Conservatives Call on Carney to Cancel Liberal Tanker Ban
Ottawa, ON – Today, Pierre Poilievre called on the Prime Minister to end the Liberal tanker ban after he doubled down on keeping the West Coast tanker ban in place, despite American tankers regularly shipping Alaskan Oil along BC’s coastline.
“The North Coast ban is ridiculous – American tankers travel through those same Pacific waters all the time from Alaska to the US West Coast,” said Shannon Stubbs. “Why does Mark Carney support American tankers carrying American oil from Alaska to California, but claims it’s not safe for Canadian oil here at home to be shipped off our own coast to Asia through the same passages?”
American tankers already ship American oil from Alaska to California through the same passageway that Canadians are banned from shipping through. After promising to diversify our trade away from the United States, Carney has forced a pipeline into a route that makes it easier to sell to the California market than the Asian market.
In his YouTube video released this week, Carney pointed out that 96 per cent of our oil exports go to our southern neighbour. Polling since last year has found that the majority of British Columbians support another oil pipeline, including 55 per cent support for a revival of Northern Gateway. The majority of existing oil pipeline capacity to the southern coast of BC is sold to the American market in 2025.
“It takes about three days less time to travel round-trip to Asia from Northern BC than it does from Southern BC,” Pierre Poilievre added. “That’s because of the curvature of the Earth. It’s just simple geometry – the further north you go, the shorter the curve you have to travel to get to the other side of the pond.”
“We don’t want a pipeline that will simply lead tankers to take the oil south down to the California West Coast. We’re trying to diversify here,” Poilievre concluded. “So the best way to diversify is by permitting a pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to Prince Rupert or Kitimat to ship a million barrels a day over to Asia.”