Protest Transcript

Protest Transcript

Hundreds of demonstrators protested on the lawn of the legislature Tuesday to show their displeasure with the sale of NB Power to Hydro Quebec.

DOUG WILLIAMS-Organizer

My name is Doug Williams. I’m the organizer of the event. I’m here to stop the sale of NB Power. We hope to get the mandate across that the government doesn’t have a mandate to do this. They have a mandate to do the exact opposite of this. And they need to go to the people before anything happens.

BETHANY THORNE-DYKSTRA-NB People First

I’m Bethany Thorne-Dykstra and I’ve coordinated the organization NB People First. And we’re 300 people strong across the province, in just a week and a half I might add, and we’ve all come together because we’re concerned about the sale of our utility. The concern is that we just put 3 billion dollars approximately in investment into both the connection line going into the united states, so that we could sell energy. And we put another 1.6 billion into Point Lepreau so we could create energy to sell. And all of a sudden, we spent all of our tax dollars on those things so we can make money we are now selling it all. And we don’t feel that the people are getting a good deal in this.

CLARKE HAMILTON- Facebook Organizer

My name is Clarke Hamilton, and I established the Facebook group “No to the sale of NB Power” on October 23^rd, and it’s grown to a membership, last I saw, of about 2500 members. The facebook group was established to motivate and inspire to lobby this administration against this deal because and it’s just wrong for every reason. And I think that from what we see here today that it has hit a nerve amongst the citizens of this province and they’re here to send a very clear message that this deal is not wanted and should not be honored.

Many speakers addressed the crowd, including representatives from the NDP, the Conservation Council, The Green Party and Leader of the Opposition David Alward.

DAVID ALWARD- Leader of the New Brunswick Conservative Party’

NB Power is not for sale.

Liberal MLA Hédard Albert believes the protest is a result of the public misunderstanding the terms of the sale.

You see, those people, they may have some point of view. They do not want the sale of the … in New Brunswick. We have to inform them, we have to discuss with them, to explain what is the agreement what it’s all about. And then, we’ll see. Anyway. With a big project like this, we know that not all people of NB will agree with that. We have to deal with that, explain, discuss, and then we’ll see what will be going on after.

Protestors gathered outside the windows of the legislature, hoping to be heard inside. Conservative MLA Margaret –Ann Blaney left the thrown speech to address the crowd.

MARGARET-ANN BLANEY- Conservative MLA

Your voices are being heard in the legislature as the speech from the throne is being read. We can hear your voices.

While some are calling for a referendum , the Graham government hopes to have the deal finalized by March. For STU journalism, I’m Megan MacKay.

Short URL: http://www.newbrunswickbeacon.ca/?p=3230

Posted by Megan Mackay on Nov 18, 2009. Filed under Transcripts, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.