One of Canada's top experts on Arctic issues is warning of the "near-inevitability" of an Exxon Valdez-scale oil spill at a fragile choke point in Alaskan waters if Canada ends up shipping oilsands fuel to China via pipeline terminals on the British Columbia coast.

Michael Byers, a UBC professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, argues that Canada's "disregard for the environmental impacts of developing and selling its oil sands to China" could eventually expose the narrow, already-congested Unimak Pass in the Aleutian Islands — a key maritime gateway between Asia and North America — to an ecological disaster.