PROENERGY Canada President John MacIsaac answering questions last night at Tantramar Town Council

About 70 people crowded into the council chamber at Tantramar Town Hall on Tuesday to hear PROENERGY Canada President John MacIsaac make a five-minute presentation and respond to questions and comments from members of council.

“We have spent considerable time with New Brunswick skilled trades in ensuring that the benefits happen here first,” MacIssac said referring to the 500 MW gas/diesel plant that PROENERGY is planning to build on the Chignecto Isthmus near Centre Village.

“We’ve taken New Brunswick skilled trade entities to both Sedalia, Missouri and to some of our plants in Houston, Texas as well,” he added.

As he spoke, MacIsaac showed a slide that also mentioned his company’s collaboration with Mi’kmaq First Nations, but he did not refer to it verbally.

Later, Councillor Allison Butcher did.

Councillor Allison Butcher asked about the apparent lack of Indigenous participation

“There are no Indigenous groups backing this right now. We were told there was,” she said.

Butcher was referring to PROENERGY’s claims in documents filed with federal regulators and in community open houses last summer that the Mi’kmaq North Shore Tribal Council had invested in the gas plant project and would be co-owners of it.

“I feel like I’ve already been told things that weren’t completely true,” she added.

“So when I hear these great new things about how it will work, I can’t in good faith believe it because I’ve been told things before that weren’t true from you.”

MacIsaac responded that he stood by his former statements about Indigenous participation.

“I would invite you to fact-check me,” he told Butcher, adding that she should submit an access to information request for the supporting documents PROENERGY submitted to NB Power in response to the utility’s request for proposals (RFP) from companies interested in building and operating a gas/diesel generating plant.

“From an Indigenous participation perspective, what I said, and I stand by what I said,” MacIsaac told Butcher.

“What I said was from the outset, when we started proactively very early with Indigenous conversation back in 2024, and I would invite you to fact-check me…by going back and submitting an access to information (request) for the supporting documents that accompanied our response to the RFP.

“And then, I’m more than happy to come back and have the conversation over again,” MacIsaac said.

He gave the same “fact-check me” advice to Councillors Bruce Phinney and Michael Tower when they, too, raised what they saw as PROENERGY’s false claims about Mi’kmaq participation in the project.

Goguen questions location

Councillor Josh Goguen

Councillor Josh Goguen complained that council and the community did not receive proper notice of the gas plant project.

“We only got the notice on Facebook, of all places, before it even came out to council to say there was something coming in the area,” he said.

“For all this time, it was set up to be in Scoudouc and all of a sudden, it’s not in Scoudouc anymore.”

MacIsaac responded that NB Power looked at eight separate locations before narrowing it down to two, Scoudouc and Centre Village.

“At the end of the day, the impacts to the site were less, materially less, in Centre Village than they were in Scoudouc,” he said as members of the audience murmured in disbelief.

MacIsaac urged members of council to ask for more information from NB Power on how the sites were chosen.

“I asked them to put together an executive summary on the siting process,” he said,

“They now have that ready and it’s going through peer review internal to NB Power. So, I’d encourage you to go and ask them for it.”

Goguen also questioned whether the gas/diesel plant would burn fuel only 6-7% of the time as MacIsaac had claimed.

The councillor said he had heard that PEI and Nova Scotia had signed agreements to take some power from the plant.

MacIsaac replied that if you read what has been publicly posted, PEI is pursuing its own power solutions.

He added that as far as Nova Scotia is concerned, “that’s a question for NB Power.”

Tower questions emissions

Councillor Michael Tower

Councillor Michael Tower said he was “disheartened” at how the community learned about the project on social media.

“So, nothing there leads to trust and I’d like to be able to trust people we deal with,” he said.

“You have a lot of stairs to climb to get to where I want to have faith in you,” Tower added.

“I’m committed to that work,” MacIsaac responded.

Tower noted that PROENERGY had declared at open houses that it would be fully open and transparent, yet spokesman Chris Evans had refused to comment when Warktimes e-mailed to ask about errors in calculating greenhouse gas emissions that Professors Jean Philippe Sapinski and Patrick Faubert found in the document that the company submitted to regulators.

MacIsaac replied that in refusing to comment, Evans was trying not to interfere in the ongoing environmental review and consultation process.

“Us commenting could be seen as us influencing or attempting to influence what is supposed to be an independent process,” he said.

MacIsaac then promised to get a response from Evans, adding that NB Power is also working on a detailed response.

Mitton unimpressed

MLA Megan Mitton

Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton, who attended last night’s council meeting, said she was “kind of floored” by how little information MacIsaac provided.

She pointed out, for example, that he had not seemed willing to comment on mistakes found in the PROENERGY environmental impact assessment document.

“I’ve been arguing that there are problems with the EIA submission, so it should be disqualified,” Mitton said.

“It’s really frustrating to see the lack of transparency when that’s one of the key things the community is demanding,” she added.

“It’s really disappointing to have elected officials asking questions on behalf of the people who elected them and to get such non-answers that barely tell us anything.”

Note: Warktimes has asked NB Power for the RFP documents that MacIsaac suggested would support his claims about Indigenous participation in the gas plant project.

Warktimes has also asked NB Power for the executive summary that MacIsaac said would provide information on how the Centre Village site was chosen.

So far, NB Power has not responded.