This is just the one who will say it publicly

One local businessman is saying publicly what many others in the local oil and gas community are thinking or saying privately.

Instead, Hebron is on the shelf and the province will get no benefits at all, Harry Pride notes.

"It destroyed an industry that would give us 20, 25 years work," he said.

"We would have had 3,000 workers here -– they're all going somewhere else. People know that their career is going to be very short here, so now they're all on the Internet looking for a longer career, and they're welcomed like anything out west."

Pride said the province did not consider the repercussions of what would happen if it demanded too much.