Alberta minister 'cautiously optimistic' about tanker ban reversal after northern B.C. visit
OTTAWA — Alberta's point man on a massive western corridor project says he's 'cautiously optimistic' about getting rid of a major roadblock to the construction of a new West Coast oil and gas pipeline after visiting British Columbia's northern coast.
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Devin Dreeshen, the province's minister of transportation and economic corridors, told the National Post that he was stuck by the level of opposition among locals to the federal moratorium on northern B.C. oil tanker traffic, with several pointing out that the ban does nothing to stop tankers coming and going from nearby Alaska.
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'When you go out there and you look at (the coastline), there's almost an oil tanker a day going down from Alaska,' said Dreeshen.
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'So, when you look at American tankers going north and south along the coastline, but us not allowing our Canadian tankers to go straight west, away from the coastline… The hypocrisy (of the situation) was pointed out by a lot of folks,' he noted.
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'(People are) saying that we should be able to compete the same way the U.S. and other counties do, by being able to ship our oil out to our tankers.'
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Dreeshen was in the northern port city of Prince Rupert, B.C., last week to strengthen Alberta's ties to the critical Pacific trade outpost, joined by Alberta Indigenous Relations Minister Rajan Sawhney and members of Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association.
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Alberta already moves nearly $4 billion of merchandise through the Port of Prince Rupert annually — including propane, agricultural products and wood pulp — but both Dreeshen and his boss, Premier Danielle Smith, think that this number could be much bigger.
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Smith said in a May letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney that Prince Rupert would make the ideal endpoint for a new pipeline carrying Alberta oil to non-U.S. markets.
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'As (one of) North America's closest ports to Asia… the Port of Prince Rupert offer(s) year-round deep-water ports and existing terminal infrastructure,' wrote Smith.
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The letter called for Carney to repeal the tanker ban to enable oil exports from the Port of Prince Rupert.
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Smith called for a 'grand bargain' at this month's first ministers' meeting in Saskatoon where some of the revenue from a new northwest coast pipeline would be used to finance the multibillion-dollar Pathways oilsands decarbonization project.
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Dreeshen said that his work in building out a rail and transit network from central Alberta's industrial heartland to northern B.C. and the premier's pipeline advocacy are 'two sides of the same coin.'
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