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Maintain oil moratorium, university students say
Victoria News, November 25, 2005
By Mark Browne
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Don Denton/Victoria News
Protesters use their bodies to spell out "Oil Free Coast" in front of the McPherson Library at the University of Victoria Tuesday afternoon. The protest was organized by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. |
Members of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee's University of Victoria club made their point clear Tuesday on the issue of offshore oil and gas development.
The students banded together in front of the McPherson Library to form a human sign that stated "Oil Free Coast."
It was their way of demanding that the federal government to maintain the offshore moratorium and oil and gas development of B.C.'s coast.
"Lifting the moratorium would mean chronic daily pollution," Caitlin Perry - a member of the environmental group's UVic club - told a crowd outside the library.
Such pollution would contaminate marine life, she said.
Lifting the moratorium - which was put in place by the Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government in 1971 - would also go against Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Perry said. It doesn't make sense, she added, for Ottawa to consider the possibility of lifting the moratorium when Canadians are being asked to participate in the One-Tonne Challenge aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"We need to tell those old politicians in Ottawa about the future we want," Perry said.
Students at the rally also displayed a large banner that read "No Seismic Testing and Oil Drilling Off B.C.'s Wild Coast".
In November 2004, the federal government released the Priddle Report, concerning results of the public input process about the moratorium held earlier that year. Of the 3,700 respondents, 75 per cent opposed lifting the moratorium.
"The federal government needs to recognize that British Columbians are opposed to oil and gas development," said Ziya He, also a member of the organization's UVic club.
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