Pennies for ocean protection are a distraction amidst the feds bulldozing environmental laws

VANCOUVER / UNCEDED xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵ wx̱wú7mesh AND səlilwətaɬ TERRITORIES - Wilderness Committee is outraged by today’s ocean protection announcement from Prime Minister Mark Carney, which comes a week after his government’s proposed omnibus Bill C-39. The bill threatens to allow projects of national interest to bypass the Species at Risk Act; notably, experts have long speculated that this bill was targeted to reduce protection requirements for the endangered southern resident killer whales and their critical habitat on the West Coast.

“$1.2 billion for ocean protections is simply pennies in comparison to $10 billion pledged for RBT2, a project made worse by regressive laws like proposed Bill C-39,” said Conservation and Policy campaigner Lucero Gonzalez. “Right now, I have no confidence the southern resident killer whales will survive Mark Carney’s industrial expansion agenda.”

Orcas won’t survive Mark Carney’s legacy 

With the public consultation on whether to list the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion project as a “project of national interest” ending this week, Prime Minister Carney promised the project will include “detailed measures to protect the habitats of killer whales”. The Wilderness Committee says this statement omits the fact that RBT2 already has 370 federally imposed conditions, all of which are subject to modification or removal under the proposed Bill C-39 for any reason, including if they are “inconvenient” to the proponent. 

“Celebrating ‘new conditions’ for the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion, while failing to mention that those conditions can, at any point, be removed or modified when they become too inconvenient or expensive, amounts to lying to the public and wanting to get praised for it,” said Gonzalez. “We fear these ‘new conditions’ Prime Minister Carney is referring to could replace the 370 federally mandated conditions with less stringent ones. We are afraid he is hiding this from the public and completely misinforming Canadians”.

Together, last year’s Building Canada Act and the proposed Bill C-39 take away the most important ecological safeguards to protect endangered species from industrial development in their habitat. Both the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion project and the West Coast Pipeline proposal would be allowed to bypass the Species At Risk Act’s jeopardy test requirement and with it, bypass any responsibility they would have to avoid pushing the endangered southern resident killer whales closer to extinction.

“Today’s $1.2 billion announcement is a cheap, — morally and monetarily, — scapegoat to avoid admitting this government’s complicity in the potential extinction of the remaining 73 endangered southern resident killer whales,” said Gonzalez.

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For more information please contact:
Lucero Gonzalez | Conservation and Policy Campaigner
lucero@wildernesscommittee.org