Now that the Alward Government has released its regulations to move forward with shale gas exploration, the big question is whether the public, by and large, will buy in.
The President of the Atlantica Centre for Energy John Herron tells CHSJ News the government will need what he calls “social licence” to make this a go.
To achieve that, Herron says the provincial government will have to show it’s willing to enforce its own regulations because without enforcement, they’re not worth the paper they’re written on and if something does go wrong, the government will have to demonstrate it’s got the landowner’s back.