Offer Advice: Moratorium and Credit Government

offer advice: In October 2001, then energy minister Richard Neufeld appointed a three-member scientific review panel, chaired by former University of Victoria president David Strong, according to Georgia Asian. Its mandate was to offer advice in four areas related to offshore oil and gas exploration, including whether any specific government actions should be taken prior to removing the provincial moratorium. Shortly after taking office in 2001, it appointed a six-member B.C. Liberal caucus subcommittee, which included future energy minister Blair Lekstrom, to seek public input on lifting a provincial moratorium on offshore drilling. The B.C. moratorium had been announced by the Social Credit government in 1989. Tankers carrying crude oil from Alaska travel west of Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island and enter Juan de Fuca Strait on their way to Washington-state oil refineries. This came 17 years after the federal government announced a moratorium on offshore drilling and on crude-oil tanker traffic passing through Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.