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That makes this a good time to review the question of pipeline and tanker safety, and a new study by the Fraser Institute uses the latest data to provide some context about the safety of transporting oil and gas. The study found that (based on data from 2004 to 2015) when moving a million barrels of oil, pipelines were 2.5 times less likely to experience a release of product compared to moving that same amount by rail.

And even then, most spills are small and don’t harm the environment. Seventy per cent of pipeline occurrences (breaks or malfunctions) result in spills of less than one cubic metre of oil. Seventeen per cent of occurrences don’t release any oil at all. And only 17 per cent of occurrences take place in the actual pipeline — the vast majority of occurrences happen in facilities where oil is handled, facilities that often have secondary containment mechanisms and procedures.

Well, but what about that seven-fold increase in tanker traffic off B.C.? Isn’t that risky?

Well, surprisingly enough, despite the fact that oil transported by marine tankers has about doubled from 1975 to 2016, the number of spills declined by 98 per cent.

In fact, when comparing the amount of spills for marine tankers in the decades from 1970s to the 2010s (up to 2016), the number of spills between seven and 700 tonnes has dropped from 543 to 35 while the number of large spills in this period dropped from 245 to 12. Closer to home, where Canadians are most concerned, Canada has not experienced a major spill in Canadian waters since the mid-1990s.