The provincial government has grown quiet on offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling off B.C.’s coast. The 2010 Olympic torch was not lit with offshore fuel as promised by former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell in his 2001 Speech from the Throne. While it doesn’t mean the Province has abandoned plans to drill for oil, it does indicate offshore oil and gas development has been moved to the back burner. We accept this as a victory – at least for now.

Cleaning up a marine oil spill is tricky business, and unfortunately we are unprepared to deal with a major spill in Canada. Our certified response organizations are not able to adequately deal with:

Twenty-two years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill catastrophe in Alaska, ecosystems and communities have still not fully recovered. Oil can still be found on beaches in Prince William Sound and the herring fishery is still closed.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill covered nearly 2,000 km of coastline and killed at least 1,000-2,800 sea otters, 250,000 seabirds, 302 harbour seals and countless invertebrates like crabs and shellfish. Many killer whales simply went missing.