Media Releases

Vancouver:  Living Oceans greeted with skepticism media reports that Natural Resources Canada had discovered that diluted bitumen “doesn’t sink as readily as conventional oil” when spilled into water “unless exposed to high temperatures and weathering”.

For Immediate release:  June 22, 2016 SOINTULA, BC:  A highly virulent fish disease has infected three salmon farms in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, near Gold River, just before wild salmon begin their migration back into the area to spawn. Nootka Sound is home to a popular and lucrative sport fishery for five species of salmon, including Chinook or spring salmon—the primary food of Orca whales.

VANCOUVER—The National Energy Board’s recommendation today in favour of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion comes as no surprise to Living Oceans, an intervenor in the process; but it leaves B.C. still without assurance that Premier Clark's five conditions for approval can be met.

VANCOUVER:  The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), Ecology Action Centre, Living Oceans Society and the Quebec network Vigilance OGM are expressing concerns over Health Canada’s approval of the world’s first genetically modified (GM) food animal, a GM Atlantic salmon, for human consumption. “Canadians could now be faced with the world’s first GM food animal, approved with no public consultation and no labelling,” said Lucy Sharratt of CBAN.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE VANCOUVER—Groups are commending the federal government’s commitment to protect the north coast of British Columbia from oil spills with a tanker ban, and calling on the government to make it a permanent, legislated oil tanker ban. On the 27th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill that devastated the community of Cordova, Alaska and left Prince William Sound with an oily legacy that persists to this day, Sierra Club BC and Living Oceans Society say that a legislated oil tanker ban is the only certain way to protect B.C.’s north coast from a similar fate.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 2, 2016

Burnaby – First Nations and environmental groups today welcomed the federal government’s announcement of a new “transition process” for projects under environmental review, including Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and oil tanker expansion proposal. However, more detail is needed to determine whether the new review will meet legal obligations to First Nations and succeed in restoring public trust.

Burnaby, BC-First Nations and environmental groups are calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to stop the Kinder Morgan process and honour his promise to restore credibility to the environmental assessment process. The groups believe the process is so catastrophically flawed, there is no way that a final recommendation from the NEB can be considered credible.

VANCOUVER—A new study prepared by Simon Fraser University observes that costs to build the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline (TMEP) have risen by $1.3 billion and concludes that, rather than making money for Canada, the pipeline would now actually cost Canadians an estimated $7.4 billion. Oil producers would find lower costs shipping undiluted bitumen by rail; and Canada as a whole would come out ahead if the pipeline were not built.