An influential Indigenous chief says the Wolastoqey Nation is prepared to discuss the idea of drilling for natural gas, a hot-button issue in New Brunswick where a moratorium on fracking is still in place.
Patricia Bernard of Madawaska First Nation says former Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs was keen to develop vast amounts of the gas locked in shale, but the chiefs found it difficult to trust him.
She said the six leaders whose Indigenous communities dot the St. John River Valley are tentatively scheduled to meet with provincial officials to discuss the fossil fuel’s extraction next month. There’s a new proposal on the table from a Western energy company that wants to drill 10 wells as a pilot project south of Moncton.
“At one point, when Higgs was premier, Germany was looking for more fuel because of the war in Ukraine and shortages of fuel in Europe,” Bernard said in an interview.
“But he made the huge mistake of ticking us off and then asking us for help. I was of the opinion that if you’re going to cancel our tax agreements, why would we trust you? You do things so abruptly, and it shouldn’t work that way. It pisses people off.”
The previous government led by Higgs was at odds on several issues important to First Nations.
The Tory government tore up tax-sharing agreements that were worth close to $50 million annually, arguing they were outdated, unfair and spread out benefits unequally among the 15 Indigenous communities. Instead, the province tried signing special development agreements with First Nations, putting six in place before Higgs lost office in 2024.
New agreements on sharing sales tax generated in Indigenous communities were quickly signed between the new Liberal administration and the First Nations.
The Tories had also mounted a spirited public campaign against an Aboriginal title claim filed by the Wolastoqey Nation in the courts, a fight that’s been led by Bernard, who’s also a lawyer.
Higgs warned publicly that four competing claims meant that no part of New Brunswick would remain untouched, and private property owners risked losing title to their land.
(Besides the Wolastoqey Nation’s claim, the eight Mi’kmaq First Nations, Elsipogtog and the Peskotomuhkati Nation at Skutik in the Saint Andrews and St. Stephen area all have separate title demands.)
The Liberals have promised to consult more with the Indigenous communities, and it has also stopped putting up a defence in the Wolastoqey lawsuit.
This relationship building has opened a crack to the idea of natural gas development, an idea many First Nations at one time opposed because of environmental concerns over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drill method that uses large amounts of water and chemicals.
Some of those leaders also expressed concerns about adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and contributing to dangerous global warming.
New Brunswick has a huge reserve of unconventional natural gas, most of it unexploited. Geologists estimate there are nearly 70 trillion cubic feet of the resource underground in the province, mostly locked in shale beds.
When David Alward’s Progressive Conservative government tried to encourage gas companies to frack 15 years ago, opposition quickly mounted from First Nations and environmental groups.
The issue came to a head in October 2013, when RCMP tried to remove a blockade near Rexton in eastern New Brunswick led by people from the Mi’kmaq community of Elsipogtog and their supporters, who were trying to stop the company Southwestern Energy Resources (SWN) from doing exploratory testing for the gas.
A massive confrontation ensued, with dozens arrested and several RCMP vehicles torched. SWN eventually left the province, never to return.
The incoming Gallant Liberal government imposed a moratorium on shale gas drilling in 2014.
But there’s a new proposal on the table, this one from Jim Livingstone, an experienced oil and gas executive who grew up in Sydney, N.S., but moved to Calgary in 1980.
On March 18, the CEO of RC Energy met in Moncton at the Crowne Plaza hotel with most of the Mi’kmaq chiefs, whose communities are on the eastern side of New Brunswick.
He is pitching the idea of a cleaner method of drilling than fracking. He wants the First Nations to give their blessing and invest their dollars in the project, guaranteeing them a healthy cut of the profits.
Terry Richardson, the chief of Oinpegitjoig, or Pabineau First Nation, is gung-ho on the proposal.
“Our meeting went really well. There are naysayers, obviously, but the technology has been proven. It’s sound. But we’re going to take this slowly. We’re going to try to first sign a memorandum of understanding with all 15 First Nations. The next step would be community engagement, sign a lease with the province and then hopefully we’ll drill.”
Richardson was unwilling to say how much gas would be extracted, the investment required and how much profits the First Nations could make. But he estimated if the industry was fully developed in New Brunswick – in the order of 50 wells – it would generate at least $500 million in royalty and taxes for the provincial government.
By John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Mar 31, 2026 at 06:03
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