Canada to review BC offshore oil moratorium

Prime Minister Paul Martin's cabinet will review the controversial moratorium preventing offshore oil and gas exploration off British Columbia's north coast, a delegation of BC cabinet ministers was told. Spokesmen for federal Natural Resources Minister John Efford and for Industry Minister David Emerson, who is political minister for British Columbia, said the cabinet will be looking at the issue soon.
However, the promise of a cabinet meeting on the 32-year- old moratorium doesn't impress the opposition Conservatives. It amounts to nothing more than a stalling tactic by the federal government, said John Duncan, the party's natural resources critic.

Three members of the BC cabinet, including Energy Minister Richard Neufeld, were in Ottawa to lobby the federal Liberal government to lift the moratorium. The Ottawa meeting came just four days after the release of a federal report by energy expert Roland Priddle that said 75 % of the people who participated in hearings in British Columbia earlier this year were opposed to lifting the exploration moratorium.
Neufeld said he was disappointed with the report because it didn't make any solid recommendations and broke no new ground on the issue.

Duncan said British Columbia needs an answer from Ottawa about lifting the moratorium, but senses the minority federal government does not know where to move on the issue.
"It's my opinion, having watched the government from the Opposition here for 11 years, that the net result of the Priddle report is it leaves the door wide open for the government to not make a decision before the next election," he said.

The BC ministers met with Emerson, Environment Minister Stephane Dion and representatives of Natural Resources Canada. The offshore moratorium issue was raised in Question Period by northern BC. New Democrat Nathan Cullen who called on the federal government to support the majority of British Columbians and keep the moratorium in place.
The moratorium will protect BC's north coast from BC Premier Gordon Campbell's "dangerous pipe dream," Cullen said. Efford said the federal government will review the Priddle report and two others on the issue before making any recommendations on lifting the moratorium.

The Royal Society of Canada released a federal report last February that found there are few scientific barriers to oil and gas exploration on BC's north coast, but strict regulations must be in place. An aboriginal report released said 100 % of northern aboriginals oppose the lifting of the moratorium.
Phil Jennings, a spokesman for Efford, said the federal government will not have a definitive decision on what to do soon.
"Cabinet needs to have a discussion before making a decision on how it moves forward," he said. "Federally we still have a lot of thinking to do."

The Priddle report said there appears to be little middle political ground on the moratorium issue. People are firmly opposed to lifting the moratorium or vigorously support the potential removal of the moratorium,he said.
Environmentalists fear oil and gas exploration could threaten the sensitive ecosystem of the north coast, especially the Queen Charlotte Islands. Environmentalists seized on the accident on an oil platform off Newfoundland, calling it a prime example of what could happen off BC's north coast. But such an event in British Columbia would be worse, said Jay Ritchlin of the David Suzuki Foundation.

The Hibernia oil field is a couple of hundred kilometres off Newfoundland and the wind and currents will blow a spill out into the Atlantic. But any oil platforms erected off the West Coast would be within 20 to 40 km of either the Queen Charlotte Islands, the northern BC coast or the north coast of Vancouver Island.
The BC government has portrayed north coast oil and gas exploration as an environmentally safe revenue generator that could earn billions of dollars for the province and its struggling coastal communities.