The Status of Environmental Assessment Review of Westcoast Offshore Hydrocarbon Exploration: what is (and isn’t) needed to warrant the lifting of the moratorium on Westcoast offshore hydrocarbon explorations.

My contention is that the stage is set for the lifting of the moratorium. That particular assertion is based on a number of premises, several overriding and several intrinsic. The primary premise is that there will be and has to be the entering in good faith of tripartite negotiations between Canada British Columbia and the Haida Nation, Canada British Columbia and the Tsimshian Nation, and Canada British Columbia and the Heltsuik Nation, with reconciliation of resource sharing and resource revenues and benefits from this particular resource. That can go on concurrently with a variety of things and I will go as far as to say that that should go on separately and apart from the existing treaty negotiation process. With that said there is another premise. I was surprised that no one yesterday mentioned this, and that is that somewhere out there, there is an industrial proponent that wishes to make a play here. We have to make that assumption, because without a proponent there are not going to be projects of exploration of various forms and perhaps even production one day. In addition, I would emphasize the fact that even though the geological presentation yesterday emphasized the whole coast, based on our Panel’s findings some fifteen years ago, every time I think about offshore exploration on the west coast, it starts and stops north of Vancouver Island. I would not think of it happening in Johnstone Straits, Georgia Strait or off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. The geological evidence is where I assume that the proponents will focus