Barry Rothfuss and Pam Novak hosted the strategy session at the Atlantic Wildlife Learning Centre

About 25 environmental activists, health experts, heritage advocates and Midgic-area residents held a two-hour strategy session Thursday night to discuss ways of stopping NB Power from building a 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant on the Chignecto Isthmus.

“We all have a common interest here,” said Barry Rothfuss, executive director of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute which hosted the gathering at its learning centre about 4.5 kilometres from the proposed plant.

“We’ve all worked hard to protect the Chignecto Isthmus,” he added, “and now we need to come together to speak with one voice against a project that is being done covertly and underhandedly.”

Rothfuss was referring to the sudden announcement of the gas/diesel plant on July 14th in the middle of summer as well as the claim from NB Power and the American company PROENERGY that the plant had the support of Indigenous investors.

“They misrepresented this project to federal and provincial regulators and to the public,” said Logan Atkinson of the group Seniors for Climate – Tantramar who attended the meeting via Zoom.

“How can we trust anything they say?” he asked, adding that opponents of the project need to recruit Indigenous support as part of a broad coalition.

The Elsipogtog First Nation and its Indigenous rights-defending organization Kopit Lodge have filed a comment with federal regulators saying they were not consulted about the project.

The Chiefs of the nine Migmaq First Nations in New Brunswick have also said the gas plant project cannot go ahead until there has been a thorough Indigenous-led rights impact assessment.

Anti-shale gas campaign

Sign on display in Midgic Baptist Church on August 11th during community meeting about the proposed gas plant. The plant would use fracked gas piped from Alberta through the U.S.

Meredith Fisher of the Anti-Shale Gas Alliance referred to the successes of the campaign against fracking.

“It was the first time in this province that Francophone, Anglophone and Indigenous people worked together,” she said.

“We were able to throw out a government,” she added, referring to the defeat of Premier David Alward’s Conservatives in 2014 and the imposition of a moratorium on new fracking projects by the Liberals.

“Fracking created a coalition with 44 communities against it,” said poet and anti-shale gas activist Marilyn Lerch. “We got a lot of experience putting a coalition together,” she added, “and we can get New Brunswick to back you and beat this thing.”

Pressure people with power

Doug Bliss, chair of the Town of Tantramar’s Climate Change Advisory Committee warned about the pitfalls of relying on government-led environmental impact assessments.

“Environmental assessments will never stop a project,” he said, adding that’s something he learned during decades of working for the federal government in wildlife management and conservation policy.

Bliss recommended e-mailing people with the power to stop it including the premier and the three cabinet ministers who have responsibilities related to it.

“E-mail the CEO of NB Power and also the board of directors,” he said.

MLA Megan Mitton, who attended the meeting from Fredericton via Zoom, said Green Party leader David Coon would be asking Premier Holt about the proposed gas/diesel plant when he meets with her on Monday.

Support for local organizers

Local organizers who live near the proposed plant. L-R: Juliette Bulmer, Kristen LeBlanc &Terry Jones

After the meeting, the three local organizers who would live near the plant said they were encouraged by the support they were getting from all the experts in the room.

“I think the meeting went really well,” said Juliette Bulmer.

“It was great to have the input of all the different groups who participated. They’re so experienced in these causes and how to get things done,” she added.

“You know for us, it’s a matter of the health of people and the environment. It’s like our basic existence.”

So far, Bulmer, Kristen LeBlanc and Terry Jones have organized a community meeting at the Midgic Baptist Church, established the Stop the Tantramar Gas Plant! Facebook page which now has 670 members and are circulating a petition that federal Green leader Elizabeth May has agreed to present in Parliament. They’re planning a protest outside the legislature in Fredericton on October 21st when the fall session begins.

They’re also organizing MARCH FOR OUR FUTURE — PROTECT THE ISTHMUS  at 1 p.m. on Saturday September 13th in Sackville’s Bill Johnstone Memorial Park.