The Canadian Building Trades has praised TransCanada Corp.’s plans to build the Energy-East Project.
The Energy East Pipeline is 4,500-kilometre pipeline that will carry 1.1-million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada, according to TransCanada’s website.
The project’s major components include: converting an existing natural gas pipeline to an oil transportation pipeline; constructing new pipelines in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Eastern Ontario, Québec and New Brunswick to link up with the converted pipe; constructing the associated facilities, pump stations and tank terminals required to move crude oil from Alberta to Québec and New Brunswick, including marine facilities that enable access to other markets by ship.
Director of Canadian Affairs Robert Blakely said: “This is the sort of job that proves that a pipeline is a conduit that connects high paying jobs in one region of Canada to high paying, long term and sustainable jobs in other Canadian Regions. At the same time as providing this job bonanza it changes the game for refiners in Central and Atlantic Canada in removing their dependence on foreign crude oil.”
The work will require a large of number of our members from Alberta into New Brunswick in the initial construction phase and more to build and maintain the facilities on either end of the line.
Gary Ritchie of the New Brunswick Building Trades said: “This means my members won’t have to go West whenever they need a job, we will increase the job base here in Atlantic Canada and see more investment here. We need those jobs as well as the new and exciting prospects for young New Brunswickers who haven’t had all that much to look forward to until now, this is the key to training a large number of people for real and lasting skilled jobs.”
