By Rochelle Baker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada’s National Observer
November 7, 2025
The BC coast is “not for sale.”
BC Premier David Eby and coastal First Nations sent that message to Ottawa on Wednesday as they called on the federal government to uphold the oil tanker ban on the province’s north coast.
Eby and First Nation leaders stressed oil spills would cause irreversible environmental harm, the destruction of critical marine ecosystems and significant economic damage to First Nations and coastal communities.
Fears the tanker ban will be lifted have surged after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith committed $14 million in public funding for a proposed pipeline to BC’s northern coast. Eby has opposed the proposal, criticizing it as a “fictitious” project with no private sector backers.
Federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson has said that if Alberta wants a pipeline to the coast it will have to gain the support of BC and affected First Nations. However, Prime Minister Mark Carney hasn’t outright rejected lifting the tanker ban, or said whether he would go along with Smith’s demand to include the pipeline in the federal government’s next tranche of “major projects” being announced later this month.
Eby and First Nation leaders called on the federal government to continue to honour the 2019 Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which prohibits vessels from carrying more than 12,500 metric tonnes of crude or other oil products between the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the Alaska border, including Haida Gwaii, the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound.
The more recent legislative tanker ban followed a voluntary moratorium in place since 1985 and a decades-long fight by coastal First Nations against the former Enbridge Northern Gateway project proposal that aimed to pipe Alberta oil to Kitimat.
Signing a formal declaration on Wednesday, the premier and First Nations leaders urged the federal government to honour its promise to protect the West Coast, respect First Nations rights and pursue sustainable, collaborative economic development.
The tanker ban, in its mandatory and voluntary forms, has been in place for generations with coastal First Nations and is “consensus that has lasted between [federal and provincial] governments of multiple stripes,” Eby said.
The moratorium protects both BC’s iconic coast and wildlife as well as the province’s marine economy, and lifting the ban would threaten key industries such as fishing and tourism, he noted.
“This oil tanker exclusion zone recognizes that one crude oil spill would destroy billions of dollars in economic activity, would destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people and families up and down the coast,” Eby said.
“There is no technology. There is no ability to clean up that spill.”
Neither Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office, nor the Ministries of Transport or Energy and Natural Resources Canada responded to questions from Canada’s National Observer before publication deadline, asking whether the federal government intends to honour the tanker ban on the West Coast.
Marilyn Slett, chief of the Heiltsuk Nation and president of the eight-member Coastal First Nations, said ending the tanker ban endangers a successful conservation economy. The Great Bear Rainforest agreement has already generated 1,400 permanent jobs and 140 businesses that have created nearly $2 billion in economic value.
In June 2024, Canada, BC and 17 First Nations signed the Great Bear Sea agreement that invests $335 million to protect key marine ecosystems and drive economic development on the coast, Slett noted. The new agreement will only compound the past successes of a sustainable economy, she said.
“We can only realize these benefits if we keep our coasts healthy and productive,” Slett said.
There is “absolutely no support” among coastal First Nations for oil pipelines or tankers on the northwest coast in the waters of Haida Gwaii, said Gaagwiis Jason Alsop, Haida Nation Council president.
Canada must defend the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act and develop multi-generational economic strategies that respect coastal ecosystems and the communities and nations that rely on marine resources, he said.
“It’s important that we consider the interconnectedness of all things, of the ecosystem, of the sea birds, the killer whales, the sea mammals, the salmon, which we all depend upon.”
Coastal nations have already made concessions and have ongoing concerns about the cumulative effects of increased shipping on the North Coast, which is only expected to increase as trade with Asia ramps up and as LNG export projects continue to come online, he added.
“We’re already accommodating global trade in this global economy, and bearing a lot of those risks already,” he said.
Alsop, Slett and other First Nations leaders also stressed the food security threats oil spills pose for communities.
“We know fully the effects of what an oil spill can do to the ocean, to our bread basket, to our way of life,” Slett said. BC’s north coast is immediately adjacent to Prince William Sound, site of 1989’s notorious Exxon Valdez spill — but even in Slett’s own territory, the tugboat Nathan E. Stewart spilled 110,000 litres of diesel and heavy oils into Heiltsuk waters near Bella Bella when it sank in 2016.
The northwest already features “real” LNG and mining projects getting support from the federal government’s major projects office, Eby said, noting they depend on the goodwill of the same First Nations that support the moratorium.
“Projects that are supported or tolerated by coastal First Nations — that we are all working on together — requires the tanker ban as the social license to be able to do that work.”
Alberta’s pipeline proposal is the result of “wedge politics” and represents a small minority of voices across the country, Eby said.
The premier reiterated Alberta’s pipeline project remains unviable and his difficulty to “shadowbox” a “non-existent project with non-existent benefits.”
“There is no route, there is no proponent, there is no financing,” Eby said.
“I don’t see any prospect of a pipeline unless it is fully taxpayer funded, and the federal government forces it through provincial and indigenous objections.”
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With files from Sonal Gupta and Cohan Sassaman / Canada’s National Observer
Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer