Mr. Speaker, when the government announced the Gwaii Haanas marine protected area, it congratulated itself extensively, noting the unique nature of this part of the marine environment. It is located off the southern tip of Gwaii Haanas, at the very end of what was formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. Jim Prentice, the environment minister at the time, and the current environment minister have both said how important it is to have this marine protected area for all sorts of reasons, cultural, economic and environmental.
However, the government is proposing to overlay on top of that marine protected area supertanker traffic, oil tanker traffic, which then leads, as industry has told us, to offshore drilling in the same area.
This should not surprise Canadians too much. Canadians can be forgiven for being a little cynical of the government's plans around the marine protected environment because last year, the Prime Minister was up in the Arctic announcing a beluga sanctuary. What a lovely idea. No one would argue against that. However, the Prime Minister neglected to mention that the government had issued oil and gas drilling leases completely around that little postage stamp of a sanctuary. The belugas will be ducking oil and gas rigs on their way to the sanctuary. And by the way, oil and gas drilling is also permitted in the beluga sanctuary.
That is what the government perceives as conservation. It is clearly not.
In terms of Vancouver, I can get into it a little later, but consultation is needed there as much as it is needed on the north coast. Everybody who will be impacted must be involved. The first nations will be speaking loudly and strongly to this.