The Member of Parliament for Bay of Quinte riding is disappointed that the nation’s top military unit, Joint Task Force 2, won’t be moving from the Ottawa area to CFB Trenton.
But Neil Ellis says he’s not surprised at the decision as the cost of the move has ballooned from around $350 million 12 years ago to over $1.2 billion today.
And the government believes the unit should remain near Ottawa as that area would present a more likely terrorism threat.
However, Ellis says all is not lost at CFB Trenton.
The process to move JTF2 began in 2007 under the Harper Conservative government and was announced with great fanfare locally and also featured a long expropriation fight over farmland belonging to the late Frank Meyers.
On another issue, First Nations blockades of rail lines across the country, including in Tyendinaga, continue today as a British Columbia band continues to fight to stop a natural gas pipeline through its territory.
The protests began almost a week ago.
Neil Ellis says the local blockade of CN/Via train traffic is a serious problem and he expects some movement on the issue by police in the next couple of days.
On Saturday a court injunction ordering the blockade at Tyendinaga to be removed was delivered to the protesters but has been ignored as have other injunctions elsewhere.
