Premier Tim Houston’s government is moving forward with a plan to possibly lift bans on hydraulic fracking (drilling) and uranium exploration.

New legislation introduced on Tuesday in Halifax, includes measures that would allow for drilling of onshore natural gas, potential uranium development and several amendments to agricultural laws, according to a news release.

Houston has been vocal recently about the need to boost the economy and tap into Nova Scotia’s wealth of critical minerals.

A ban on fracking has been in place since 2014, but the province believes these changes would help make us more economically independent.

The changes to uranium laws would permit the government to dig, but not private companies.

They also say any hydraulic fracking or drilling would face “strict regulations to minimize any environmental threat” and would only happen after they’ve had “conversations about how to do it safely.”

Houston has been adamant that any naysayers to resource development are holding the province back.

In the government’s throne speech on Friday, as well as a front page advertisement in the Chronicle Herald cited “special interest groups”, or environmentalists, are preventing these things.

“The world is demanding critical minerals and other natural resources in the transition to net zero by 2050. Nova Scotia can be a safe, responsible and ethical source of those materials and we need to remove barriers to explore all our options,” said Tory Rushton, Minister of Natural Resources. “If we’re going to use natural resources here, we should be having the conversations about extracting them here and keeping all the jobs and economic benefits.”

Nova Scotia has seven trillion cubic feet of onshore natural gas and exploration could generate $100 million a year, with full production bringing in billions in royalties.