Federal Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, and Saskatchewan Senator Denise Batters will visit Moosomin on the February long weekend to speak at a pro-pipeline, pro-resource rally.
Brandon-Souris MP Larry Maguire, Dauphin-Swan River MP Robert Sopuck and Saskatchewan MLAs Steven Bonk, Warren Steinley, and Warren Kaeding have all confirmed that they will attend the event as well.
The rally will take place Saturday, February 16 at the new IJack assembly plant just north of Moosomin on Highway 8, starting at 11 am sharp.
The plan for the rally grew out of efforts by the town and RM of Moosomin to bring discussion of Energy East back to the national agenda.
The town and RM submitted parallel resolutions to SUMA and SARM last winter to ask those organizations to raise the issue with higher levels of government. The town and RM then appointed former SARM president Sinc Harrison to take the lead on the issue.
“The voice of the silent majority needs to be heard,” says Harrison. “Polls that have been done across Canada show there is support for pipelines. To sit back and do nothing is unacceptable, so we will do what we can.
“We were very fortunate to have the Leader of the Opposition, and then Senator Batters, and then the Premier of Saskatchewan agree to come speak at the rally. Hopefully that will help attract the national media, because we want to get our message out to the whole country.
“It took a lot of work by a few people to secure Andrew Scheer as a speaker, but because of his national profile, our event should get a lot of attention, and we want that attention because we have a message that we want to get out to the country—that for places like Moosomin, where people are familiar with pipelines, where people know what pipelines are all about, there’s a lot of support for pipelines.”
Invitations had been sent to the premiers of Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick to attend, but the Ontario and Alberta premiers have declined.
Harrison said planning for the rally has gone well so far. He said he expects a large crowd but how large is anyone’s guess.
What does he see as the ideal result of efforts to bring attention to the crisis in getting resources to market?
“The first thing would be that the Senate would reject Bill C-69. The second would be that TransCanada would reconsider their application to the National Energy Board, and Energy East would get under way, and the Trans-Mountain Pipeline would get under way.”
The three speakers should have a lot to say about the oil and gas industry and pipelines.
In a 2018 interview with the World-Spectator, Andrew Scheer said he supports pipelines. “There is still a market in eastern Canada for western energy,” he said.
“I don’t believe that motorists in Quebec or Ontario or Atlantic Canada are happy that they are importing oil from other countries . . .
“I believe that by removing those conditions and by repealing C69 we could show the investors and companies that you have a government that is going to be a champion of the sector, and hopefully they would come back to the table, so I do think that is possible. Energy East was one of those grand nation building projects that would have brought our country closer together.”
Oil and gas companies, pipeline workers and contractors are welcome to bring their trucks and line them up along the North Service Road north of the Trans-Canada Highway.
