Telegraph Journal :: 5 February 2014
There is a concept in medicine called "Informed Consent". When recommending a course of treatment, a physician is ethically and legally bound to provide information to the patient about the likelihood of success and of known side effects (information gathered by peer-reviewed scientific research), and then ask for permission to provide the intervention.
The Alward Conservatives, and perhaps many of the Gallant Liberals, believe shale gas development is the prescription necessary to heal our ailing economy.
However, the people of New Brunswick have been neither informed about the risks surrounding shale gas development (be they environmental, social or medical), nor have they given their consent that by nature comes only after being properly informed.
Worse still, it is impossible for them to do so, for as corroborated by Dr. Louis Lapierre and Dr. Eilish Cleary’s respective reports, the risks to the environment and to people’s health have been not been properly catalogued nor has their likelihood been quantified.
However compelling an economic case the Conservatives, the McKenna/Francis McGuire Liberals and the Irving media try to make, the facts surrounding shale gas extraction remain unchanged. Safe and responsible expansion of this industry demands that more research be done prior to proceeding, and any drilling before this happens is by definition neither safe, nor responsible – and in the case of the Conservatives, another promise broken.
Charles Doucet
MONCTON
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