Wow! Stephen Harper Shows a Spine!....

PM to bush: no tankers
Politics Harper uses summit to strengthen Canada's opposition to U.S. ships using Passamaquoddy Bay as an LNG route

Rob Linke
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
Published Thursday August 30th, 2007
Appeared on page A1

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reiterated in a private meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush that Canada will not let massive tankers carry liquefied natural gas through tricky Head Harbour Passage.
Advertisement

The channel, which Canada considers internal waters, runs between Campobello and Deer islands in Passamaquoddy Bay. It is on the only route LNG tankers could take to and from two terminals proposed for sites nearby in Maine.

Harper raised the issue at their private Aug. 20 meeting during the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit at Montebello, Que., during an afternoon session crowded with issues such as Afghanistan, trade and U.S. requirements for Canadian travellers to carry passports.

Harper had raised Canada's objections to the tankers directly with Bush at least once before, said a spokeswoman for the prime minister.

"The president is aware of Canada's position on this issue (and that) we will continue to oppose this initiative," Carolyn Stewart-Olsen wrote in an e-mail.

Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson, whose New Brunswick Southwest riding is home to fierce local opposition to the tankers, said Harper was reminding the president "we haven't lost sight of it.

"It indicates how important this is to us and to the prime minister, that he raised it at this high level.

"You can't go any higher than that."

In Opposition two years ago, Thompson called Head Harbour Passage "the most dangerous waterway to navigate on the entire East Coast" as he repeatedly pressed Paul Martin's Liberal government to block the tankers.

The government was still studying its options when the Conservatives took power.

Canada first expressed its formal opposition last February in a letter from Canada's ambassador in Washington, Michael Wilson, to the chairman of the U.S. federal energy regulator.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is assessing applications for two LNG terminals along the Maine coast.

Quoddy Bay LNG has chosen a site near Eastport, Maine., across from Fairhaven, Deer Island.

Downeast LNG seeks approval for a site near Robbinston, Maine., directly across from the seaside resort town of St. Andrews, N.B.

Citing unspecified threats to a sensitive environment and to public safety, the Canadian government said it would use "all legal and diplomatic means" to prevent the tankers from entering Head Harbour Passage en route to those terminals.

Canada takes the position that the passage has the status of internal waters over which it has exclusive jurisdiction.

The U.S. State Department agrees the passage is Canadian, but sees it as a territorial sea in which commercial ships enjoy the right of innocent passage under international law.

Experts in international law have offered conflicting opinions in the last year, with an American professor in Hawaii siding with the Canadian opponents and a Canadian professor in British Columbia agreeing with the Americans.

The dispute over the passage's status predates the LNG controversy by several decades. It played a role in Canada opposing its use by oil tankers en route to a proposed oil refinery in the 1970s. The refinery was never built.

The channel is about 600 metres wide at its narrowest point and is known for high tides, strong currents and frequent, unpredictable fog. One of the world's largest whirlpools, the "Old Sow," forms in the channel each day.

Still, the LNG proponents maintain Head Harbour Passage can be safely navigated by LNG tankers under certain conditions, and cite sophisticated simulations performed last year in Rhode Island to back their case.

Charlotte County environmentalist Janice Harvey, one of the leaders of Save Passamaquoddy Bay-Canada, a group opposed to LNG terminals, was encouraged to learn Harper had spoken to Bush.

"This tells me it's still a front-burner issue for the prime minister," Harvey said Wednesday.

"Time is very limited at these summits and I'm sure they think very hard about what issues deserve to be raised."

Local opponents argue the tankers pose an unacceptable risk to public safety should a leak or spill result in a fire, and that they threaten the local economy, which is largely based on fishing, aquaculture and tourism.

Thompson said he hopes to brief Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier soon on the issue. Bernier, whose department is taking the lead role, was shuffled into his new post earlier this month.