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For three years now, the oil pipelines issue has mobilized the elected representatives and citizens of Greater Montreal. As president of the Montreal Metropolitan Community, I made known on several occasions our position of “zero tolerance” toward the environmental risks of transporting petroleum products by pipeline.

I have repeatedly said that when it comes to transporting oil, we need a perfect score, and we cannot make mistakes.

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We are not against oil pipelines; we gave our agreement to the project inverting Enbridge’s Line 9B. But today, we are saying “no” to Energy East.

The project presented by TransCanada carries too many environmental risks for Greater Montreal.

Recall that the region of Montreal is a highly urbanized archipelago, comprising 4 million inhabitants. The environmental risks, in particular for the drinking water supply, are much larger than elsewhere.

The planned route of Energy East crosses several major rivers, including the Ottawa River, the Rivière des Mille Îles, the Rivière des Prairies and the Rivière L’Assomption. In case of a leakage incident, the drinking water intakes of several Greater Montreal municipalities could be threatened.