Following Bay du Nord approval, Environment Minister sued the group he co-founded

Steven Guilbeault founded quiterre in 1993. The Sierra Club Canada is suing the Canadian government, claiming that Canada’s approval of the oil project “runs contrary to Canada’s international obligations.”

La Presse Canadienne

Stphane Blais

Steven Guilbeault, Federal Environment Minister, speaks during the question period in House of Commons on April 7, 2022. Photo by PATRICK DOYLE /Reuters

Steven Guilbeault, Federal Environment minister, is being sued in the name of the environmental group he cofounded after Ottawa approved Bay du Nord’s oil project. It will be located off the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts.

Guilbeault founded quiterre in 1993. He also co-founded the Sierra Club Canada.

Friday’s lawsuit was filed at Federal Court.

Environmental groups have made public a communiqu Wednesday morning pointing out that Guilbeault approved Bay du Nord just days after a climate change expert panel released its report. The United Nations Secretary General Antnio guterres called any new investment in the fossil fuel industry moral and economic madness.

The Bay du Nord project, a collaboration between Equinor of Norway and Husky Energy of Canada, is an attempt to exploit a new deepwater oil field. It is a first in Canada. Equinor originally predicted that the project would generate 300 million barrels oil. This estimate has since been increased by three times.

Sierra Club Canada and quiterre both denounced the large downstream emissions that this project will create, even though Bay du Nords approval was subjected only to 137 conditions.

Industry and government claim that clean oil is possible. However, the extraction of oil only ten percent of the oil project’s emissions. According to the groups, the remaining 90% comes from oil combustion.

The floating platform could produce 300 million to one million barrels per year over the course of 30 years, according to the two groups. This is equivalent (greenhouse gases emissions from) an additional seven-ten million cars per year.