Crude Oil Tankers should transit from Vancouver through the Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance

The sheer stupidity of the west coast “Tanker ban” was never about oil spills, or the risk on ships running aground, it was a Nathan Cullen strategy to stop oil from Alberta from reaching the market abroad. In this instance Nathan Cullen came up with the idea of blocking the Northern Gateway Pipeline. Left unsaid is that we have over 500 ships traveling that same route that is blocking oil exports from leaving Prince Rupert. It did however allow 739,315 container units to be imported into Canada, through the same waters, approximately 79% of Prince Rupert’s container imports from China originated from Shanghai, Qingdao and Ningbo. So it seems were OK with flooding Canada with junk from China, much of which are made of toxic materials, but not OK to ship energy abroad. Also kept in silence is China’s dependency on coal when we could be shipping them clean LNG.

There  are approximately 800 ships traveling through the Hecate Strait each year, over 900 ships sailed through the Dixon Entrance every year. All without incident, however Cullen only ever wanted to land lock Canadian oil, so it became his tanker ban. In many ways the Hecate Strait is more dangerous for smaller vessels and certain operations than the deep open ocean, but larger vessels are not subject to the weather conditions found in the Hecate Strait, but requires skilled guidance by competent ship captains.

Time to fight fire with fire, if the Federal Liberals intend to block tanker traffic out of Prince Rupert and Kitimat. Lorne Doerkson should promote tanker traffic to Asia through the Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance until the Federal Liberal repeal, Nathan Cullen’s tanker ban.

The good news is the Liberal/NDP coalition is dead with David Eby being fired by BC Citizens in the recent election.  In the previous election we fired Nathan Cullen, the master engineer of landlocked oil, now we need to fire the tanker ban into the trash can and start the transition to becoming one of the wealthiest nations on the planet.

The oil tanker moratorium is not, as the name implies, a tanker ban. It prevents large oil tankers from loading or unloading at the two deep-water ports on B.C.’s north coast – Kitimat and Prince Rupert. Passed into law in 2019, it established a barrier to building a pipeline to either port for Alberta oil, by prohibiting tankers with more than 12,500 tonnes of crude or other heavy oil as cargo from stopping, loading, or unloading at ports or marine installations in the north coast region. It covers an area from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the southern tip of Alaska.

What the law does not do is prohibiting tankers with more than 12,500 tonnes of crude or other heavy oil as cargo from stopping cargo through the Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance

“After loading at Trans Mountain’s Westridge Terminal in Burnaby, the crude oil tanker New Alliance departed for the port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, China on Jan. 7, 2025. Instead of heading directly across the Pacific, however, it went north along British Columbia’s coast, threading between Haida Gwaii and the mainland before turning west to the open Pacific.

The logical solution to reduce risk would be to abolish the tanker ban and allow oil to flow through to Prince Rupert and Kitimat.