Energy East - What People are Saying

Study of jobs and economic benefits of TransCanada's Energy East project is generating support for the project
Sep 18, 2013 2:45 PM ET

Energy East - what people are saying

Since TransCanada first embarked on the concept of the Energy East Pipeline more than a year ago, support for the project has continued to grow. Associations, labour organizations, business councils and governments have advocated for a national pipeline that would connect a secure supply of oil from Western Canada to refineries and terminals in Eastern Canada — reducing Canada’s reliance on imported oil from overseas while creating thousands of jobs and economic benefits for Canadians across the country.

On September 10, interest for the $12 billion project was further heightened when TransCanada released a new study by Deloitte and Touche LLP that analyzed the specific economic benefits Canadians would receive from the project. The study commissioned by TransCanada used Statistics Canada’s recognized Input/Ouput Model to provide preliminary job numbers, estimates of tax revenues and impact on Canada’s GDP for the project.

The study’s findings revealed that Energy East will generate an estimated $35 billion in additional gross domestic product for Canada, $10 billion in government tax revenues across the country, and create more than 10,000 direct, full-time jobs during the six-year development and construction phase of the project and another 1,000 direct, full-time jobs during 40 years of the pipline’s operation.

Deloitte also concluded that more than 30,000 full-time equivalent jobs per year could be realized between 2013 and 2018 if the project is given the go-ahead, when looking at the direct, indirect and “spin off” jobs created by the project, and more than 4,000 jobs could be created over the pipeline’s first 40 years of operation.

It’s an early answer to the questions many Canadians have been asking about the project, and has resulted in praise for both TransCanada’s commitment to objectively discussing the economic impacts of Energy East and support for the pipeline overall.

Read our blog to find out what people are saying about Energy East.