Take Action

E-mail the Prime Minister and urge him to

hold a full public independent inquiry to determine public opinion about allowing tankers on the B.C. coast.

Enbridge is stepping up its efforts to sell northern B.C. communities on the benefits of its Northern Gateway oil pipelines. The energy giant has amassed $100 million to push through the latest version of its $4 billion scheme to send crude from Alberta’s tar sands to the coast, and bring condensate from tankers to the tar sands.

Missing from the Enbridge sales pitch is what will happen with the crude oil once it reaches the proposed pipeline’s end in Kitimat. In case you hadn’t heard, 525,000 barrels of oil per day will be loaded onto oil tankers which will then thread their way down Douglas Channel to the Inside Passage. That works out to about 225 loaded, massive oil tankers per year.

Living Oceans Society believes that the government is getting ahead of itself by reviewing the Enbridge Gateway project before it has asked Canadians whether they are willing to tolerate oil tankers moving along the B.C. coast. There is, after all, the 37 year old moratorium on oil tankers in coastal waters to consider. The last time the federal government considered allowing oil tankers to enter into coastal waters was in the 1970s when the federal government held an independent public review under the oversight of Dr. Andrew Thompson. That review looked at the environmental, social, and navigational impacts that tankers would have on the coast. When the hearings were adjourned, Dr. Thompson and the federal government agreed that if a tanker port proposal were reactivated, then the independent public inquiry would be reactivated as well.

Fill out this form to send an email to Prime Minister Stephen Harper with the message below (follow the orange arrows).

YOUR MESSAGE:

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

Enbridge is proposing to build its Northern Gateway project which consists of an oil tanker port at Kitimat, British Columbia and two 1,150-kilometre pipelines from the Alberta tarsands. This is a major fossil-fuel infrastructure project that intends to bring the first ever supertankers to B.C.’s North and Central Coast waters and as such, the proposal deserves the highest possible level of public scrutiny and review. The pipelines, one for exporting crude oil and the other for importing condensate, would cross approximately a thousand streams and rivers, many of which are in the Skeena and Upper Fraser watersheds. These two river systems are British Columbia's most important wild salmon rivers. The vessels servicing the port would violate the longstanding ban on oil tanker traffic in B.C.’s northern waters.

A joint review by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is scheduled to examine the Northern Gateway project this coming June. I do not believe this process is adequate to evaluate the full range of issues and allow for meaningful public participation. The scope of the Joint Review Panel insufficient as it intends to focus on the question of how the project proceeds rather than on the more important question of whether it should be permitted at all.

I believe that an independent review process should instead consider the implications of lifting the oil tanker moratorium, the impact of the pipelines on tar sands expansion, and the project's broader relationship to Canadian energy sustainability and climate change. Three decades ago there was a similar proposal for an oil port at Kitimat and pipeline to Alberta. At that time, the Government of Canada initiated the West Coast Oilport Inquiry under Dr. Andrew Thompson to review that project. The Enbridge proposal should undergo no less scrutiny.

For these reasons, I urge you to establish a full public inquiry for the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway project that takes into account both pipelines, the tanker port and tanker routes as well as the project’s role in climate change.

Respectfully,