Liberals, NDP and Bloc defeat bid to scrap B.C. tanker ban - Toronto Star
The Conservative private member's bill to allow tanker traffic on the B.C. coast went down to defeat Wednesday.
The Argent Aster oil tanker passes the downtown Vancouver skyline as it travels on the harbour into port, on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026.
OTTAWA — Liberal MPs voted against a proposed repeal of the west coast tanker ban Wednesday, effectively ending a new proposal to ship oil from B.C.‘s northern coast.
Joined by NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs, Liberals in the house voted down a Conservative private member’s bill that would have repealed the ban, which prevents large oil tankers from transiting the waters north of Vancouver Island along the B.C. coast, or from docking at any port along that section of the coast.
The Trudeau government first introduced the tanker ban in 2019, formalizing a voluntary ban on ships in those waters that had been in place for decades. Prime Minister Mark Carney reaffirmed the ban this summer when he announced the new Pacific Link pipeline would take a route from Alberta to a port near Delta B.C., on the southern part of the coast.
That part of the coastline is not covered by the ban and oil tankers currently go in and out of the Port of Vancouver to carry oil from the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline.
In return for the pipeline avoiding a northern route and the tanker ban remaining in place, outgoing NDP B.C. Premier David Eby agreed not to challenge the new pipeline in court. Eby lost last week’s election and his replacement, B.C. Conservative premier-designate Lorne Doerkson, released a statement Wednesday saying, while he believes there are issues with the tanker ban, he is not focused on having it removed now.
“I understand the problems with the tanker ban. It applies to Canadians and nobody else. American tankers move oil down this same coast from Alaska every day, and the law says nothing to them. Those are real concerns and British Columbians should know I share them,” he said in a statement. “But the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act is federal law, and the debate over it belongs in the House of Commons. Our government’s focus is on the project in front of us. Pacific Link has been declared in the national interest, it takes a southern route, and it will create good jobs across British Columbia.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said her province needs as many possible outlets for oil exports as possible and called for the tanker ban to be ended.
“The Trans Mountain Expansion has helped open new markets, particularly in Asia, but we need more pipelines and more access to tidewater. Pacific Link will help increase our export capacity, but we also need to remove the federal tanker ban to unlock opportunities through Prince Rupert. Global demand for energy continues to grow, and Alberta has the resources to help meet it,” she said.
Strathcona Resources, a Calgary-based energy company, released a proposal earlier this week to transport up to 250,000 barrels per day to Prince Rupert, B.C. by rail and then ship it overseas through an expanded port. But to do that the company would need either an end to the tanker ban or an exemption to it.
Speaking hours before the vote, federal Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said they are focused on the projects, like Pacific Link, that are underway.
“We’re focused on working with First Nations, the province of British Columbia, the new government in British Columbia on a number of very transformative nation-building projects that include obviously energy projects, and that’s where our focus is going to stay,” he said.
Conservative MP Aaron Gunn said the Liberals’ adherence to the tanker ban makes no sense.
“It’s a completely ideological and unscientific closure, to close one part of this beautiful country’s coastline to shipping traffic. It’s Liberals just doing it for political reasons,” he said.
The Conservatives said they were prepared to look at amendments to the ban just to let this project go ahead. Gunn said Strathcona Resources’ proposal means there is a real project now being jeopardized by the ban.
“We currently have a private sector company that has a proposal to ship oil by rail to over 250,000 barrels a day and get it to international and Asian markets and this tanker ban is preventing that from happening,” he said.
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Ryan Tumilty is an Ottawa-based reporter covering Parliament Hill. Reach him at rtumilty@thestar.ca and follow him on X: @ryantumilty.
