Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for inviting me to present to you.
As you said, I'm the executive director of the Coastal First Nations. We are an amalgamation of 10 separate first nations comprising 20,000 members, the vast majority of the population from Rivers Inlet, on the central coast, to the B.C.-Alaska border.
I want to speak to you today about our concerns about energy development in Canada and how it affects us. You have heard other people's concerns about the threats posed to them from oil drilling, shale gas development, and oil sands. We, too, share these concerns.
The marine resources we harvest sustain our communities and our culture. They create who we are. Our future is dependent on these coastal waters. We are the ones who face all the risks but derive few benefits from any such developments.
We are not some not-in-my-back-yard group. We hold constitutionally protected aboriginal and treaty rights that would be seriously threatened by offshore drilling and oil tankers in the waters off the central and north coasts of British Columbia.
Let me be clear. The Coastal First Nations are not against development. We are promoting it. For the past eight years, the Coastal First Nations have brought together industry, the environmental community, and governments, both municipal and provincial, to develop a sustainable economy on the central and north coasts and Haida Gwaii. We've done this to breathe life into our economy and into our rights and our title.
We have raised and invested in excess of $300 million in this geographic area on things such as building a shellfish industry. We have a partner out of China. I've been to China many times and have seen their industry. In our initiative to try to protect these waters, we have support from the Chinese as well.
These economic initiatives, as well as our rights and title of each nation, are threatened by oil spills. That's why we are firmly opposed to offshore drilling and the introduction of oil tankers as proposed by Enbridge. I don't have to remind you folks that accidents affecting the marine environment do happen--I visited the Gulf of Mexico this summer.
These accidents happen despite government oversight and regulatory control, and despite promises and commitments made by their owners and developers. In other words, we, the Coastal First Nations, will face all the risks.
When I visited the Gulf of Mexico, I found a very disturbing scenario. About half the amount of oil that spilled over these many months in the gulf would be carried by each tanker that plies the waters of Douglas Channel and our coast. The consequences of a catastrophic oil spill on our people cannot be calculated, nor can it be compensated.
I want to remind you that, like in the Arctic, the effects of an oil spill and the difficulties of cleaning it up are problematic on the north coast. We have much higher tides and a much greater chop in the winter than the gulf, but we don't have the cleanup fleet or the micro-organisms that absorb oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
Suffice it to say that the technology, the management, the regulatory regimes, the intergovernmental agreements, the oil spill response capability does not exist to deal with oil spills on the north and central coasts of British Columbia and Haida Gwaii. There is no way that we will be able to clean up an oil spill. The technology we found in the gulf, where all the technology of the world was concentrating on trying to clean up an oil spill, is 1960s technology. Nothing has advanced on this in the last four or five decades.
This is what Coastal First Nations are afraid of. This is why we are opposed to offshore drilling and oil tankers in our water. Out of respect for our rights and our title, the current moratorium on offshore drilling should be maintained, and the informal ban on oil tankers off the north coast of B.C. should be legislated, as the majority of parliamentarians indicated a couple of days ago in Ottawa.
Until first nations are satisfied that such development can be done in a way that doesn't pose an unacceptable risk to them, the National Energy Board should not approve specific projects that will introduce oil tankers on B.C.'s north and central coasts, such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway project.
Further development would require a strategic environmental assessment for the region, such as you heard the chairman of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board say they conduct before even contemplating any approvals for drilling or exploration. Any such developments also require a regional risk assessment and the kind of inquiry that the National Energy Board is launching with respect to Arctic drilling. You have also heard the suggestion that a commission of inquiry be created, one that deals with oil tankers, offshore oil exploration, and licensing and oil spill response.
Lastly, no oil tanker should be introduced in B.C.'s north and central coasts or the offshore drilling moratorium lifted until the National Energy Board, Transport Canada, and the Government of Canada can satisfy us that an acceptable process is in place to consult with first nations on approving and managing these developments and that government agencies have the financial and human resource capability to deal with catastrophic oil spills. I know that you heard earlier in the week from a panel that said we don't possess that ability right now.
A full regional study needs to be done for the west coast of B.C. on the consequences to first nations of a catastrophic oil spill, including worst-case scenarios. The National Energy Board and Transport Canada must consult with first nations on any related regulatory standards it uses as part of their so-called goal-oriented regulatory regimes.
And certainly, adequate tanker owners' liability for spill cleanup needs to be addressed, so that Canadian taxpayers do not have to pay for the cost of cleanup and people seeking compensation don't have to go to court, where the oil companies can run them out for decades. Accidents that can cause irreparable harm to first nations constitutionally protected rights can, do, and will happen. This cannot be in the national interest.
We on the coast are the ones who are facing the risks and we are the ones who must be satisfied that the risks are worth taking. Until that happens, offshore drilling and the introduction of oil tankers on the north and central coasts of B.C., through the back door of a project-specific approval such as that of Enbridge, is wrong and totally unacceptable. We are not asking for anything different from what you would want to protect your family if something that threatened them--like an oil refinery or a crack house--was allowed to locate next door to you.
I've been to China on numerous occasions and I don't buy the idea that we need to have a reason to send oil to China just to raise the price of oil. The last time I looked, the most lucrative industry on planet earth was the oil industry, and they don't need any help making any more money at the expense of the rest of us.
Enbridge, over the last decade or so, has spilled millions and millions and millions of litres of oil throughout North America. Coastal First Nations find it unacceptable that they are proposing to do that in our areas and that first nations in the interior of B.C. find it acceptable that they propose to do it there.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.