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I think this reporter see's what was said differently then most.

Just put it into perspective. These "leaks" are something that is considered very common amongst shale gas wells (read Binnion's blog to see what they are). But in Quebec, a simple thing that is pretty much ignored in all jurisdictions with regulation, is made into a media frenzy in Quebec. If journalists in Alberta or Texas for example blew up every minor normal detail of shale gas drilling, I'm pretty sure we would be reading about shale gas 365 days a year.

Frankly the media has nothing much to hold on to. They hear the facts and I'm sure some of them even know that this was all normal, but they still write what they want. It would be nice for them to be bound by ethical writing practices, but most people like to read about controversy instead. Before Arcand's comments, the leaks were told as normal by the inspectors and the journalists even wrote that. Now he makes a comment (mind you without even having any knowledge of what he is talking about) saying the industry needs to do it right or they can't and the media loves it, they take something that isn't and wasn't a problem according to their stories before, and they make it a problem because a government official said a few words.

I have been reading hundreds of comments to these articles, and mainy of them see this as a way for Charest to take the attention away from the Bastarache report. This is why you see many opposition leaders come out and say this was just a smoke screen to take the spotlight away from him and ease the bleeding.

I read this comment from a poster to one of these articles, and he makes great points:

"Well we know the direction the government is the development of the sector of gas extraction, and more specifically its extraction with the highest standards and with the best practices that can be done in the industry, politicians they said repeatedly, hence the mandate of the BAPE. And of course the government, like any reasonable person agrees that any business has a risk level and level of environmental impact. Zero risk does not exist. No more than zero environmental impact of any activity.

It's all about appreciation and perspective.

The purpose of this development is very simple to understand. In Quebec we import some 2 billion worth of natural gas per year. That is money that comes directly from our economy, to the delight of Alberta and British Columbia that they have all the benefits of economic activity in this industry, including royalties that the Québec is to pay them..."