In hard economic times, the city has proven that they didn't need that funding they lost. Wouldn't we all agree that most governments can afford to be more efficient with our tax money? This is what is happening here...the provincial government is trying to be more efficient with their funding, and have forced the city of Fredericton to be a little more efficient. I have yet to see any news source point out that the lost grant money is largely made up by the increased tax rolls for the city. The city will receive $4.3 million more property tax revenue this year, which should more than make up for the lost grant money. But is there any coverage of this good news story...no, the coverage of the city's budget continues to focus on the grant elimination; even though when you look at the facts of the budget and think for yourself, the loss of the grant does not appear to have affected the city in any "ground shaking" way.

So, the moral of the story? I guess I am trying to encourage you, dear reader, to think for yourself. Don't give into the temptation of the quick and easy news update; think about what you are hearing or reading...don't just drink the proverbial kool-aid. Do the same with this blog...don't accept my take on things as fact...who am I to present fact; just some cranky guy with Scottish roots!

Right to arm citizens an obsolete notion

I don't know if it is the fact that I have elementary aged kids, or if it is just a matter of remembering what elementary school was like, or the fact that it is so close to the holiday season. But the mass shooting of grade one kids in Newtown, Conn. this past Friday is keeping me up at night, and pulling at my heart like none of the all too common mass shootings in the US has done in the past. And my sadness and discomfort is a flickering candle flame when compared to the roaring inferno of grief that must me engulfing the small community of  Newtown this week.

My hope is that heartbreak of knowing that the most innocent among us were targeted in this shooting will be enough to shake the collective consciousness of the American people to a point that they will finally see that they need to abandon their gun culture. Surely, there can be no one able to argue that this tragedy would not have been prevented, or at least much less severe, if guns were not so readily available. Who could possible say that the right to own a gun is more precious than the lives of 6 and 7 year olds?

As with so many things in the US, the protection of this right must surely be based on the massive business that has built up around private gun ownership in the US. The massive scale of the business, as happens, has attracted a very large lobby contingency in Washington, and thus has lead to the illogical and extreme protection of the right to own firearms. The legal arguments seem to evolve for many around the one sentence in the US constitution that addresses the right to bear arms. This has been taken to mean that any American should be allowed to own as many guns as they want. This is so obviously a part of the constitution that has become obsolete.

In 1776, you needed the right to own a musket, because there was no 911 to call or phones to call it on, or no organized police presence.  But in 2012, police are very well organized and you are well protected by civil rights, and in the US, a large military complex. There is a very minute threat of a civil war breaking out in most developed countries, and the sovereignty of the nation is definitely no longer defined by the number of armed citizens you have.

In recent days, many gun death statistics have been quoted, but there is one in particular struck home to me, and I don't even recall the source. In 2009, there was 9,000+ gun deaths in the USA; but only 18 in the UK, 30 in Australia, 170 in Canada, and 142 in France. When you look at the much higher gun control laws in these countries, it becomes apparent that gun control laws do, in fact, save lives. And last time I checked, the sovereignty of France, the UK, Australia or Canada has been threatened because of the lack of guns in every home. I will also wager that home invasions are no higher in these countries either.

President Obama appears to be as moved by the Newtown tragedy as I am, if not more so, so hopefully he takes advantage of the focus this tragedy has put on the need for stricter gun controls, and does something to prevent this type of thing from happening.

Are we getting dumber? 2012 US Election as a case study

I worry about the combined intelligence of the human race, and whether or not it is on the decrease. The promise of the information age, with easier access to the collective knowledge, and was to make for a more intelligent and aware human race. Perhaps I am unduly colored by the fact that I live and work so closely to the USA. Perhaps it is a North American plight...I hope so. The state of public debates in recent years has lead to my concern. The current election campaign in the USA is a prime example, and perhaps the fact that I am paying more attention this time around is causing me to over react...I hope so.

I have watched the debates, and have had the pleasure(?) to spend a fair amount of time in the country and watch the news coverage, and I don't get how the race is even close. It seems to me that the incumbent is trying to provide actual plans with numbers and specifics. President Obama is running for re-election after 4 of the toughest economic years since the great depression. Some could argue that his predecessors handling of the US economy was a prime cause of the recent economic woes, but I will leave that alone for now.

Mr. Romney has run mainly on bashing Obama's record and blaming America's part in the recent economic meltdown on Obama's policies or lack thereof. He has what seems to me to be a very vague 5 point plan to fix the economy, which seem to be based on letting corporate America off the leash. But the problem is, unbridled capitalism is what caused the meltdown in the first place.

Now don't write me off as a socialist because of that last statement. I am a supporter of private business and capitalist principles, and I am a believer that the government should be arms length. In fact, I don't agree with government's propping up failing industries (the New Brunswick pulp and paper industry is a good example). If an industry as a whole is failing, that usually means it is because the business has run its course and is no longer profitable. So let it die and be replaced by industries that have not run their course. Industry is cyclical and the economy is evolutionary, no business last forever in its same form. The US cotton industry of the 1800s, the Canadian ship building industry of the 1800s, and the newspaper industry in recent years, are all fine examples of industries running their course and being replaced by new technologies, or moved to a geographic area that makes better business sense. But I digress...that is another discussion.

In the debates, anyone who has read anything about the recent economy, or even listens carefully to what is being said, should be able to see that Romney is doing a sales job. I am reminded of the Simpson's TV show episodes were Mayor Quimby gets up and just says a bunch of disjointed catch phrases and the crowd goes wild. Romney says "more jobs", "bringing America back" and "the USA should be telling other countries what to do", and the fiercely patriotic American voter eats it up. But look closer at what he is saying, it doesn't make sense. 

Holding Obama responsible for all the jobs lost in the US over the last 4 years is ridiculous. Very few economies in the world added jobs. Gauging the state of the military on the number of ships shows a quaint understanding of how the modern military works. Saying Israel noticed when the president did not visit when he was in the neighborhood shows a complete lack of understanding on how modern diplomacy works. Chastising the current administration over taking 2 days to call the attack on the American embassy in Libya a terrorist attack is playing politics. Who cares if it was a terrorist attack or a demonstration; the people are still dead, and whether the public knows what it is has nothing to do with investigating the attack and bringing those responsible to justice.

Romney's lack of knowledge of foreign policy is the scariest thing to me. Traditionally, Americans tend to be very inward looking, so when they vote they put less weight on the candidates ability to negotiate the shark infested waters that is the current state of foreign affairs. But for the rest of the world, this is the most important attribute for the man (or woman) who still is "the leader of the free world". This person manages the largest military in the world, and has the capability to start and end conflicts that can save or destroy us all. If you get a president who doesn't understand the complexities of the Muslim world, we could all be in serious trouble. And I personally think Romney could be dangerous to us all if he wins this thing.

Syria is  a good example of the sticky situation that is global politics these days. You have a government that is obviously at war with its own people, but because of where it is, and its political allies, marching US troops into Syrian to help overthrow the government (as they did in Libya) would have lead to a much larger conflict. So what do you do; I wouldn't want to decide. You want to keep a government from killing its own, but you don't want to start a global conflict. We have the UN, who is supposed to make sure this doesn't happen, but it is tied up in knots because of the politics of its members and the way it is run. I am not going to suggest a solution to this problem, but I want to point out that we need someone "leading the free world" who understands the complexities, and doesn't try to "dictate to other countries".

And I am convinced that the only reason this is a close race is that the average American doesn't spend the time to research the issues. To compound the problem, the media is more about sensationalism than delivering the facts. And most Americans form their opinions based on what their favorite news anchor or pundit has to say. Thinking for oneself has become way less common than it used to be....but maybe I am wrong...I hope so. 

Shale Gas - A View from the Middle - John and Jane Q Public

As with all debates, the extremes get all the press. But lost in the hype in the recent education campaign on shale gas is the view from the middle, from John and Jane Q Public. The average NBer who is trying to pay attention to the debate in between their busy lives, but have to pay attention to take care of the mundane everyday things before researching the issue, if they have any time at all. We don't have time to protest, or go talk to our MLA. It's too easy to just read the headlines, and in this debate in particular, that can be dangerous. As a member of the John Q Public, but one with a bit more interest in the topic, I thought I might provide some of the things you need to know,  John and Jane Q Public.

First let's look at the "no" side of the debate. The no side is full of sensational stories of government ineptitude and corporate greed destroying the environment. They would have you believe NB is set to become a maze of refineries and pipelines if the shale gas industry comes to town. All our water would be destroyed and our air polluted, and the worst possible industrial sprawl will overtake us. Picture the Saint John refinery spread to every corner of the province.

The no side cites examples of polluted water and small towns overridden by the industry with no benefit to the citizens. But all the examples are from the USA, where freedom outweighs common sense, responsible thinking, and the almighty dollar rules the day. The land where universal access to health care is considered a socialist ( almost communist) concept. In the USA, land owners can do as they please on their land and the big bad government has very little power to police what is happening on private land, because they own the shale deposit. In Canada, the gov't owns the mineral rights, and thus regulate the way the minerals, or gas, are exploited. We already have better controls and regulation on industry, and the NB government is strengthening these controls and regulation in anticipation of the shale gas industry's arrival.

Let's not mince words...we exploit our natural resources all the time. The vast majority of us drive cars, and buy our power from NB Power who generates it with mostly coal. Belledune and Coleson Cove generating plants are consistently ranked as 2 of the dirtiest power plants in Eastern North America. By comparison to the coal industry, or even the to the pulp and paper industry, a regulated and well policed shale gas industry is should be much less damaging.

The fact is, much of the rhetoric on the no side comes from environmental groups, who are against ANY exploitation of natural resources, and idealistic young people who thing the province can survive is we all just grew our own food, and lived zero carbon imprint lives. But the reality of this stance is that if you want to do away with anything that exploits natural resources, you better be ready to change your lifestyle. No plastics, no cars, no iPods, no cell phones, no credit cards, and I am not sure what you can build a house out of, maybe mud and hay? The reality is, we live off our environment and that requires the use of natural resources. We can limit the exploitation as much as possible, and try to use them at sustainable rates, but the fact is, the modern human must utilize natural resources at some level to maintain a "modern" lifestyle. I don't think most of us in the middle are ready to change our lifestyles that drastically.

So why are the opposition political parties against the shale gas industry? They aren't environmentalist, aren't they holding the government to account and looking out for the citizens?...well, somewhat, but I have a feeling that if the governing party said they were against the shale industry during the last election, the opposition would now be railing on about the "need to support this lucrative industry". In our current system of government, the oppositions job is to oppose anything the ruling party does, in hopes that this opposition will lead people to vote for them next time. So take the opposition party's stance with a grain of salt. They are trying to make shale gas the next NB Power type issue. Our political culture is one of partisan politics.

The source of much of the panic about shale gas in NB is based on a fear based and unsupported documentary (Gasland), and a speaking engagement by a mayor of a town in Texas, which was a town which has suffered the worst possible consequences of an unregulated industry.  If you look at the Gasland documentary with an eye on the scientific facts, it is quickly revealed to be less of a documentary based on fact , and more an attempt to skewer the big bad oil companies. Gasland is no "Inconvenient Truth" as shale gas opponents would have you believe. Even the mayor of the Texas town that was brought in to speak for the "no" side agreed that if the industry is properly regulated it can have limited environmental affects.

On the other side of the issue we have a government that is reacting to the environmentalist side, rather than being proactive and offering full disclosure. All are suspicious of governments because they have failed to act decisively in the past, especially against an industry that could potentially balance the books in NB. We are suspicious that the government would be willing to sell the proverbial soul of the province in order to become the next Alberta or Newfoundland.

If we care to listen to the actions list, rather than the rhetoric, the government implemented a strengthening of the exploration rules last spring, and continues to work on more regulations, and monitoring mechanisms. Remember, we are 2 years away from any potential production, or actual hydro fracking. The premier recently said he wanted to have the best environment protection regulations in North America, specifically focused on the shale industry. Lets assume he's not lying, for a little while anyway. If they don't release the regs and monitoring schemes they have promised, then we can go after them!

The simplistic view is that the ground beneath our feet is a solid rock several kilometres thick, with a pool just under the surface containing our drinking water.  And the no side portrays that the shale gas industry is dropping a dirty drill through that pool of drinking water and then injecting water and fracking fluids just beneath the water table. And this picture is what has happened at some of the shale gas deposits in the USA, but our geology is different, and our gas deposits are over a kilometre beneath the surface.

The problem is, this oversimplifies the geology involved, and is a poor representation of what the shale gas deposits look like, especially in NB.  The actual geology under the surface of the Earth is a complex and varied layer cake of different geologies. In fact,  layer cake is a bad analogy because the layers are not all horizontally orientated, and are made up of different materials. And there is 1+ kilometre of these layers between the rocks to be fracked, and the drinking water. So the chance of the gas, or fracking fluids, seeping through 1+km of rock layers, is slim to none. The very nature of a gas deposit is that it is topped by a "cap rock" or a layer of dense rock that has essentially kept the gas from seeping to the surface for millions of years. So if the extreme pressures and temperatures found thousands of meters below the surface haven't let the gas escape for millions of years, what are the chances that small fractures being pressurized by water and sand is going to make it happen.

The shale deposits that are being extracted on a large scale in the USA have largely been much shallower deposit than we see in NB, and the  deposits that have seen problems are usually from small oil companies that are not following the type of regulations that are proposed for NB.  

You need to compare apples to apples, so let's compare what could happen in NB to what is happening in Canada, in jurisdictions with similar rules and regulations as NB. The most "fracked" province in Canada is likely Alberta. And I am not referring to the oil sands; but to the thousands of other wells that are producing oil and gas all across Alberta. If you spend any amount of time in Alberta, you will see oil or gas being extracted at small well pads across the countryside.  And I don't mean that there is oil derricks as far as the eye can see, but there is the occasional derrick or well pad in the middle of a field, with farm land or forests all around it. There have been thousands of wells fracked in Alberta, and none of them have experienced problems with drinking water.

BUT...let's assume for a minute the government is looking out for the provinces best interests, and is trying to develop the shale industry based on facts from not only industry experts, but from independent scientists. They have travelled to the site of where shale gas fracking has gone wrong, in an attempt to learn from the mistakes of others. They have already put in place new regulations for the exploration phase of the shale gas industry, and are working on regulations and monitoring strategies for the production phase, which by most accounts is at least 2 years away.

Let me reiterate that point; the production phase of shale gas, or the phase that includes full scale fracking, is not even supposed to start for 2 more years. And additionally, none of the companies exploring have determined yet that there is gas in the amounts that make them feasible to extract. So, essentially, the "no" side is calling for a moratorium on fracking, when no one has said for sure they want to do it in NB. The only fracking that would be affected by a moratorium would be the few wells that are currently being fracked, and have been fracked without incident since 2003.

One worry with this industry is that it uses a lot of water, but the falsehood that has been reported is that is has to be clean, potable water. This is not the case, the water can be recycled, and the industry is working on ways to use un-potable water. There is also fracking methods that don't use water.

The other boogieman being used by the "no" side is fracking fluids. They will have you thinking that the oil companies don't have to tell the government what is in these fluids, but this is not true. The government of NB has already said that companies will be required to disclose the ingredients of their fluids, for government approval, before using them in NB. And often the fluids are no worse that the soap you use to clean your dishes or floors.

So, the government is currently meeting with stakeholders, doing research of other jurisdictions, and developing regulation and monitoring strategies, in a proactive effort to prepare for a very lucrative industry that may, or may not start in earnest in 2 years time. Isn't that what we want to see, a government that is being proactive about turning around the provinces finances while making sure it protects our environment.

Unfortunately the media outlets of the world have become less about providing a balanced and impartial view of what is happening in our world, and more to do with coming up with the most sensational headlines and stories to grab the attention of the public eye. I get it, impartial and balanced is often boring, and our modern world cannot be bother with boring things. But let's not throw away a great opportunity based on sensationalisms and emotions.

Most unbiased experts agree that shale gas can be extracted safely and profitable, and the government is implementing regulations and monitoring strategies to ensure that the industry develops safely.

Let's dig up the facts and make informed, balanced decisions.

A fight for self sufficency.....

So in our lovely home province of New Brunswick, a rural, sparsely populated corner of the world, we have a fight brewing.

As a small province with a small pop base (700,000), our gov't is struggling to make ends meet, with a $1billion debt. We have had several attempts at promoting growth in our business sector through innovation attraction, low taxes and promotion of our low cost of doing business. All have had limited amounts of success, and our provincial debt continues to grow.

Now  we discover that we may have significant reserves of shale gas in our midst. This type of hydrocarbon has long been know about, but until recently was too expensive to extract. Technology and high gas prices have conspired to make shale gas a feasible resource, and companies have taken notice of New Brunswick and have decided the potential is good enough that it is worth exploring, and one company in particular has committed to spend 3 years doing exploration work.

As we have seen from media reports in other jurisdictions where shale gas has been discovered and is being extracted, the method used to extract, hydro-fracking, has become controversial. Never mind that this extraction technique has been used for 80 years with relatively low incidents of unexpected pollution, and that the oil and gas industry is one of the safest and most regulated in the world; the media has helped whip people into a panic over this technique based on some acusations in the states that the process is responsible for contaminating water tables.

So we have a new natural resource industry that could help balance the books for our government, and lead to lower taxes, better public services such as education and health care, and thus a better future for NB. That is one side of the coin.

The other side of the coin is the risk that comes with any natural resource extraction, potential pollution of the environment. The government is trying to put into place rules and regulations to protect the water supply of citizens and put in place funding to help mitigate any issues that may arise; the company doing the extraction will be required to set aside a pot of money to pay for any damage they cause. But many don't find this is good enough, they want a ban on the process; which would effectively remove the potential for any revenue from this resource.

The public is already in a panic over the hydrofracking process, even though we don't even know if there is enough gas to extract yet. It has gotten to to point where the company doing exploration has had equipement stolen, trucks blockaded, and even employees assaulted.

I agree that the process needs to be regulated, and all the contingencies examined. But the facts need to be publicized; hydrofracking has been done all over the world and in many different environments for over 80 years. And oil companies are not the evil, environment killing monsters that many would have you believe. I have worked with several large and small oil companies, and know for a fact that their safety and environmental protection policies are very stringent. These companies do not want destroy people's drinking water any more than people want it destroyed. If for no other reason than it is bad for business; it is expensive to clean up, and very bad PR.

It sickens me that a law abiding company doing business with all required rules and regulations, is being attacked in such a way that they had to stop work. If someone wants to protest against hydrofracking, focus the protest on the people who decide if it should happen or not...the government!

The province of NB gets a large majority of its electricity from coal power plants; this is the dirtiest way to get power and these plans are doing alot more damage to the environment than hydrofracking ever will...but I don't see anyone blockading NB Power vehicles or assaulting their employees.

I am pretty sure the majority of those living in Alberta and reaping the benefits of the oil sands projects are happy with their non-existing taxes and phenomenal public services.

Lets at least keep the fight clean folks...leave the law abiding companies out of the fight.

And off the soap box he steps....