VICTORIA, B.C. – With the B.C. election less than two months away, Dogwood Initiative’s No Tankers campaign has released a new series of ads to get British Columbians talking about oil tankers at the dinner table and on the door step.

The first ad shows a family sitting around the dinner table while Dad announces he’s allowed a pipeline to be built through their home. “What if it leaks?” the daughter asks. “They told me that is very unlikely to happen,” Dad answers as the pipeline springs a leak in the kitchen.

The ad closes with a link to notankers.ca, where visitors are encouraged to sign up as volunteers to talk to voters about the threat of oil tankers during the upcoming B.C. election.

“The latest polling shows oil pipeline and tanker proposals are the third biggest issue of concern for British Columbians in the upcoming election,” said Eric Swanson, campaigns director for Dogwood Initiative. “This is a critical moment in the battle to protect B.C.’s coast from the threat of oil spills. The next government of B.C. will have the power to stand up to plans to bring more crude oil tankers to our coast, but it’s up to British Columbians to elect strong candidates and give the next government a mandate for strong action.”

Activating a network of more than 150,000 No Tankers supporters, Dogwood Initiative will be working to enable as many one-on-one conversations with voters as possible before election day.

“We’ve designed an online election organizing platform that will allow volunteers across the province to call fellow citizens in their own ridings to discuss oil tankers as a voting issue,” Swanson said. “Volunteers will explain the factual distinctions between the parties and candidates on oil tanker expansion and on election day we’ll activate our network to get out the vote.”

As of right now, the Green Party and Independent MLA Bob Simpson oppose all expansion of oil tanker traffic on B.C.’s coast, while the NDP oppose Enbridge’s proposal for the Great Bear Rainforest, but have not taken a position on Kinder Morgan’s proposal to bring hundreds of oil tankers to our south coast. The B.C. Conservatives are in favour of both the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan proposals, while the B.C. Liberals are still on the fence with both.

“It’s possible that the positions of the candidates and parties evolve before the vote on May 14th,” Swanson said. “As a non-partisan organization, we don’t intrinsically favour any particular party and don’t tell people who to vote for. What we do is let concerned citizens know which of their local candidates and parties have the strongest position on threats to bring more crude oil tankers to our coast. We respect the ability of voters to then make their own choice.”

The ads are available on YouTube

Contact:
Eric Swanson
Campaigns Director
Dogwood Initiative
250-858-9990