Vancouver oil spill leads to petition delivered to MP James Moore

Environmentalists and First Nations groups gathered at Conservative MP James Moore's constituency office in Port Moody to deliver a petition in response to a recent oil spill in Vancouver. 

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"This is a wake up call," said Grand Chief Stewart Philip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. "This is a harbinger of what could visit us in terms of a catastrophic oil spill in the Burrard Inlet."

The petition calls for the government to:

• re-open the Kitsilano Coast Guard Station
• restore funding to the Marine Communications Centre in B.C. 
• stop increased tanker traffic off the B.C. coast

The petition, which gathered 15,000 signatures, was so large that protesters had to shove it through Moore's mail slot piece by piece.

The group also brought along rocks smeared with oil from last week's spill in English Bay.

The Coast Guard has been criticized for what was perceived as a slow response to the bunker fuel spill. Many also questioned why it took roughly 12 hours for the City of Vancouver to be notified.

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Fred Moxey, a retired Canadian Coast Guard commander, said the slow response was unacceptable. 

"We would have encircled that ship with our boom within an hour," said Moxey. 

"The weather was perfect, the sea was calm, still daylight, and they're telling me we didn't have that equipment and that we weren't trained."

Minister Moore has praised the clean up, calling it "a job well done."