Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston speaks to reporters at the Nova Scotia legislature in Halifax, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
By Lyndsay Armstrong
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says some anti-fracking protesters at a consultation session on the province’s onshore gas exploration plans drowned out voices of those who wanted to learn more about fossil fuel production.
A Halifax environmental advocacy group, on the other hand, says those voices represent just some of the many Nova Scotians who are concerned about environmental risks tied to fracking.
Houston posted his comments on social media, along with a short video of a consultation session in Windsor, N.S., held on Monday evening. In the 13-second video, protesters can be heard chanting: “no fracking, no fracking.”
Houston said some people “will hear those chants as opposition to jobs, economic growth, and investments in the public services people rely on, including health care.”
Fracking involves pumping a mix of water, sand and additives into wells at a very high pressure.
The premier said both perspectives, those opposed to fracking and those in favour of it, “are real, and both deserve space in this conversation.”
Houston’s government sparked that conversation more than a year ago when it introduced legislation lifting a ban on fracking in Nova Scotia, in place for over a decade.
The decision has the potential to create new jobs and economic opportunities, as well as trigger significant environmental impacts. The federal government has said more research is needed to answer questions about what happens to the air, land and water in areas where the fossil fuel companies operate.
Houston said his government lifted Nova Scotia’s moratorium on fracking to help the province better withstand economic challenges related to U.S. tariffs. He’s called blanket resource bans “lazy policy.”
But he said the actions of protesters could prevent the province from pursuing an important discussion about jobs, energy production as well as environmental concerns.
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Nova Scotia tapped Dalhousie University to administer a $30 million program that will see university researchers and the private sector study the province’s estimated 198-billion cubic metres of onshore natural gas.
“Going forward, we will continue to hold these sessions, but the expectation is clear: they must be spaces where all Nova Scotians can speak — not just the loudest voices in the room,” Houston said.
Badia Nehme, an energy coordinator with Halifax’s Ecology Action Centre, said those protesters have legitimate concerns about the implications of fracking on the environment and in their communities.
“Nova Scotians are frustrated that they’re not being heard,” Nehme said in an interview Wednesday.
“There is huge concern around health and environmental safety, because pollution risks (of fracking) are quite high,” she added.
Nehme said the premier should expect continued opposition to fracking from Nova Scotians who “are not being listened to.”
“I think Houston’s a little too out-of-touch to have conversations with everyday Nova Scotians, because there’s too much of a focus on oil barons and billionaires that he’s going to meet in Texas,” she said.
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Environment and Climate Change Canada is conducting ongoing research evaluating exploration and production techniques with an eye to prevent air and water pollution and other impacts. Fracking can sometimes be linked to earthquakes, but the federal government’s Natural Resources Department says they’re usually relatively minor in scale and rarely felt.
David Wheeler, the former Cape Breton University president who chaired an independent review for Nova Scotia that led to the 2014 ban, took aim at the province this week, saying government has based their case for development on “a shocking lack of scientific objectivity” and that Dalhousie’s involvement with private energy companies could prove to be a financial and reputational liability.
The premier has been pushing resource development as a way to bolster Nova Scotia’s sagging finances, which hit a record deficit of more than $1.2 billion in this year’s budget.
Along with mining, gas, onshore wind and hydrogen, Houston has pitched that Nova Scotia could become an energy superpower through Wind West, a proposed $60-billion plan for offshore wind that the federal government has said it may help to fast-track. Quebec and Massachusetts have shown interest in potential exports from the project.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2026.
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