We are very excited to share with you our new paper, ‘Oil Tanker Ban - Let’s Keep the West Coast Oil Spill Free’. This groundbreaking publication draws attention to the serious new threat posed by oil tankers off our coast.

Shockingly, in 2007 multinational oil companies very quietly began shipping raw crude oil from the Alberta tar sands in tankers departing from the Vancouver harbour. What this means is that the Pacific coast is now under threat from a major oil spill - without any form of public process or debate in the House of Commons.

While the world was still reeling from the images of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, little did we know that two tankers a week are passing through Burrard Inlet, each carrying three times more crude oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez. We have local activist Bill Gannon to thank for this discovery, who was puzzled when he saw the tankers from his office window and started to do some digging. This inspired Bill and fellow early GreenPeace activist Rex Weyler to form a new group NoTanks.org who have co-published our newest paper with us and have been hard at work organizing our upcoming event in Vancouver. The countdown is on - the event is now just days away.

On Sunday October 17th at 12 noon we encourage you to join us at Second Beach in Vancouver for music, information and fun in a celebration of our coast. We need to send a clear message to the government that we don’t want oil tankers in our Pacific waters - and we the people will not stand by while this threat remains.

If you would like to get involved, please contact our volunteer coordinator at emma@wildernesscommittee.org

Hope you enjoy the paper - we look forward to seeing you on Sunday October 17th,

Ben West | Healthy Communities Campaigner
Wilderness Committee