Madam Speaker, on May 13 I asked two questions in my quest to have this Conservative government stop weakening the protection of coastlines from oil spill risks.
In December 2009, the government changed offshore drilling regulations to shift government's role away from ensuring that companies properly operate and manage safety and environmental protection. Instead, it placed the responsibility on the companies, thus abdicating government's own responsibility to prevent and manage oil spill response. This is completely unacceptable.
We saw in the Gulf of Mexico just how very damaging to economies and communities oil spills can be and also that the spill response appeared to be really no better and no further advanced than it was decades before. Therefore, I am calling on the government, and the Liberals are calling on the government, to take action and provide better oversight.
The second question had to do with the tanker ban in the Pacific north coast inland waters. I will give a quick history lesson on this, because apparently it is needed.
In 1972, the Liberal government, under Prime Minister Trudeau's policy, put a moratorium on tanker traffic in the channels around Haida Gwaii and extended that moratorium to include a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling. Since 1972, all governments have respected these bans, this moratorium, including two Conservative governments. Millions have been spent, through three federal panels since 2003, to review the moratorium. All referred specifically to the moratorium on oil tankers through Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound, and Dixon Entrance.
Now the Conservative government has backed away, dismisses or even pretends this moratorium does not exist, and apparently is willing to put the coastal economies, jobs, and communities at risk. The Liberals are not willing to do that. That is why the Liberal leader has committed to ending this ambiguity and took decisive action this spring to announce a commitment to formalize the ban through legislation.
I would like to just read a point about this economic action on the Liberals' part. This was from an article in the August 5 Globe and Mail by Eric Swanson. He put it very well. He said:
There is no existing crude oil tanker traffic in the area. The choice to ban these tankers is not one of environment over economy. It is a choice of a sustainable economy over an unsustainable economy. Economies are created by people. We choose, collectively, what they look like and how they function. Sustainable economies allow our children and grandchildren to be born with essentially the same opportunities and resources as now. Unsustainable economies cumulatively degrade and deplete.
Allowing oil tankers would threaten the foundations of a sustainable north coast economy. Where oil moves, oil spills. Even from double-hulled tankers; even with tugboats around; even with pilots on board. Machines break and humans err. If oil were to spill on our coast, if it soaked the beaches of our Great Bear Rainforest, we could not clean it all up. The Exxon Valdez and the BP spill show us that a single spill can devastate lives, economies, ecosystems and cultures.
All of the first nations in that coastal area are united in their opposition to allowing tankers. The Lax Kw'alaams, the Wuikinuxv, the Skidegate, the Metlakatla, the Old Masset, the Kitasoo/Xaixais band, the Heiltsuk, the Haisla, and the Gitga'at are all solidly for a ban on tanker traffic.
I call on the government to come up to our remote areas and to join us in protecting those coastlines from oil spills.