The Council of Canadians is organizing a hard-hitting coastal speaking tour providing evidence of the serious risks of offshore drilling in the wake of the recent federal approval of up to seven BP exploratory wells off the southeast coast of Nova Scotia.
The ultra-deepwater wells are nearly twice as deep as BP’s Macondo well which saw a major blowout leading to the death of 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig and devastating consequences for local fisheries, economies and communities. Exploratory drilling may begin as early as this Spring.
WHO:
Antonia Juhasz, award winning investigative journalist and author of Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill. Juhasz will speak about the causes and consequences of the Gulf spill and policy choices that enabled it as well as BP’s corporate role.
Colin Sproul, a fifth-generation lobster fisherman and spokesperson for the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishers’ Association who will speak to the importance of the sustainable fisheries and nature of Nova Scotian waters.
Michelle Paul, is a Mi'kmaq activist and treaty rights holder and has been involved with Idle No More, the Treaty Truckhouse and Alton Gas resistance. Michelle will speak to the importance of the land and the water to Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island.
WHEN: Tuesday, March 20 from 7:00-9:30 p.m. ADT (doors open 6:30 p.m.)
WHERE: Saint Mary's University, Scotiabank Theatre, Sobey Building, 923 Robie St., Halifax, Nova Scotia (Map).
“My investigation onboard Atlantis and in the Alvin submarine revealed that an estimated 30 million gallons of oil from the BP spill remain in the Gulf — the equivalent of nearly three Exxon Valdez spills — and that about half of this amount has settled on the ocean floor,” says Antonia Juhasz, a guest speaker on the tour. “It is the most toxic parts of the oil which remain and will likely stay there forever, with ecological effects that could be devastating.”
“The bounties of the Scotian Shelf and Bay of Fundy have sustained our coastal communities for centuries and the First Nations we share them with for millennia. This is truly a renewable resource, the economic backbone of Nova Scotia,” says Colin Sproul, who is also speaking on the tour. “Our way of life and existing, multi-billion dollar fishing industry have been placed in grave danger by foreign oil and gas developers. We cannot allow one human error at an offshore installation to irrevocably damage the future of Nova Scotia.”
The tour is organized by the Council of Canadians and the Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova Scotia (CPONS), and is supported by the Sierra Club of Canada Foundation, Ecology Action Centre and the Clean Ocean Action Committee (COAC).
For more information:
- 10 reasons why offshore oil drilling just got more dangerous, by Antonia Juhasz
- Thirty million gallons under the sea, by Antonia Juhasz
-30-
For more information or to arrange interviews:
Dylan Penner, Media Officer, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685,
