Greenpeace is supporting the event being organized by our allies No Tanks! and the Wilderness Committee. The message we send to Prime Minister Stephen Harper will only be as strong as the number of voices and boats that attend. We strongly encourage you to join us in a fun-filled day.

Own a boat and want to join the flotilla? Please e-mail: info@notanks.org or stephanie.goodwin@greenpeace.org.

Don’t have a boat but still want to take part? Join us for a rally on the beach at English Bay in Vancouver at noon!

In 2007 multi-national oil companies quietly started shipping raw crude oil from the tar sands in tankers departing from Vancouver. For years oil was arriving by pipeline to the refinery on the west coast, but this marked the first time that raw crude was being shipped from the port in Vancouver to the U.S. and even Asia. With no public process or debate in the House of Commons, B.C.’s coast has been under threat from a major oil spill for three years now, as tankers pass through the Burrard Inlet as often as twice a week. This threat remains a very real one and will for as long as they continue to transport this dirty oil through our waters.

And now the threat is becoming even more severe, as the Canadian government is now considering a proposal from pipeline giant Enbridge to build twin Northern Gateway pipelines from Alberta’s tar sands to Kitimat on northern B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest coastline. If approved, the pipelines would traverse important salmon-bearing watersheds and would bring more than 200 crude oil tankers annually through B.C.’s northern coastal waters for the first time.

With oil tankers on B.C.’s coast, it will not be a question of if a spill occurs, but when, where and how large. No amount of technology or process can fully eliminate human or mechanical error. And once an oil tanker accident does happen, an spill could hit our shores in a matter of hours. Once it hits land, a full cleanup is virtually impossible.

Crude oil tankers face unprecedented opposition from First Nations and civil society. In March, Coastal First Nations declared an oil tanker ban using their own laws: “…oil tankers carrying crude oil from the Alberta tar sands will not be allowed to transit our lands and waters.” Additionally, 80 per cent of British Columbians support banning oil tankers from our coastal waters.