A report from the federal commissioner of the environment last week points out once more the disturbing way Ottawa has failed to address legitimate concerns about B.C.'s pipeline proposals.
It's just the latest in a series of less-than-reassuring developments.
Last month, Kinder Morgan announced that despite one set of figures used in public consultations last year, the company actually wants to ship a lot more oil - meaning more or bigger tankers in Burrard Inlet - or both.
This week, federal commissioner Scott Vaughan informs us federal regulators are ill-prepared to address any kind of catastrophic oil spill. In apparent confirmation of what activists have said, Vaughan points out in his report that rules and resources in place to deal with any major oil spill are wholly inadequate.
Among his findings: there is no formal process for updating an assessment of risks, no recognition of a huge anticipated increase in west coast tanker traffic and not enough money to handle the costs of cleaning up spills.
Any costs not covered would inevitably fall to the public purse.
Proponents of the projects, of course, don't expect to see any oil spills.
But that is the nature of disaster preparation - spending money and effort to deal with something we don't expect to happen. We don't expect ships to sink either, but we still have federally mandated safety standards and lifeboats meant to carry all passengers on board - not just some of them.
Ottawa's insistence on seeing no evil when it comes to environmental risk should make us all very nervous.
