Wilkins: Canada Cannot Stop LNG Terminals

Three separate LNG terminals have been proposed on the Maine side of Passamaquoddy Bay. But the prospect of volatile, LNG supertankers navigating the treacherous Canadian waters leading to the terminal sites has stirred outrage in southwestern New Brunswick communities bordering Maine. Opponents claim the terminals and their supertanker traffic would create an environmental hazard and threaten local tourism. "The tourist economy, the fishing economy, the environment - all of that would go," said Larry Lack, a resident of St. Andrews, N.B., which is near the proposed LNG sites. The federal Liberal government has been under growing pressure to say it will not allow LNG tankers through the Canadian passage leading to Passamaquoddy Bay, but government officials will say only that the matter is being studied. Opposition Conservatives are asking Prime Minister Paul Martin to do what former prime minister Pierre Trudeau did in the 1970s when he blocked ocean-going tanker traffic to a proposed Maine oil refinery. "We have history on our side," Thompson said. "It was the right decision then and it would be the right decision now and I'm expecting the government of Canada to do that." http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2005/10/27/pf-1281232.html

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