Plus ça change: Quebec reverses fracking ban

The province will allow the technique. But it may be too little too late

Quebec's National Assembly has taken the first steps to reversing a decade-long ban on hydraulic fracturing, moving closer to opening what could prove to become one of North America's largest shale plays. The province was the first Canadian jurisdiction to implement a formal fracking moratorium, in 2006, then moving to implement a full ban in 2014. But the new Liberal government has now reversed course by issuing drilling licences to a local partnership led by Montreal's Pétrolia, called Hydrocarbures Anticosti, to conduct a C$100m ($70m) exploration programme on Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off Canada's east coast. Drilling on the remote outpost has gone on for decades. Thes