Green Party pushes for oil tanker ban

In the News | Peninsula News Review
November 11, 2010 | Christine van Reeuwyk

May and Carr bring banner to Ottawa

Green Party leader Elizabeth May expects to renew the call for protection of BC’s coast.

May and deputy leader Adriane Carr announced their intention to head to Ottawa to push for legislation in the tanker trade plying coastal waters.

“As a matter of routine operation, tankers are shipping crude oil out from Vancouver right behind the Gulf Islands and over to Asia. The amount of oil tanker traffic is increasing year on year, with plans to increase it quite dramatically to accommodate the increasing Asian market for oil sands crude,” May said. “We stand very firmly for a federal legislated ban on oil tanker traffic in British Columbia’s coastal waters.”

Nov. 15, the two will be in Ottawa to present a banner to the House of Commons from citizens who rallied in Vancouver last month to support a legislated West Coast tanker ban.

“The West Coast of North America is recognized as having the richest, temperate marine waters on the planet, both in terms of biological diversity and productivity,” Carr said. “The consequences of a major oil spill along the Lower Mainland’s coastline, the Strait of Georgia by the Gulf Islands and Saanich, or in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Victoria and ecological treasures like the Race Rocks Marine Protected Area, would be catastrophic for our biodiversity, tourism, and fisheries. We need to protect BC’s exceptional marine environment and restrict the growth of the Alberta Tar Sands — not create an expanded gateway to international markets for higher volumes of exports of the planet’s dirtiest oil.”

reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com