British Columbians continue to oppose the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline by nearly a two-to-one margin, according to a poll released Tuesday.
The telephone survey conducted Monday by Forum Research on behalf of the Gitga'at First Nation showed 60 per cent of respondents were against the plan to connect Alberta's oilsands with Kitimat via twin pipelines. Only 31 per cent of respondents said they were in favour of the project, with nine per cent still undecided.
Northern Gateway spokesman Ivan Giesbrecht said the company is focusing its attention on the National Energy Board's Joint Review Panel (JRP) rather than public polling.
"This is a long process, we've got a lot left to do," he said. "We believe as people get to know the facts through this open and transparent process they will come to support the project."
Hearings into the projects environmental assessment continue this week in Prince Rupert, with the focus on the environmental and socio-economic assessment in the marine environment. The JRP isn't expected to issue its final report until the end of 2013, while after the next B.C. provincial election.
The poll also touched on the advertising campaign parent company Enbridge is conducting on behalf of the Northern Gateway project. The company has produced both television and print ads, some of which have appeared in the Citizen.
Of the 86 per cent of respondents who said they had seen some sort of advertising by Enbridge, only 14 per cent said it improved their opinion of Northern Gateway. Conversely, 37 per cent their opinion of the project actually worsened because of the ads and 46 per cent said there was no change.
"We did this poll because we find the Enbridge ads misleading," Arnold Clifton, chief councillor of the Gitga'at First Nation said in a news release. "The proposed tanker route is in our territorial waters, so we know how treacherous they can be, and how risky this project is. We wanted to see if British Columbians felt the same way."
The poll also asked about a controversial map Northern Gateway produced which removed some islands from the Douglas Channel. Pipeline opponents claimed it was done deliberately to make the proposed shipping route appear safer, while Northern Gateway responded that it was for illustrative purposes only and the map itself said it wasn't made to scale.
According to the survey, two in five people (40 per cent) were aware of the story. Of that group, 64 per cent said they believed the map was misleading compared with 25 per cent who said it wasn't misleading.
The poll randomly sampled 1,051 British Columbians and has a margin of error plus or minus three per cent, 19 times out of 20.
