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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CAMPAIGN ESCALATES NATIONWIDE TO BAN COASTAL OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT IN BC

VANCOUVER, BC, Canada, November 12, 2004 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- Today, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee launched a campaign to build nationwide support to protect wild BC’s Pacific Coast from oil and gas development. The WCWC is escalating its outreach efforts to mobilize environmental organizations, churches, university activist clubs, and green businesses across the country to speak up in defense of Canada’s Pacific coast. Thousands of info packages, including a new petition, are being sent around the country this week to potential allies.

“This is not just a BC issue, it’s a national issue – there’s only one Pacific Coast in Canada,” states Ken Wu, campaign director of the Wilderness Committee in Victoria.

The new petition to ban coastal fossil fuel development in BC is being launched today. The last major petition launched by the WCWC resulted in the collection of over 30 000 signatures in 3 months. Supporters can sign the new petition online and download copies to circulate at: www.bcoilslick.org

At the end of this month, Federal Minister of Natural Resources John Efford will receive and consider the results of the Public Review Process held last spring in coastal BC communities, where 69% of oral submissions and 59% of written submissions wanted the government to maintain the moratorium. Before the end of this year, the Cabinet will potentially make a decision about whether they will lift the federal moratorium.

“The latest national poll by the Centre for Research and Information shows that environmental protection is again the Number 1 concern for Canadians, at 76% nationally and 75% in BC. Will the Paul Martin government have the ecological and political wisdom to not open up our wild Pacific coast to dirty, nonrenewable fossil fuel extraction?” asks Wu.

Coastal oil and gas development damages the environment by:
  • Seismic testing which injures fish and invertebrates, deafens whales, and drives fish and whales vast distances away from their feeding areas and migration routes. It would seriously impact the commercial and sport fishing industries and could also harm the whale-watching industry.

  • Daily chronic pollution, through regular oil leakages and small spills, and the discharge of toxic drill cuttings, muds and fluids.

  • Major oil spills, should one occur in Canada’s most earthquake prone region, the Queen Charlotte Basin and the west coast of Vancouver Island. Ocean currents will take spills on to the ecologically sensitive shores of the BC mainland and Queen Charlotte Islands.

  • Contributing to global warming. Coastal oil and gas drilling would contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and will contravene Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto Accord
Despite inflated claims by the BC government that unemployed fishermen and loggers in coastal BC communities will be offered a goldmine of offshore oil jobs, in reality few direct jobs would be created for coastal communities. Foreign work crews with the necessary specialized skills would be brought in from around the world, as happens in oil rigs world over.

NAFTA forbids laws that give local residents first dibs in employment. In addition, oil rigs would be constructed where labour is cheapest and where facilities exist, likely in South Korea or China.

The Royal Society of Canada’s Science Panel recommendations commissioned by the federal government last year states that numerous science gaps exist in our knowledge of the environmental impacts of coastal oil and gas development and of the Pacific marine ecosystem, and that an adequate regulatory regime must be in place before the moratorium could be lifted. Considering the drive of both the provincial and federal government’s towards environmental deregulation, such a regulatory regime is highly unlikely.

The WCWC is calling for a permanent legislated ban on coastal oil and gas development in BC.

CONTACT:
Ken Wu
WCWC Victoria
(250) 514-9910 (cell)

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