As big decisions loom on the fate of the Port of Vancouver’s Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) project, is this the headline the Government of Canada would want to see?
Amid much manufactured hype from the Port of Vancouver, it is clear that RBT2 is not in the public interest. According to business, labour, community and environmental groups as well as the local government, there is still time to make the right decision. The Government of Canada needs to #RejectRBT2 and build a #BetterDeltaport.
IS THIS THE HEADLINE THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO SEE?
DESPITE WARNINGS FROM ENVIRONMENT CANADA, LIBERAL GOVERNMENT APPROVES CONSTRUCTION OF MASSIVE ARTIFICIAL CONTAINER TERMINAL ISLAND IN THE SALISH SEA
Today, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change announced that the Government of Canada has approved the Port of Vancouver Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) despite strong warnings from Environment Canada. This $3.5 billion taxpayer-funded container terminal project will build an artificial island in the ecologically sensitive Salish Sea. In February 2018, Environment Canada characterized the impacts of RBT2 as “permanent, irreversible, and, continuous.” The Federal Review Panel for RBT2 concluded that the project would result in "numerous significant adverse residual and cumulative effects.” Most recently, in October 2022, Environment Canada reiterated that despite the Port Authority’s attempts at mitigation, “the change predicted as a result of the [RBT2] project would likely constitute an unmitigable species-level risk to Western Sandpipers, and shorebirds more generally.”