Overview
- Conservatives led by Pierre Poilievre forced a recorded House vote Tuesday to put MPs on record about backing a pipeline to a B.C. deep-water port and adjusting the 2019 north coast tanker moratorium if required.
- Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said Liberals will vote no and called the motion a cheap political stunt, and the NDP and Bloc also oppose lifting the tanker ban, making passage unlikely.
- The motion quotes the federal–Alberta memorandum of understanding that commits Ottawa to enable a project moving at least one million barrels per day, with a stated duty to consult Indigenous peoples.
- The MOU links any project to conditions including Indigenous co-ownership, consultation with British Columbia, deployment of the Pathways carbon capture project, revised Alberta industrial carbon pricing and methane rules, and federal regulatory concessions.
- Opposition on the coast remains firm as the B.C. government, Coastal First Nations and the Assembly of First Nations reject changes to the tanker law, and Gitga’at leaders told Alberta’s Indigenous relations minister they oppose any weakening due to spill risks and reliance on marine foods.