Political satirist Rick Mercer is taking aim at Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre for his decision to reject the Energy East pipeline.

“Now at the risk of sounding like someone who cares deeply about a national federation, Denis, try to wrap your head around this – this has nothing to do with Montreal, this has nothing to do with Quebec. This is about one part of Canada trying to get their natural resources to the world market,” said Mercer in his rant.

Mercer is referring to a press conference last week where Coderre voiced his opposition to the project. In a column Coderre contributed to the Montreal Gazette, he wrote that he’s repeatedly said that “when it comes to transporting oil, we need a perfect score, and we cannot make mistakes.”

“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,” he wrote.

If the pipeline is built, it will ship a million barrels of oil every single day from Alberta to an ice-free port in New Brunswick, said Mercer.

“Now, let’s be clear, a lot of people do not like Alberta oil, they hate the fact that Canada is in the oil business at all, they hate the fact that the world is addicted to oil and Canada is sitting on a whole bunch of it. But Denis avoided that debate, instead he made it clear he wants to stop this pipeline because there’s not enough in it for Montreal, there’s not enough money in it for Quebec,” said Mercer.

“Now when Alberta sells their oil to the world, they make money. It’s ugly but it’s true, but then, they take a bunch of that money and they put it in the transfer payment pot and then that money is given, no strings attached, to provinces not making as much money.”

Mercer said that last year alone Quebec received $9.5 billion, as they should, with have-provinces transferring wealth to have-not provinces, so we all share the same standard of living.

“Why? Because we are a country, we’re in this together.”

“It is astoundingly decent. It is astoundingly Canadian. So with all due respect to the mayor of Montreal, Alberta has been paying their fair share for a very, very long time and right now, today, they are hurting. We all need this thing. It is time for provinces to start asking ‘what’s in it for Canada?’ not just ‘what’s in it for me.'”