Energy and Climate Change

VANCOUVER—Groups opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker project today expressed their concern in the face of a major change to safety requirements proposed for a port assessed by Transport Canada as having the highest risk of any existing Canadian port for an oil spill. The change would reduce by up to 70 percent the requirement for pilots to board ships outside Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, before entering the busy port.

VANCOUVER—This week, groups are marking the anniversary of the Joint Review Panel’s recommendation to approve Enbridge’s controversial pipeline and tanker project with a retrospective index.

“One year after the hearings concluded, the opposition to Enbridge’s pipeline and tankers is as strong as ever,” said Gerald Amos of the Friends of Wild Salmon. “Enbridge has failed to win social licence for the project or meet any of its 209 conditions, and British Columbians and First Nations are pulling together to stop the project in the courts.”

Living Oceans lambasted the federal government today for its repeated failure to provide for safe navigation on B.C.’s North Coast, citing the imminent risk of the container ship Simushir grounding along the treacherous outer coast of the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site.

“The failure to provide for rescue tug capacity on the North Coast puts these incredibly sensitive marine ecosystems at unacceptable risk from shipping,” said Executive Director Karen Wristen.

VANCOUVER—Living Oceans Society applauds the report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Julie Gelfand, released today in Ottawa. “Commissioner Gelfand’s criticism of the federal government’s lack of progress on climate change is richly deserved, particularly in response to the Conservative’s failure to move forward with promised regulation of emissions from the oil and gas sector,” said Karen Wristen, Executive Director of Living Oceans Society.