By Brittney Matejka

Mayor of Medicine Hat calls Montreal mayor a ‘moron’

Oct 5, 2017 | 5:56 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB. – TransCanada announced today they are cancelling plans for the $15.7 billion Energy East pipeline that would carry oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to Montreal and Saint John, New Brunswick.

The decision was celebrated by Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, who tweeted out that he was “proud” the project had been dropped.

However, Mayor Ted Clugston expressed his frustration towards Coderre’s reaction. “The mayor of Montreal is, frankly, a moron,” he said. “You have the mayor of Vancouver who is similar, who would rather buy oil from a dictatorship and have it imported.

Clugston explained the Energy East pipeline would have created many high paying jobs in southeastern Alberta and further expanded its energy sector.

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“We were counting on this as a city, as the city is looking to get into more oil production and taking the city from 1,000 to 10,000 barrels [of oil] a day,” he said.

His frustrations with the cancellation of the pipeline stretches further, noting it also impacts the entire Canadian economy.

“We are selling our oil to the States at a discount, where we could be selling it to Canadians to refine, add value and it’s really unfortunate,” he said.

Glen Motz, Member of Parliament for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner, shared Clugston’s frustrations with the cancellation. “This energy pipeline would have created so many jobs, in the offshoot in the service industry jobs and everything else related to supporting energy,” he said.

“It will have detrimental effects economically on the well-being of people from my riding.”

Glen Allan, a business instructor at Medicine Hat College, said the economy and the environment were two major players fighting on either side of the pipeline debate.

“Certainly if you’re an environmentalist, you’d consider this a victory,” he said. “There is always winners and losers in every economic transaction, and in this case, the economic development, the jobs, the growth, that’s the loser.”

Allan, went on to further explain if investors feel Canada has a reputation of not moving projects forward, they will take their business to other countries who will. “Money will go elsewhere, money is very mobile,” he said. “It can be invested wherever the opportunity for the greatest return.”