Debate renewed on drilling in Georges Bank

Fishermen who once fought to ban oil and gas exploration in Georges Bank may be reconsidering the moratorium.

Hubert Saulnier, president of the Maritime Fishermen's Union in southwest Nova Scotia, said the fishery is not as lucrative as it used to be, so oil rigs could create other job opportunities for the region.

"It's time to be realistic and maybe or maybe not support this," said Saulnier, whose group represents 60 fishermen from Digby to Cape Sable Island. "I think we have to [look at the] pros and cons on accepting the fact that maybe it is time to move forward."

A moratorium on offshore drilling in Georges Bank, a rich fishing ground off southwest Nova Scotia, is in place until 2012.

The province's minister of energy, Richard Hurlburt, reopened the debate about oil and gas development in the area last weekend when he told fellow Tories at the party's annual general meeting that fishermen and oil rigs can coexist.

Hurlburt said he plans to discuss the moratorium with the federal minister of natural resources.

Environmentalists, fisherman now disagree

Saulnier campaigned for the ban 10 years ago, as it was set to expire for the first time in 2000. Now, the lobster and groundfish industry is not as lucrative, he said, and there is no proof that oil rigs have a significant negative effect on fish.

"For the past 10 years, we've looked at oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and Cape Sable and everywhere else, and we've yet to see any environmental damage that an oil rig would produce," Saulnier said.

But Mark Butler, policy co-ordinator with the Ecology Action Centre, said there were three major oil spills in the last three years in Atlantic Canada.

"The record of the industry has not improved enough in my mind to allow it into a place like Georges Bank, and Georges Bank is really only the last place in Atlantic Canada where the industry can't go," Butler said.

Butler said opening the area to oil and gas development would pose a risk to the fish and marine life, and he sees no reason to raise the issue before the moratorium is reviewed in four years.