"QUEBEC – Nathalie Normandeau, Quebec’s natural resources minister, announced Wednesday that the Quebec government would no longer authorize any hydraulic fracturing operations in the province.

Normandeau said the ban will apply to fracking both for gas and oil, but that fracking could be done for scientific purposes.

A panel of independent experts, members of which the government has yet to name, will determine whether an individual fracking operation will add to scientific knowledge about the impact of the controversial technique used to extract natural gas from shale rock formations."

Kevin Dougherty reports for the Montreal Gazette March 17, 2011. [2]