MONTRÉAL, Nov. 5, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ – Following an announcement made today by TransCanada, business leaders in Québec have come together to speak with one voice, in favour of the Energy East pipeline project. These men and women – employers, managers, workers, contractors – believe the project is vital to the future of Québec.
The associations that hereby express support for Energy East recognize that the project entails an investment on the order of several billion dollars. In Québec alone, the project will directly and indirectly create more than 4,000 jobs. It will generate millions of dollars for municipalities and billions of dollars for provincial and federal governments in taxes and other revenues. Energy East will contribute to the growth of Québec's GDP.
Building Energy East will be akin to building a public works project like a hydroelectric dam. It will require a specialized labour force that will draw upon, as well as enhance, Québec's world class expertise in petrochemical technologies, engineering, manufacturing and construction. The benefits are considerable and are vital to the growth and to the resilience of our economy.
Canada is home to the third largest petroleum deposits on the planet. Nevertheless, refineries in Québec and in New Brunswick today have no choice but to import the bulk of the feedstocks they need to produce the products we use every day. While we import oil, we export billions of dollars a year to foreign interests.
The Energy East pipeline is a crucial part of a modern infrastructure that will contribute to the diversification of Québec and Canada's energy portfolio, while improving the competitiveness of our petroleum and petrochemical industries.
Québec's two refineries will be directly connected to the Energy East pipeline. This will provide them with additional flexibility in sourcing feedstocks and it will support the province's petroleum and petrochemical industries, which have been struggling in recent years.
We needn't be reminded how important petroleum and its derivatives are to our daily lives. We use them to make gasoline, plastics, cosmetics, insulation, paints, fertilizers and many other products.
Pipelines are a reliable, secure and ecologically sound infrastructure for moving large quantities of petroleum over long distances and they provide benefits to the population at large, as they do to refiners. Thus, as long as oil is a part of our lives, it is incumbent upon us to support this system of transport.
Signatories
Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec
Québec Employers Council
Board of Trade of Metropolitain Montreal
Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Montreal
Association industrielle de l'Est de Montréal
Québec Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association
SOURCE Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec