how much ocean can we ask to absorb?

 

how much ocean can we ask to absorb?

Today, Mark Carney announced $1.2 billion to protect Canada's oceans.

I want to believe in the protection part.

The announcement includes more marine monitoring, Coast Guard capacity, pollution response, whale protection, ocean science and Indigenous stewardship. Canada says it wants to conserve 30% of its oceans by 2030.

But here is what bothers me.

In the same announcement, the government acknowledges that marine traffic is expected to increase significantly and specifically talks about projected growth associated with major energy, LNG, port and resource-development projects on British Columbia's coast.

So we are going to increase the pressure...

And then spend billions preparing to protect the ocean from that increased pressure.

I live in Vancouver.

I can look across the water and see ships.

The official numbers show just how busy this port already is.

In 2024, the Port of Vancouver recorded 3,116 foreign vessel arrivals.

That's an average of about 8.5 foreign vessel arrivals every day.

And there were 353 tanker arrivals — almost one tanker arrival every day.

Those figures don't even represent every vessel movement we see around Vancouver.

And now we're talking about expanding trade and energy infrastructure and preparing for even more marine traffic.

This is where I struggle.

You can't keep saying "we care about the ocean" while continually increasing the demands we place upon it.

And today is Truth and Reconciliation Day.

That makes this even harder for me.

Because Indigenous elders have told stories of these waters when the tide went out and families went down to gather clams and shellfish.

A mother could make a small fire on the beach.

The boys could leave in a canoe to hunt.

The ocean wasn't something they looked at from a distance.

It was food. It was culture. It was home.

And that wasn't thousands of years ago.

It wasn't even 200 years ago.

It was within living memory.

I sit beside my murals at the bottom of Point Grey Road and Trafalgar and look toward the water.

I think about what this coastline must have looked like.

I think about my Songhees great-great-grandmother.

I think about what she taught my great-grandfather.

And I wonder what our children and grandchildren will see when they look at this same ocean.

Will they see a living ecosystem?

Or will they see an increasingly industrialized waterway that we spend billions trying to keep from collapsing?

The government says its approach is to "protect while we build."

But maybe we need to ask a harder question:

What if sometimes protecting means not building?

Not everything has to become bigger.

Not every resource has to be extracted.

Not every coastline has to carry more ships.

Not every ocean has to be made to work harder for us.

Maybe the lesson we've lost is one of balance.

Take what you need.

Leave enough for tomorrow.

Respect the water that feeds you.

Because once something is gone, money cannot always bring it back.

And I am hugely disappointed that we continue to have this conversation as though nature is something we can simply engineer around.

I would hate to have the karma of being responsible for choices that future generations look back on and ask:

"You knew what was happening.
Why didn't you stop?"

🌊🐋🐟

How much more can the ocean be asked to absorb before "protection" has to mean putting limits on development itself?