NDP MP Fin Donnelly Reintroduces Bills on Salmon & Oil Tankers

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western Canada, ,
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This week in Ottawa, NDP MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam-Port Moody Fin Donnelly reintroduced two private members bills he authored last year. The first calls for a legislated ban on oil supertanker traffic on BC’s North and Central Coast. The second, called the Wild Salmon Protection Act, calls for open net pen salmon farms to be transitioned to land-based closed-containment technology.

Donnelly reintroduced his oil supertanker bill yesterday, seconded by BC MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley, Nathan Cullen, whose riding would encompass much of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline route and tanker port in the coastal community of Kitimat.

“British Columbians have been clear. They want to protect our north coast and permanently ban oil tanker traffic though the Hecate Strait, Dixon Entrance and Queen Charlotte Sound,” said New Democrat Fisheries and Oceans Critic Fin Donnelly. “A major spill off BC’s north coast would be catastrophic to the ecosystem and would negatively affect the economy in this area.”

A recent poll reconfirmed 80% of British Columbians oppose oil tanker traffic off the province’s rugged north coast – which is consistent with polling figures over the past year.

Donnelly said in Ottawa, “I urge Parliament to consider the risks associated with oil super tankers travelling off BC’s north coast and legislate a permanent ban.”

As the NDP’s Fisheries Critic, Donnelly has also been pushing his wild salmon bill in Ottawa for over a year now, with support from the likes of renown biologist Alexandra Morton, Hollywood icon and sports fisherman William Shatner, Chief Bob Chamberlin of the Broughton First Nations, and famed Vancouver chef Robert Clark.    

According to Donnelly, “The bill would direct the Fisheries Minister to develop, table and implement a transition plan to move to closed containment.”

“My bill has received tremendous support since I first introduced it in Parliament last year,” said Donnelly. “Thousands of British Columbians have signed postcards and petitions to encourage the federal government to adopt this legislation. I hope that the federal government will listen and pass this critical legislation.”

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About Damien Gillis

Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon - working with many environmental organizations in BC and around the world. He is the co-founder, along with Rafe Mair, of The Common Sense Canadian, and a board member of both the BC Environmental Network and the Haig-Brown Institute.

3 thoughts on “NDP MP Fin Donnelly Reintroduces Bills on Salmon & Oil Tankers”

  1. Linda, Harper may want to push the Enbridge pipeline through but even a majority conservative government will have a hell of a time getting past 80 First Nations, many of them with title and rights to unceded lands along the pipeline and tanker route, with the courts and constitution behind them – not to mention the 80% of the BC public who consistently favour a coastal tanker ban. I wouldn’t bet on Enbridge…But as for the 3 other major pipelines projects being planned (one to get nat gas to Kitimat for processing and shipping to Asia, the others being a planned expansion of Kinder-Morgan’s bitumen pipeline to Vancouver and a proposed spur off that line near PG to Kitimat), these may prove much more feasible alternatives for the industry to Enbridge. We are under assault – and yet, the public is becoming progressively tuned in and mobilized. This will be a battle royale between those who wish to preserve the cultures, environment and economy of the BC they know and love, and a future that sees the province turned into THE new fossil fuel conduit to the world’s largest economies in Asia, the US, and Europe…But if you want to bet on Enbridge, I’ll gladly take your money.

  2. Harper will force the Enbridge pipeline and the dirty oil tankers from China onto the BC province and the people. Campbell forced the most valuable farmland in Canada, to be flooded for the site C dam, to provide water for the dirty tar sands. Harper and Campbell have worked on this project, for a very long time.

    The reason Harper didn’t co-operate at Copenhagen was because, he supports the dirtiest energy on earth. The Alberta dirty tar sands. Harper is an embarrassment to Canada. He lost Canada’s seat with the U.N. as well.

    There are thousands of BC people, who support the First Nation people’s stance against the dirty tankers and the Enbridge pipeline.

    We are to lower our use of fossil fuels 80% by 2020. We have renewable energy, thermal, wind and solar. The evidence of glaciers melting away, the Arctic melting away, is a damned good warning. However, in Canada the politicians put greed first.

    Because of Harper, Canada is no longer believable, nor trusted.

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