Madam Chair, in the gulf, British Petroleum was exempted from detailed environmental study because it thought a spill was unlikely and the spill response capability was not sufficient. In Canada this is not the exemption, it is the rule.
In 2005, oil companies were given the right not to do a comprehensive study at the exploratory drilling stage, which is what the deepwater was at, but just to hand over a two-page screening to the government. Is the government comfortable with such a weak environmental assessment of the potential damage from the drilling process?