Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, both for sharing her speaking time with me and also for bringing forward this very important motion. The member for Edmonton—Strathcona has a strong and passionate voice for the protection of the environment and has certainly turned a very critical lens on the current government's approaches to so-called environmental protection.
I am pleased to speak to this important motion today. The residents of Nanaimo—Cowichan often raise issues around the health of the oceans in British Columbia, the fate of the wild salmon stocks and our continued reliance on fossil fuels. This is particularly why I wanted to speak to the motion.
Three things happening in British Columbia right now are important to take note of. The first is there is continuing pressure to remove the oil tanker moratorium that has been in place since approximately 1972. The second pressure point in British Columbia is the proposed Enbridge pipeline that will run from the Alberta oil sands to Kitimat. The third is the continuing pressure to have offshore oil and gas drilling take place in some of the most fragile and volatile ocean waters in Canada.
Although I would like to speak to all three of those matters, I will focus primarily today on the offshore oil and gas. However, I want to quickly mention the tanker traffic because this is a particularly sensitive issue right now.
In the Living Oceans press release, as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it indicated:
The Enbridge Gateway mega-project would involve an approximately 1,100 kilometre pipeline that would carry oil from the tar sands to Kitimat, where 525,000 barrels of oil per day will be loaded onto oil tankers that will thread their way down Douglas Channel to the inside Passage, bound for Asia. That works out to about 225 loaded, massive oil tankers per year, passing each other in the channel and other narrow, confined areas along the coast.
In March 2010, the first nations from the north and central coasts in Haida Gwaii banned oil tankers from their traditional territories. They stated:
The First Nations governments have taken action to protect the ocean that supports our communities, said Sterritt.
He is the executor director of the Coastal First Nations. They go on to say:
Now we would like to see the same leadership from the federal government.
The groups are pointing to the challenges of cleaning up the spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a grim reminder that failed technology and bad weather can make the impossible even harder.
Many Canadians may not be aware of that particular area of the coastline, but it gets extremely strong storms, huge waves and is a very sensitive ecosystem. To take the risk of having the kind of oil spill that we see in Mexico happen in those pristine waters would be catastrophic.
I will spend a lot of my speaking time referring to a report called “A Review of Offshore Oil and Gas Development in British Columbia” published in May 2004. This study was prepared for the Coastal First Nations by the Offshore Oil and Gas Research Group, the School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University. It is a lengthy report, so I will only be able to touch on a couple of aspects of it.
The report reviewed the whole B.C. moratorium process and that included a variety of reports that had been issued in the past on offshore oil and gas. It included the B.C. Offshore Oil and Gas Task Force, the Provincial Scientific Review Panel, a B.C. Offshore Oil and Gas Task Force put forward by the provincial review process and the Provincial Scientific Review Panel and then, finally, this report.
In the B.C. Scientific Review Panel's conclusions, it said:
—there are significant gaps in knowledge, that environmental impacts could be catastrophic, that existing regulatory structures are deficient, and that a number of preconditions need to be made before ...[offshore oil and gas] can proceed all suggest that the lifting of the existing moratorium would be premature.
I am speaking to this in the context of the fact that we are concerned the federal regulations are simply inadequate. When we raise some of the environmental issues that we are looking at in British Columbia, it becomes even more evident that the moratoriums both for tanker traffic and oil and gas drilling need to remain in place.
The report identified the fact that there were 26 areas where there were knowledge gaps. I do not have time to go through all 26, but I want to touch on a couple of the environmental areas.
Knowledge gaps include identification of valuable species, identification of stable areas, earthquake monitoring. Again, for Canadians who are not aware, we are in the highest earthquake zone in Canada. The other gaps are impact assessment of acoustic propagation, oil spill trajectories, impact of oil spills on landfalls, areas of critical habitat, behaviour and toxicity of natural gas in marine environment, long-term impacts of spill and recovery rates and cumulative environmental impacts. This is only a few out of the 26 serious concerns that the report raises around gaps in environmental knowledge.
The report goes on to say that offshore oil and gas:
—would have negative environmental affects. These affects would occur at phases including exploration, development, production, and decommissioning. While some impacts are local and short duration, others affect larger areas and last longer.
Although there is consensus that negative environmental impacts would occur, considerable uncertainty regarding the exact nature and magnitude of these impacts exist. The uncertainty is due to several factors. First, research on environmental impacts of OOGD is incomplete; there are substantial gaps in knowledge. Second, impacts are unique to each ecological system. Results based on the experience of other regions would not accurately predict the impacts for B.C. Third, impacts are based on unknown probabilities of events, such as accidental oil spills. Fourth, impacts would vary depending on the type of regulations, management practices, and technology governing OOGD.
The report notes:
Oil spill clean-up measures are largely ineffective in mitigating impacts of oil spills. Clean-up efforts on average recover 5-15% of the hydrocarbons and the clean-up process can itself cause additional environmental damage.
Recent research shows that the impact of oil spills last at least several decades. Recovery time from spills is therefore lengthy.
I want to turn briefly to the arguments around economics. We consistently hear that, particularly in some of these areas in British Columbia where there is high unemployment rates. The argument always is that they need to do offshore oil and gas development because it will bring jobs to our communities.
Sadly the evidence flies in the fact of that. In the report the panel did an extensive socio-economic analysis. The report points out:
OOGD is a very capital-intensive that generates few jobs, and would rely on highly skilled services and equipment produced outside of B.C. Consequently, economic impacts are less per dollar of output than experienced by almost every other sector of the B.C. economy. For example, the oil and gas sector generates about 1.5 jobs (direct person years) per million dollars of output compared to forestry (3.5 jobs), fishing, hunting and trapping (3.5 jobs), and tourism (22.23 jobs).
The panel did a comparison with Sable offshore energy project in Nova Scotia. It says:
The investment in SOEP of $2.3 billion generated only 310 direct jobs, for a ratio of $7.4 million per job created. Also, 90% of the revenue generated by gas production accrued to recipients outside of Nova Scotia, most in the form of profits to the companies exploiting the resource. Nova Scotia received just 6% of the revenue in the form of royalties and taxes and employees located in Nova Scotia received 4%
Therefore, there is a very strong counter argument for why we would talk about job creation.
I think it is very clear that there is insufficient information to even consider lifting the moratorium in British Columbia. The community impacts, the socio-economic impacts, the impacts on the environment all need to be taken into account and all the key stakeholders must be at the table for any discussions around lifting this moratorium. This would include first nations, communities, certainly business and other government representatives.
It must be an inclusive process that I would argue needs to respect the precautionary principle. Unless it can be demonstrated unequivocally that it is safe, that moratorium for the tanker traffic and for the oil and gas must remain in place.