Saint John Mayor Don Darling is scratching his head over news the federal government will buy the Trans Mountain pipeline.
His city would have been the end point for the Energy East pipeline had TransCanada not pulled the plug in October.
“I think that the very same arguments that are being made in B.C. today — national interest, jobs, keeping the economy moving ahead — were the exact same points that we were making here on the east coast,” said Darling on Tuesday.
Darling says it feels like the east coast economy isn’t as important as the rest of the country, and that’s not acceptable.
Darling questioned why the federal government is kicking in money for the Trans Mountain pipeline out west while Energy East was cancelled. Canada plans to spend $4.5B to buy Trans Mountain.
— Brad Perry (@BradMPerry) May 29, 2018
He believes finances were partly to blame for the cancellation of Energy East, but so were politics.
“When you’ve got the mayor of Montreal and others standing up and saying they’re going to fight this pipeline until the end, I mean, that played a role,” he says.
Darling says the federal government should re-engage TransCanada to see if the Energy East project could be restarted.
