Feds ban mining, oil, gas activities
The oil-and-gas industry has worn out its welcome in Canadian marine conservation areas, and Canada’s environmentalists are overjoyed. Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson unveiled new standards for marine protected areas in Canada on Thursday, fully prohibiting oil-and-gas activity, as well as mining, waste-dumping and bottom-trawling. The change implements recommendations made to the government last year by an advisory panel, and brings Canada up to international standards set by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
“The new standards that I’m announcing today will help to ensure that we will be able to provide an environmental inheritance to our children and our grandchildren that includes healthy, sustainable and productive oceans,” said Wilkinson. He was speaking at an international nature summit Canada is hosting in Montreal this week to push other countries to do more to protect the global environment. Megan Leslie, a former NDP MP from Halifax and now president of World Wildlife Fund-Canada, tweeted a delighted response. “I’m at a bit of a loss for words so here it is in emojis,” she wrote, followed by emojis of trophies, clapping hands, whales and noisemakers with confetti.
The industrial-activity prohibition includes the new Laurentian Channel Marine Protected Area off the south coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2017, proposed regulations for the area would have allowed oil-andgas development in 80 per cent of the channel, which caused a significant outcry from the public.
The government received more than 70,000 submissions demanding Canada make some marine areas off-limits to development. Wilkinson said the Laurentian Channel will be the first marine protected area to use the new standards.
The new standards will apply only in federally protected areas. Up until now industrial activities have been allowed or restricted on a case-by-case basis. There are two existing marine protected areas where exploration companies hold oil-and-gas discovery licences: the Tarium Niryutait protected area off the Northwest Territories and the Gully protected area off Nova Scotia. Wilkinson said those licences won’t be immediately cancelled but will be reconsidered when the management plans for each come up for regular reviews. Neither has active exploration going on now.