Around 30 people, dressed in black and holding candles, held a silent vigil outside Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines’ Vancouver office yesterday to show solidarity with communities affected by the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Stephanie Goodwin, B.C. director of Greenpeace Canada, said the vigil was planned to coincide with the opening of Enbridge’s annual general meeting in Calgary at 12:30 p.m.
“The vigil is to commemorate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and to warn Enbridge not to bring the same fate to B.C.,” Goodwin said.
Enbridge is proposing to build a 1,170-kilometre pipeline to carry more than half a million barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta’s tar sands to B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.
Once there, it would load hundreds of oil tankers a year, which would navigate the same coastal waters where the Queen of the North ferry sank.
“We oppose the pipeline because it presents certain imminent (degradation) to coastal marine environments and will cause destruction to ecosystems,” said Goodwin.
On April 20, an oil rig that was drilling off the Louisiana coast exploded, killing 11 workers and eventually spewed tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf.
