For immediate release
10, June, 2021
NDP Leader Alison Coffin today expressed tremendous concern on behalf of workers employed in the oil and gas industry. With the future of Terra Nova FPSO facing uncertainty, Coffin has concerns that as the inevitable collapse of the oil and gas industry continues, workers again will be left unemployed, and searching for alternatives.
“The auditor general has been calling on this province to divest from Oil and Gas for decades. It’s deeply frustrating that successive Liberal and Conservative governments chose to ignore this, and now workers are going to be left with little alternatives,” said Coffin. “This government continually fed the electorate falsehoods about ‘clean’ and ‘low-carbon’ oil being a sought after resource, now look where we are.”
With scarce details on which equity partners in the Terra Nova FPSO project are divesting, Coffin has great concerns that other oil and gas projects in this province are facing the same fate. She points to Suncor, Cenovus-Husky, and Equinor, who are majority shareholders in the White Rose, White Rose Expansion, and the Bay-du-Nord projects.
“My concern is that the provincial government continues to believe the fallacies about the future of oil and gas, and workers and our financial security as a province are going to be the casualties,” Coffin said today. “There are countless reasons why continued investment in the oil and gas industry is short-sighted decision making and does nothing to position the province as a leader in the world,” said Coffin. “We need to find our position in the post-covid economy, and oil and gas is not a part of it. It’s time we accept this and plan accordingly.”
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca