The federal Fisheries and Oceans minister says the issue of an increase of oil tankers in B.C. waters, should the Trans Mountain pipeline be built, is a serious one but it also needs some context.

Jonathan Wilkinson says yes the number of tankers will increase and yes there will be impacts on the troubled southern resident killer whale population but facts are also important.

“We are talking about an increase of 300 a year, which is not insignificant. But if you look at the projections for the port that amount of growth is going to come from two years of growth in the port even if Trans Mountain were not to precede. So the issue of noise is something that is far broader than any one project.”

Wilkinson says work is already underway to mitigate the impacts on the troubled southern resident killer whale population.

“We are working very hard through the whales initiative and some of the things we announced a few weeks ago to address the issue of noise. Including the traffic lanes and requiring vessel slow downs to reduce noise and doing a whole range of things to address that. That is not a Trans Mountain issue. Anybody who tries to simplify that to a Trans Mountain issue doesn’t really understand the issue.”

A federal court ruling overturned federal approval of the pipeline expansion and ordered the restart of the National Energy Board review process this time including marine impacts and proper consultations with First Nations.