Biodiversity protection
Issue:

The Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Expansion Proposal

On April 20th 2023, the federal government approved the dramatic expansion of the Port of Vancouver in the form of a three-berth container terminal, called Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2), This expansion is right at the heart of the Fraser River Estuary, one of North America’s most biodiverse areas. The development is predicted to increase the number of container shipments to the terminal by 50 percent.

The project’s approval came despite significant public opposition, including from environmental groups, scientists, labour worker unions and thousands of Canadians. It also ignored the large body of evidence, including the government’s own Independent Review Panel, indicating that the project will have lasting and irreversible adverse environmental effects that will further endanger Southern Resident orcas, wild Pacific salmon and one hundred more already at-risk species.

This project will threaten highly biodiverse and at-risk habitat the size of 177 football fields, furthering the unprecedented biodiversity crisis, while increasing tanker traffic, underwater noise, oil spill risk and climate destabilization.

Putting the economy, at all costs, above the environment is the reason we’re experiencing such alarming biodiversity loss and impacts from climate change.


The Fight Isn't Over... Stand Against RBT2!

Photo Credit: Tom Middleton


The Fight Is Not Over – Our Next Steps

Even though the Federal government approved RBT2, the project still needs additional permits and must go through other processes to start construction and therefore, there are still ways to stop it.

As a first step, Georgia Strait Alliance, along with our allies at David Suzuki Foundation, Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Committee, represented by Ecojustice, have legally challenged the project’s approval in the form of a judicial review.

Our lawyers will argue that the approval is unlawful because a project cannot be deemed “justified” under environmental assessment legislation when it is contrary to the Species at Risk Act.

“The devastating approval of the RBT2 expansion project makes the fear many of us have of seeing the Southern Resident orcas and wild pacific salmon go functionally extinct during our lifetimes so much more real”

~ quote by Lucero González Ruiz, on CTV News – Longshore union sides with environmental groups opposed to Delta terminal expansion


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