Arthur Cullinan

I have a genuine background in this that doesn't often come up: as a law student I was on the Irish team at the Stetson International Environmental Moot Court Competition, the world's largest moot devoted to global environmental law, where our case centred on biodiversity and we placed third internationally. That's real training in how environmental law works, not just an interest from the sidelines. I want to be honest about what's happened since, though: climate hasn't been the organizing cause of my community work the way housing, taxes, or regional governance have been, even though I do care about it. Some of what I've already done has a resilience logic even where I didn't frame it that way at the time: pushing the Chamber toward economic diversification so this coast depends less on a single employer, and the watershed and water infrastructure advocacy already central to my platform. Personally, I drive a plug-in hybrid chosen specifically for its fuel efficiency, walk to and from my office most days, and run my law practice paperless wherever possible. I've also turned down cruise vacations my own family would have enjoyed, because of the environmental damage cruise ships cause, a small thing, held to consistently rather than occasionally. I'd rather answer honestly than inflate this: it isn't a record of sustained environmental advocacy, it's a record of someone with real early training in the field who cares, and has made a handful of consistent personal choices because of it.

I'd push for four things: that any review of an expanded Woodfibre LNG explicitly assess the impact on BC Ferries Route 3 reliability, not just the terminal itself, since our ferry file is already this platform's top coast-wide priority; that the shíshálh Nation and the Squamish Nation, whose territory covers Gibsons, Port Mellon and the shipping route, are decision-making partners in any review, not consulted after the fact; that the Town request a direct briefing from BC Ferries and the Province on how an expanded schedule would be managed alongside ferry crossings; and that any review seriously weigh marine biodiversity, Howe Sound is in the middle of a genuine, decades-long ecological recovery, whales, dolphins, herring and salmon returning after industrial dead zones, and a near-daily tanker schedule risks undermining that through underwater noise and collision risk alone. I want to be realistic about what a Gibsons councillor can actually do here: the project sits with the District of Squamish, the province, and federal authorities, not with us. What we do have is a legitimate voice as an affected community, and I'd use it in coalition with Bowen Island, West Vancouver, and the Sunshine Coast's own advocacy groups, rather than pretend council can decide this alone.