While N.S. pushes ahead on lifting fracking moratorium, N.B. minister says it's not on the table

As Nova Scotia tries to lift its moratorium on fracking, it's unlikely New Brunswick will follow suit.

There's significant interest in expanding New Brunswick's resource exploration, but that doesn't include hydraulic fracturing, Natural Resources John Herron said recently. 

Herron spoke in the legislature about launching a provincial "mineral strategy to unlock the economic potential of the mining sector."

But that strategy "has absolutely nothing to do with the development of natural gas from shale," Herron said after his speech. 

"There is a moratorium in place and I don't see any evidence that there's an appetite amongst New Brunswickers to change the status of that moratorium."

Herron said that while there is "clearly a demand for critical minerals … the same cannot be said with respect to natural gas."

First of all, there's the moratorium. 

"Secondly," he said, "to be quite frank, where's the market?"

He said there are substantial deposits in shale beds in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York — enough to supply the northeastern United States.

"That's not our market and — this just in — it's a little difficult to trade with the Americans these days," Herron said. 

"So the markets would have to be international and that would require a liquefaction plant — to make the LNG terminal in Saint John to an exporting terminal." 

When that plan was last considered about a dozen years ago, the price tag was $4 to $5 billion, said Herron. 

N.S. says fracking can strengthen province in tariff war

On Tuesday, the Nova Scotia government passed third reading of a bill that would lift a moratorium on fracking.

Premier Tim Houston began talking earlier this year about the need for the province to capitalize on the potential of its natural resources. In trying to explain the policy shift on fracking, he said it would also make Nova Scotia more financially self-sufficient in the face of a trade war with the United States.

Kris Austin, New Brunswick PC critic for natural resources, did not respond to an interview request on Wednesday. 

Rocky road with Indigenous chiefs

The issue is a sensitive one for Mi'kmaw and Wolastoqey communities in New Brunswick. 

The chiefs of both nations have always said resource development will not occur without their involvement or consent. 

While at an international hydrogen summit in the Netherlands in 2023, then-premier Blaine Higgs told an online business publication the clock is ticking for the province to take advantage of willing partners in Europe for natural gas. 

"We've gotta get on with it," he said. 

"I want First Nations to be part of this, but there comes a time when you've just gotta find a way to move on, if I can't have any meaningful discussion to make it happen," he was quoted as saying.

At the time, the New Brunswick chiefs issued a joint statement saying the premier's "sudden change of position, without any further dialogue with First Nations, also underlines why First Nations lack trust in the Higgs government."