Yesterday in Member’s Statements I spoke about a remarkable group of students from Glenlyon-Norfolk School who are raising awareness about the plight of the world’s sharks. Today in the legislature I was up in Question Period. I took the opportunity to first ask the government if they would be willing to introduce legislation to ban the sale, trade and distribution of shark fins in British Columbia. I followed up to see if they would be willing to work with me and other MLAs to develop a strategy that would eventually lead to banning the sale, trade and distribution of shark fins in British Columbia. I received a very positive response and hope to work with MLAs from all parties to see if we can move this issue forward.

MY QUESTION

Honourable Speaker, last year Boris Worm, an internationally-renown marine conservation biologist published a paper in the Elsevier journal Marine Policy entitled “Global catches, exploitation rates and rebuilding options for sharks.” In it, he and his colleagues produced three independent estimates of the average rate that sharks are killed per year. These estimates ranged between 6.4% and 7.9%, all exceeding 4.9% per year, the amount needed to keep populations stable.

Shark finning is one of the leading causes of the decline in global shark populations, honourable speaker. Finning involves cutting off a shark’s fins and throwing their still live body back into the sea. Finned sharks suffer a slow, grueling death through starvation, drowning or gradual predation.

Madame speaker, there are already twelve municipalities in British Columbia that have shark fin bans in place. All restaurants in Victoria have taken shark fin soup off their menus. Many have done the same in Vancouver. But there is still a long way to go to protect these iconic creatures from becoming committed to extinction.

Will the government introduce legislation to ban the sale, trade and distribution of shark fins in British Columbia?

MINISTER LETNICK’S RESPONSE

We understand the member opposite’s question — and thank you for the question. Obviously, there’s a lot of public concern with the harvesting and finning of sharks, and we are interested in looking at the issue.

We understand that the federal government has had a ban since 1994 on the practice of finning in domestic waters. It is controlled by CFIA, as far as the importation of fins into our province, into our country. The DFO, of course, controls the harvesting in our waters. It is federal jurisdiction. But I do want to say to the member opposite that I understand the question, and I understand the concerns.

MY SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTION

Madame speaker, in late 2012 CTV News reported that 76 percent of DNA tested dried shark fins purchased in Vancouver fell on the threatened or endangered red list from the United Nations International Union for the Conservation of Nature. In fact, honourable speaker, samples also indicated the presence of Great Hammerhead and Porbeagle fins, both of which are contained in Appendix I on the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora to which Canada is a party.

Madame Speaker, section 92(13) of the Constitution Act, 1867 grants powers to British Columbia to legislate under “Property and Civil Rights in the Province”. Section 92(16) grants powers to legislate under “Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the Province.”

Honourable speaker, I am in possession of a legal opinion that states that: “British Columbia has the authority to ban the sale, trade and distribution of shark fins” through constitutional provisions pursuant to section 92(13) and section 92(16) of our constitution.

My question is this. Will the government commit to working with me and other MLAs to develop a strategy that would eventually lead to banning the sale, trade and distribution of shark fins in British Columbia?

MINISTER LETNICK’S RESPONSE

Madame Speaker, I thank you, as well, for allowing me to answer the question.

As I said before, to the best of my understanding it is federal jurisdiction. However, I look forward to seeing the documents that the hon. member will table after question period, and I’d be happy to meet with him next week to discuss the matter further.

Honourable Speaker, today I’d like to speak to you about the importance of the youth voice in our society.

And I’d like to illustrate this by focusing specifically on the efforts of a remarkable group of students from Glenlyon-Norfolk School who are being featured in an upcoming documentary entitled Child of Nature, produced by Enigma Films under contract from Warner Brothers.

Madame Speaker, sharks have been present in our oceans for over 400 million years. They have survived the Earth’s five great extinction events including times when up to 80% of all marine species were wiped out. But they are struggling now in the anthropocene, the 6^th great extinction event, because of a cruel and wasteful process known as shark finning.

In February 2012, Rob Stewart, Director of the film Sharkwater gave a powerful presentation to Glenlyon-Norfolk School. He inspired and motivated the students in the room. They became determined to do what they could to make people aware of the plight of the world’s shark population.

Together with their teacher, Mrs. Margaret McCullough, these students set up a not for profit known as Fin Free Victoria.

Madame speaker, this incredibly passionate and articulate group of young students has worked tirelessly for several years.

They’ve visited numerous municipalities and businesses in Victoria, Vancouver, Richmond and elsewhere on Vancouver Island. They’ve given presentations to restaurant groups; they’ve collected signatures on petitions; they’ve conducted media interviews; they’ve participated in press conferences; they’ve met with many municipal councillors as well as provincial and federal politicians.

And at all times, they’ve done so with deepest respect for, and sensitivity of, British Columbia’s diversified cultural heritage.

Madame Speaker, this group of young students, has been so effective that shark fin soup has disappeared from the menus of all Victoria restaurants. Fin-Free stickers are proudly displayed instead. The same is true for a growing number of establishments in Richmond and Vancouver, thanks in part to the collaborative efforts of Fin Free Victoria.

Honourable speaker, it gives me hope and inspiration to see the youth of today so engaged in such important societal issues.

While we in this room ultimately represent the decision-making generation, it is their generation that will have to live the consequences of our decisions.

Each and every one of us should reflect upon that from time to time.

This post is part of an ongoing series in which MLA Andrew Weaver will be sharing key information from inside the National Energy Board hearings on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline proposal. To see previous posts, please click here.

What would happen if there were to be an oil spill on our coast?

How much of the oil could we actually expect to recover?

Kinder Morgan tried to address that second question in its application. Unfortunately, I found their conclusion to be rather unbelievable.

As a part of their application, Kinder Morgan submitted a report done by EBA, A Tetra Tech Company. The report was designed to evaluate Kinder Morgan’s enhanced oil spill response regime by simulating an oil spill.

The model they used to run this simulation is proprietary, so we have no way of assessing how valid or accurate it is. But we do know enough to raise some serious questions about the results.

 The Oil Spill Simulation

When EBA ran its computer model, they started by outlining some basic assumptions. And that’s the key. In science, your projections are only as good as your initial assumptions. Unfortunately, the assumptions they chose are not representative.

Here’s what I mean:

When EBA ran its oil spill simulation, they had to pick a day of the year when the spill would occur. They also had to define what the weather was like that day, how quickly responders could get to the scene, when they would start their work, etc. All of these choices are called assumptions, which are converted to model input data. That is, using these assumptions, the model then has some hard data that it can use for its calculations.

Now, one thing we know in science is that the assumptions you choose can significantly influence the final result. For example, if you assume that responders can cleanup 100 tonnes of oil every hour then the final result will be much better than if you assume they can only cleanup 1 tonne every hour.

Questionable Assumptions

So what assumptions were used?

For starters, a pristine summer day in August was selected. They assumed that there would be 20 hours of sunlight to facilitate the spill response, that adverse weather conditions (such as waves and wind) would not prevent or complicate response in any way, and that there would be no toxic or explosive hazards preventing first responders from immediately approaching the spill. Finally, they assumed that it would take thirteen hours for all of the oil in the ship to be released into the surrounding environment.

Let’s unpack this.

First of all, we know from weather data provided by Trans Mountain (p. 366) that weather conditions along the route prevent spill response for 10% to 40% of the year. On top of that, we also know that even when spill response is occurring, the response becomes significantly less effective whenever waves are taller than 1m. Anyone who has been out on the water knows that we often have waves that are taller than 1m.

Secondly, to assume that it will take thirteen hours for all of the oil to spill out of two tanks seems like an arbitrary assumption. I asked Kinder Morgan to explain the reasoning behind it, but received no actual justification.

Finally, lets calculate how much sunlight there is in August. We know that the longest day in August will occur on August 1, as that is closest to the summer solstice (June 21). It’s relatively straightforward to plug the latitude and longitude of Victoria into the US Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications software to find that on August 1st, 2014 (for example) there was 15 hours and 2 minutes of daylight. Even if we stretch this to occur between the beginning and end of civil twilight, we only get 16 hours and 7 minutes (see figures below). This sure doesn’t seem like 20 hours to us. In fact even at the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, there is only 16 hours and 15 minutes of sunlight extending to 17 hours and 31 minutes if we include the beginning to end of civil twilight. In fact, if you wanted 20 hours of sunlight on any day in August you’d have to be at Tuktoyaktuk’s latitude (69.5° N). And that’s hardly relevant to conditions off southern Vancouver Island.

a)       b)

Figure: (a) Sunrise and sunset calculations for August 1, 2014 and (b) the summer solstice (June 21, 2014).

The Results

After selecting pristine conditions, the report concluded that 44.5% of oil could be recovered at sea outside of the immediate containment area and a further 18.6% could be recovered within the containment area thanks to Kinder Morgan’s enhanced spill response regime. That result may seem pretty good, although you might be wondering what happened to the other 36.9% of oil that was spilled.

But the unfortunate reality is that EBA’s result appears unbelievably high as far as oil spill recovery goes. According to the Federal Expert Tanker Safety Panel, on average only 5-15% of oil is actually ever recovered from a spill, even in optimal conditions.

So is Kinder Morgan’s plan just that good?

The short answer: Unlikely. Rather, by picking ideal assumptions, EBA came up with a result that isn’t necessarily representative of what would actually happen in a real spill.

Given this, I asked Kinder Morgan to redo their model analysis with more representative results. Unfortunately, they refused.

I can’t help but come back to the same basic point: British Columbians expect better.

And unless Kinder Morgan is going to step up and take oil spills seriously, they will never earn the social license they need to build their pipeline.

This is the tenth in our series of stories celebrating the outstanding accomplishments of youth in our community. These inspirational young adults are enriching our lives with their passion and commitment to the betterment of society.

Olivia Cavanagh

On February 3, 2014 Olivia was part of a group of youth who visited my constituency office on Shelbourne Street. They came with a simple message — one that was being delivered to MLAs across our province. In 2007 British Columbia promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 33% relative to 2007 levels by 2020. MLAs were being asked by youth to “Defend our Future” and commit to the 2020 reduction targets. I did.

But the irony was not lost on me when we met Olivia at Discovery Coffee on Oak Bay Avenue on October 10. Just the day before I had delivered my response to the Speech from the Throne . In it I challenged all MLAs to find the courage and leadership to recognize the challenge of global warming for what it is. I challenged all MLAs to recognize the folly of solely basing our economy on hypothetical exports of a commodity that may or may not find a market elsewhere.  I argued that we could, and should show leadership in the development of a diversified, sustainable, 21^st century economy and subsequently introduced an amendment to the Throne Speech to add:

And that the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia accepts the responsibility of demonstrating the leadership to choose growth, to move forward and create a legacy for our children, but also recognizes that this leadership means not gambling our future prosperity on a hypothetical windfall from LNG, and instead supports the development of a diversified, sustainable, 21^st century economy.

My amendment was defeated 65-1 and so I wondered just whose future was actually being defended.

But having the opportunity to interview Olivia the next day was both uplifting and inspirational. Being in the presence of Olivia’s infectious joy and passion made it impossible for me to remain saddened by what had transpired in the Legislature the previous day.

Olivia is incredibly passionate about the environment and she has immersed herself in numerous environmental initiatives both inside and outside of Oak Bay High School. For example, having been a member of the Oak Bay High Environmental Club since Grade 9, Olivia and a friend decided to head up the club this year.  Olivia describes herself as more of an activist than a leader and believes we all need to step up to protect our environment for future generations. Particularly motivating for Olivia was the impassioned speech given by Emma Watson, British actor and Goodwill Ambassador to the UN, at the recent United Nations Climate Summit. Olivia was quick to quote from Emma Watson “If not me, who? If not now, when?”

Olivia was born and raised in Victoria, attending Monterey Elementary, Margaret Jenkins Elementary (for one year while Monterey was being seismically upgraded and turned into a middle school), back to Monterey Middle School (for Grade 8) and she is currently in her graduating year. She’s been on the honour roll at Oak Bay ever since she first arrived there in Grade 9.  In addition to taking on a heavy load in the sciences this year, Olivia is also studying ceramics — her favourite course. Now in her third year of school ceramics, and a regular on her potter’s wheel at home, Olivia describes it as a “calming and relaxing” creative outlet for which “you can always improve”. In addition to her studies, Olivia has enjoyed playing soccer with Bays United since she was 6 and rugby with the Oak Bay Girls’ Team since Grade 10.

Olivia is very interested in food security issues and in spring 2013 she travelled to Hornby Island where she stayed on an organic farm to learn about their food production. This opportunity arose through World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farmers (WWOOF), an organization that, in return for volunteer help, offers food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles. During her time on Hornby, Olivia developed a sincere “appreciation for the amount of work [required] to produce the majority of your own food”. In addition, she was fascinated to learn how to grow and harvest willow shoots for making baskets. Olivia has had opportunities to share her knowledge with others, including giving workshops on veganism and conscious eating. Twice she has presented workshops on food security and water security at the annual student-driven Youth Climate Action Summit, run by YesBC (Youth for Environmental Stewardship), a locally based non profit organization dedicated to empowering young environmental leaders.

For the past 3 years, Olivia has been attending regular meetings with the Sierra Club of BC’s Youth Environmental Leadership Program (YELP). This has provided her with opportunities to give presentations to elementary and middle school students on a variety of environmental issues. Of course, Olivia is active locally in attending as many environmental rallies as she can; particularly those related to proposed heavy oil pipeline and coastal tanker projects.

During Olivia’s grade 11 year, she was in charge of coordinating the school’s recycling program. She lends support to the students running the program this year and “views sustainability of the program as important as the program itself. Olivia credits Derek Shrubsole, a teacher at Oak Bay High School, as someone who has been particularly inspirational to her. He “helped us with the whole recycling program and is the teacher-sponsor of the Environment Club at Oak Bay High”. Mr. Shrubsole describes Olivia as a very positive, genuine person who has a mature outlook and understands how to make connections relating environmental sustainability and the protection our environment for future generations.

Recently, the Environment Club was approached by a local resident concerning a potential development on Yale Street in Oak Bay where 20 out of 22 mature Garry Oak trees on the lot would be cut down to make way for townhouses. Olivia and her friends were affronted by this apparent disregard for nature and immediately took up the cause, including enlisting me in a video they produced to raise public awareness.

Somehow Olivia also finds time to volunteer in the community. She has been a dedicated volunteer with Operation Trackshoes for 7 years and has volunteered with the Oak Bay High Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock campaign. Last year she shaved her head for the cause.

Olivia also ran a bake sale to raise funds for Tour de Rock. Olivia works part time at 2 local sustainable-food restaurants, typically clocking 8-10 hours per week. And from a very young age, she has always enjoyed being outdoors, loved camping, biking, hiking and, more recently, surfing and kayaking.

Olivia’s future goals include a commitment to convince others about the importance of environmental awareness and stewardship. She has realized how much we have to lose unless we take action to protect what we have. She made a point of telling us that she “takes care of her body to live healthy, so why wouldn’t we want to take care of the environment for the future?”

Olivia may take a gap year following graduation, possibly traveling with World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farmers to Indonesia or New Zealand, but plans to further her education and study Marine Biology at university. At the same time, she notes, “I plan to be an environmental activist and I want to surf”.

Olivia is a wonderful, joyful, and engaged young woman who was an absolute delight to interview. We are convinced that Olivia will continue to make a positive difference to the world around her through her proven dedication to environmental stewardship and sustainability.

Thank you Olivia for all that you do to make our community a better place to live in and thank you for empowering me with motivation and enthusiasm on a day that that I woke up feeling somewhat defeated.

Today at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we remember. Ninety-six years ago armistice was signed between the Allies and the Germans in Compiègne, France thereby bringing an end to World War I.

Today we remember those who have sacrificed so much so that we can live in peace and freedom.

And today we also offer our profound gratitude to the men and women of our armed forces. We remember so that we might never forget.

I had the honour of laying a wreath at the Oak Bay Cenotaph in commemoration of Remembrance Day. Many hundreds of residents were present at Oak Bay’s memorial for the ninety-seven men and women who lost their lives during World War II.  We quietly pondered the sacrifices made by these men and women. Together we prayed for them. And we said thank you.