Last spring, as millions of barrels of oil poured from a blasted BP well in the Gulf of Mexico, Quebecers were riveted -with cause. The explosion and subsequent environmental devastation in the warm, tranquil waters of the gulf came just as Quebec was setting off on its own drilling adventures in far less hospitable places.
Last year, exploratory oil drilling was carried out on Anticosti Island. Oil and gas companies drilled for shale gas in the St. Lawrence River and for oil and gas in the deep seas of Old Harry, 80 kilometres off the Iles de la Madeleine.
If there were lessons to be drawn from the BP spill -the worst in U.S. history -Quebecers wanted to know them. This week, they found out that behind the spill was an industry culture of complacency and cost-cutting coupled with impotent and underfunded government oversight agencies. On Tuesday, the National Oil Spill Commission issued its key finding: The explosion was preventable.
The commission suggested that safety seemed to run a poor second behind financial considerations, saying, "Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time (and money)."
The commission did not say the gulf explosion was an isolated problem. Instead, it talked about an industry-wide culture of complacency about safety. This is the same industry that wants to start exploring and extracting oil and gas from Canada's offshore sites and off its coastlines. The federal and Quebec governments need to step back and commission their own investigation into the safety and sustainability of oil and gas extraction in Canadian waters and low-lying lands.
In Quebec, the shale gas industry is champing at the bit, with plans to drill anywhere from 1,000 to 7,000 wells in the province. The Charest government wants to go ahead, having already granted dozens of oil and gas companies permits to drill along the St. Lawrence valley.
Many Quebecers, on the other hand, want a moratorium. Last month the Quebec environmental-protection agency, BAPE, reported to the Natural Resources Department that it had found leaks in more than half the shale gas wells it inspected. The government was fast to say the leaks pose no danger, but has been slower to provide proof.
Extracting Quebec's reportedly large reservoirs of shale gas involves a potentially environmentally invasive technique called fracking, in which water, sand and chemicals are blasted into rock to get to deep underground wells. Quebec is waiting to hear in March from a group it appointed to look into any problems connected with shale gas extraction.
But if Quebec is at least acknowledging the concerns of its residents, the federal government has refused to expand its review of offshore drilling rules. Arctic offshore drilling will come under review, but not drilling practices or plans off Canada's east and west coasts. This is a critical omission: A Halifaxbased company, Corridor Resources, which has held a lease on the Quebec side of Old Harry since 1996, is drawing up plans to drill in the Newfoundland and Labrador part of the deep-sea basin.
A uniform set of rules designed to put safety first should be the goal of Ottawa and resource-rich provinces. After the gulf disaster, Canada should have learned that if safety is ignored, the cost can be staggering. Quebecers, for one, have made it clear they don't want to pay the price.