Canada Says "Nothing" is Not an Appropriate Response to an Oil Spill

No, seriously, the government of British Columbia just denied a permit to build a tar sands pipeline to a company that refused to offer remediation plans for a potential spill"

Oil spill cleanup concerns have led the British Columbia Government to reject a proposed multi-billion dollar tar sands oil pipeline that the Canadian company Enbridge wants to construct across the province.

In its final submission Friday to the federally-appointed Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel, the province states that it cannot support the Enbridge Northern Gateway project because the company “has been unable to address British Columbians’ environmental concerns.”

Environment Minister Terry Lake said, “British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents. Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings.”

“Northern Gateway has said that they would provide effective spill response in all cases. However, they have presented little evidence as to how they will respond,” Lake said. “For that reason, our government cannot support the issuance of a certificate for the pipeline as it was presented to the Joint Review Panel.”

………

“It shows that Northern Gateway would have comprehensive oil spill response plans for all Project components and would substantially improve existing emergency response on Canada’s pacific coast – something unprecedented for a pipeline project. It shows that the Project has been developed with a comprehensive public and Aboriginal engagement program that would continue throughout Project construction and operation,” the company said in its submission.

But the B.C. government’s submission points out that the company’s proposal indicates that “doing nothing is a possible response to a spill.”

(Emphasis mine)

<snark> Are they Communists in Canada or something?   Don't they know this is supposed to work?

Silly Rabbit, the profits go to the energy companies, and the taxpayer pays for the cleanup! </snark>

H/t Americablog