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On Monday, Québec’s oil and gas industry responded to the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) report made public last week. Lucien Bouchard, former Québec Premier turned spokesman for the Québec Oil and Gas Association addressed the media for the first time, acknowledging that the industry’s “new” fracking techniques deserve further scrutiny in order to avoid “mishaps” such as the 19 gas wells that have recently leaked pollution into Quebec’s air and water.

The BAPE commission rightly called for an extensive environmental impact assessment of the effects that shale gas drilling has on air and water quality. While the BAPE did not call for a shale drilling moratorium, Pierre Arcand, Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment and Parks did, however, ban the use of hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. fracking) for at least a year and a half, and up to 30 months until this destructive technique can be studied further.

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Al Gore strode into Montreal Friday evening and the city embraced him as one of its own. In fact, I can’t quite imagine that he gets quite this kind of welcome anywhere else.

First of all, his visit was sponsored by La Presse, which guaranteed a pretty compelling advance. And if the front page coverage wasn’t impressive enough, the full-colour special section on climate change would have to turn your head.