Article content continued

Bill C-48 has already cost the Canadian economy $270 billion because the previously approved Northern Gateway Pipeline was scrapped as the first step in making good on an unwritten, mid-campaign 2015 election promise by Justin Trudeau. That price represents the impact of writing off 30 years of GDP impact from the project.

In 2019, crude oil is still what pays the lion’s share of rent for Canada, to borrow the phrase of economist Patricia Mohr. Further, hundreds of billions in future investments and revenues are at risk of being switched off with the stroke of a pen if C-48 is passed as written.

Numerous witnesses have shown senators why Canadians are as competent managing marine traffic as anyone in an era when 7,400 oil tankers are afloat worldwide, routinely and safely sailing past the Galapagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, and countless other places of special ecological value. Fisheries, aquaculture, eco-tourism and marine protected areas are thriving elsewhere in Canada that have oil ports and tanker traffic. Yet nobody is calling for a ban in Placentia Bay or the Bay of Fundy.

Some coastal First Nations strongly support C-48. However, other First Nations on the B.C. coast, especially the Nisga’a and Lax Kw’alaams to the northern part of the proposed ban area, are joined by many Indigenous groups inland in opposing the bill.

The 31 First Nations and Métis represented by the Aboriginal Equity Partners had been counting on $2 billion in benefits from the cancelled Gateway project. They believe that for Indigenous people who currently receive revenues from the federal Indian Resource Council, the opportunities closed off by C-48 equate to a family of six losing $18,000 a year.