For more than three decades, the inside passage of British Columbia has been off-limits to multi-national oil tanker traffic. The thinking behind the "moratorium" was simple: The B.C. coastline is an ecological treasure too fragile to risk for the thickening of Exxon's, or any other energy behemoth's, bottom line. But the laws of prohibition may be as fragile as the our marine ecology.

 

Last month, federal resource minister Gary Lunn let drop his opinion that the "moratorium" protecting the coast these last decades, and possibly averting the kind of disaster seen in Alaska's Prince William Sound, where the Exxon Valdez ran aground, does not exist. It's an assertion backed by prime minister Harper, and evidenced by regular tanker travel running between Kitimat and the Pacific, via the Douglas Channel.

 

Will Horter is Executive Director of the Dogwood Initiative, a B.C.-based non-profit organization, dedicated to presering the province's lands and waters for the ethical benefit of British Columbians now and for the future. Horter weighed anchor on this as part of a comprehensive series of articles appearing in the July issue of Victoria's Focus magazine.

 

Will Horter on oil tankers and the slick politicians who lie for them in the first segment.