October 2, 2013 — If a tanker were to spill oil off the coast of British Columbia today, the federal government would not have the resources to handle a large-scale disaster, warns B.C. Premier Christy Clark.
In an interview with CBC chief correspondent Peter Mansbridge, Clark sounded the alarm over Canada's inability to handle a major coastal oil spill now, let alone in the future should new pipelines be approved.
"We are woefully under-resourced," Clark said.
Her comments come amid a recent video ad campaign by Coastal First Nations in B.C. directed at Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The video shows devastating images from the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989. The song The Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel accompanies the dramatic pictures.
The video tells viewers a similar oil spill could cost taxpayers $21.4 billion to clean up and notes that 80 per cent of British Columbians oppose oil tanker traffic in the province's coastal waters.
Read the full story and watch the video at CBC News