{"id":314790,"date":"2025-11-29T17:55:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/314790\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T17:55:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:55:19","slug":"what-is-the-b-c-oil-tanker-ban-and-could-it-change-under-pipeline-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/314790\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the B.C. oil tanker ban, and could it change under pipeline deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The future of the oil tanker ban<\/a> in northern B.C. waters is now in question after the federal and Alberta governments signed an energy agreement Thursday that sets the stage for a pipeline<\/a> to the West Coast.<\/p>\n

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The memorandum of understanding<\/a> (MoU) includes a commitment from Ottawa to \u201cenable the export of bitumen from a strategic deep-water port to Asian markets, including if necessary through an appropriate adjustment to the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alberta and federal Conservatives have long argued the 2019 federal law prevents the building of new pipelines and therefore constrains the oil and gas industry, and have called for the federal government to repeal it.<\/p>\n

The B.C. government and Coastal First Nations, however, are vowing to do everything in their power to keep the tanker ban in place, citing the \u201ccatastrophic\u201d impact a future oil spill could have in the region.<\/p>\n

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Canada\u2019s Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told Global News the MoU does not guarantee changes to the tanker ban, or that a future pipeline will go to northern B.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no route today,\u201d he said. \u201cUnder the MoU, what (Alberta) would need to do is work with the affected jurisdiction \u2014 British Columbia \u2014 and work with affected First Nations for that project to move forward. That\u2019s what the work plan in the MoU calls for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know about the oil tanker ban, and what changing or repealing it would mean for Canada.<\/p>\n

Bill C-48 \u2014\u00a0the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act<\/a> \u2014 was first introduced by the Liberal government in 2017, and became law two years later after a protracted battle in the House of Commons and Senate<\/a> and opposition from Alberta and the oil industry.<\/p>\n

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The legislation bans tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tonnes of oil from docking in waters off the north of B.C.\u2019s coast. The affected area stretches from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaska border, and encompasses the island of Haida Gwaii.<\/p>\n

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The Haida Nation and other Coastal First Nations had long called for the government to enshrine a voluntary moratorium on oil tankers in the area that had been observed since 1972. The law includes penalties up to $5 million for those that don\u2019t comply.<\/p>\n

Then-transport minister Marc Garneau, who sponsored the bill, defended it at the time by citing the \u201cnavigational hazards\u201d of the region, which he said would make responding to an oil spill more challenging.<\/p>\n

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in recent weeks has pointed specifically to the Hecate Strait between Haida Gwaii and the B.C. mainland, which she has called \u201cthe most dangerous body of water on the Canadian coastline.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt has tides and currents that are extraordinary \u2014 10 to 30 metres (high). They sometimes go down so low that they expose the ocean floor,\u201d she told reporters in Ottawa earlier this month.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou can\u2019t wish away the science, and you can\u2019t pretend an oil tanker isn\u2019t going to break apart and contaminate the coast, sloshing back and forth oil between the north coast of the mainland of British Columbia and the east coast of Haida Gwaii.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tHow could the tanker ban change?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Either Kitimat \u2014 home to LNG Canada\u2019s export facility \u2014 or the coastal port city of Prince Rupert could become the export points for a future bitumen oil pipeline from Alberta under the federal MoU, should a proponent come forward with such a plan.<\/p>\n

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That would require either an exemption for the project from the tanker ban, or changing its boundaries to allow oil tankers through the Dixon Entrance in order to carry oil to Asia.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Coastal First Nations made clear that\u2019s not an option.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never tolerate any exemptions or carveouts, period,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no technology that can clean up an oil spill at sea or in a salmon river, and there is nothing in this MoU that overrides our inherent constitutional authority and stewardship responsibilities as the Rights and Title Holders of the Central and North Coast and Haida Gwaii.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September, the B.C. Supreme Court upheld the Haida Nation\u2019s title rights over Haida Gwaii<\/a>, giving the First Nation authority over the land and surrounding waters it has called home for generations.<\/p>\n

May has similarly said that \u201cthere is no chance on God\u2019s green earth that there is ever going to be an oil tanker up the B.C. north coast\u201d and that First Nations and the B.C. government \u201cwon\u2019t stand for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not just barking up the wrong tree, they\u2019re barking up the wrong forest,\u201d she said this month, referring to the federal and Alberta governments.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month<\/a>, the B.C. government and Coastal First Nations signed a joint declaration to uphold the oil tanker ban.<\/p>\n

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B.C. Premier David Eby said repealing the tanker ban would \u201crisk\u201d near-term major projects and the consequence of a crude oil spill in those waters would be \u201cgenerations of lost livelihoods and irreversible ecological damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eby said his government has underlined in multiple meetings with federal ministers and with Prime Minister Mark Carney that the oil tanker ban is a \u201cfoundational and critical catalyst\u201d for economic activity in British Columbia.<\/p>\n

The premier has said he supports expanding capacity of the Trans Mountain Pipeline that carries bitumen from Alberta to Metro Vancouver rather than pursuing an entirely new pipeline in the north.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tWhat are the current rules in the area?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Pipeline and energy proponents have noted<\/a> that tankers do not need to transit through the Hecate Strait in order to travel to and from a northern B.C. port. U.S. oil tankers have also avoided the tanker ban zone when sailing between Alaska and west coast ports in Washington, Oregon and California.<\/p>\n

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Transport Canada said in a statement that \u201ccomprehensive and robust\u201d safety rules are in place for vessels operating in the Hecate Strait, which includes cruise ships and other transport vessels.<\/p>\n

Compulsory pilotage rules<\/a> also apply to the broader northwest coastal region covered by the tanker ban, requiring certain vessels to have a certified marine pilot on board to help navigate ships through the sometimes-treacherous waters and small islands in the area.<\/p>\n

Those specially-trained pilots serve as an extra set of eyes for vessels in certified pilotage zones along the B.C. coast and in other parts of Canada. They are not required for vessels transiting outside those zones or smaller, privately-owned boats.<\/p>\n

Vessels that must adhere to those rules include tankers carrying\u00a0carrying liquified natural gas to and from the LNG Canada export facility in Kitimat. However, those ships port at Prince Rupert and transit through the Dixon Entrance north of Haidi Gwaii, bypassing the Hecate Strait altogether.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tWould lifting the ban get a pipeline built?\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Experts say lifting the tanker ban would remove only one of many obstacles deterring the private sector from backing a pipeline project.<\/p>\n

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Smith and industry leaders have said repeatedly no pipeline project is worthwhile as long as the tanker ban remains in place.<\/p>\n

Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel said in a speech last month<\/a> his company wouldn\u2019t build a \u201cpipeline to nowhere,\u201d citing the industry\u2019s inability to export oil off the B.C. coast because of the tanker ban.<\/p>\n

Zach Parston, national infrastructure leader at KPMG in Canada, said lifting the tanker ban would be a \u201chelpful symbolic gesture\u201d but it likely wouldn\u2019t be \u201csufficient on its own to change investment calculus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, these projects need to continue to be de-risked,\u201d said Parston.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings like corridor certainty, predictable permitting, support from local communities and Indigenous Nations and competitive investment climate are going to be critical to that decision to invest in pipelines in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014with files from Global\u2019s Jordan Armstrong and Amy Judd, and the Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The future of the oil tanker ban in northern B.C. waters is now in question after the federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[140240,48,46,295,43,44,2973,714,140239,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-314790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-bc-tanker-ban","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pipeline","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-tanker-ban","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}