Plan to build gas terminal draws ire in Quebec

More than 1,000 protesters marched to the Quebec National Assembly accusing the Charest government of selling out to Power Corporation of Canada, controlled by the Desmarais family and a major stakeholder in the Rabaska project. The Quebec government approved the project last week after receiving the green light in July from a federal-provincial environmental panel.

"The Quebec Liberal government, in its eagerness to approve the project, knows it is living on borrowed time and the Desmarais’ control of the Rabaska agenda now appears compromised," Greenpeace spokeswoman Jocelyn Desjardins told the cheering crowd. Greenpeace was among one of 25 environmental and cultural groups that make up a large coalition hoping to mobilize public opinion in Quebec against the Rabaska project, the second natural gas terminal in the province to be approved this year. The other, in Gros-Cacouna near Rivière-du-Loup, 250 kilometres east of Quebec City, received the government’s stamp of approval last June.

The government claimed that the liquefied natural gas, or LNG, terminals will help diversify the province’s energy supplies and make it less dependent on Western Canadian natural gas and highly polluting heavy oil, a major contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions in the province. Print Edition - Section Front

A spokesman for Quebec-Kyoto, an environmental group promoting compliance with the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse-gas emissions, argued that LNG terminals will in effect increase the province’s dependency on fossil fuels. Daniel Breton said the decrease in demand for heavy oil will be replaced by increased use of natural gas. He accused the Quebec government of working in the wings with interests such as Power Corporation to hand over control of the province’s energy production to private corporations.

"We have to stop petty politicians who are selling our democracy to the highest bidder," Mr. Breton told the crowd. "People like former premiers Jean Lesage and René Lévesque handed down to us a precious heritage. We cannot afford to squander it just to satisfy the whim of powerful lobby groups."

The coalition hopes to press the government into reversing its decision as it did when deep-seated opposition forced Premier Jean Charest to scrap the proposed Suroît gas-powered generating station in Beauharnois near Montreal in 2004. Yesterday’s demonstration was the first of what organizers say will be a series of protest marches to be held in the coming months.

The $840-million Rabaska project is scheduled to begin construction next spring and would come into operation in late 2011. The project is made up of a consortium that includes Montreal-based Gaz Métropolitain, Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. and French power utility Gaz de France.

Through its interests in French energy giant Suez SA, which recently merged with state-owned Gaz de France, Power Corporation holds a major stake in the Rabaska project. The merger of Suez and Gaz de France placed the Desmarais family as the centre of Europe’s most important buyer and seller of natural gas and a global leader in liquefied natural gas - considered the fastest-growing energy sector.

Safety remains a major concern for opponents to the project, noting that in the past few months, three LNG terminal projects in the United States, two in California and one in Massachusetts, were rejected largely because of safety concerns.

"Quebec should not have to become a service station for the United States," Parti Québécois environment critic Camil Bouchard said.

Mr. Bouchard was reluctant to join the chorus of protest against Power Corporation, saying his party was against attacking economic leaders in the province. He puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government, arguing that the Quebec Energy Board should be asked to examine the province’s future needs in natural gas before proceeding with LNG terminals.