A totem pole with the Chevron Burnaby Oil Refinery in the distance, near Vancouver, British Columbia. Darryl Dyck/AP

Canada's regulator recommended Thursday that the government approve a proposed pipeline to the Pacific coast amid strong opposition by environmentalists and indigenous people who hold title to some of the land the pipeline would cross.

The Joint Review Panel of energy and environmental officials spent two years canvassing opinions along the 731-mile route of the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would be used to export oil from Canada’s tar sands to Asia.

"We are of the view that opening Pacific Basin markets is important to the Canadian economy," the panel's report says. "We find that the environmental burdens associated with project construction and routine operation can generally be effectively mitigated."

The fear of oil spills is especially acute in the pristine northwestern corner of British Columbia, with its snowcapped mountains and deep ocean inlets. Many Canadians living there still remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.

But economic factors appeared to be pivotal in the panel’s decision. Canada considers the Northern Gateway project and the Keystone XL pipeline to be critical for the nation, which the government says needs infrastructure in place to export its growing tar sands production.

The northern Alberta region has the world's third largest oil reserves, with 170 billion barrels of proven reserves.

The three-person review panel supported the controversial pipeline, proposed by Enbridge, an energy delivery company, as being important to the economy.