First Nations Warn of ‘Worst‑Case’ Consequences if Canada Lifts Tanker Ban for New Oil Pipeline

Heiltsuk Community Still Reeling From 2016 Diesel Spill As Pipeline Debate Returns

Shortly after midnight on an October night in 2016, the American‑flagged tug Nathan E. Stewart ran aground on a reef off the central British Columbia coast. The tug struck the seabed repeatedly while the captain attempted to reverse course; within hours it began taking on water and leaking diesel. A coast guard helicopter later confirmed a “worst‑case scenario”: a wide sheen of diesel outside a containment boom. About 110,000 litres of diesel — roughly 700 barrels — spilled near the entrance to Seaforth Channel.

“People were devastated,” said Marilynn Slett, chief councillor of the Heiltsuk Nation. “I remember elders calling, some in tears, speaking as though we had lost someone in our community. The spill contaminated our primary harvesting sites and caused economic losses that are still being felt today.”

Nearly a decade on, the Heiltsuk continue to fight for compensation for economic and cultural losses, including damage to clam gardens cultivated for generations. Their battle has returned to the spotlight as public figures, including Mark Carney — a former central banker who has taken a public role in national economic debates — have voiced support for a major pipeline project. That proposal would move bitumen from Alberta through British Columbia to Asian markets and could require lifting a tanker moratorium that has protected parts of the north coast for more than five decades.

National Tension: Energy, Climate And Coastal Rights

Canada faces competing pressures: it is one of the world’s largest oil producers with substantial reserves, yet many regions are warming faster than the global average and coastal and Indigenous communities are already experiencing climate and environmental harms. Proponents of the pipeline say it would deliver economic benefits and market access for Alberta crude; critics warn of heightened spill risk and irreversible cultural damage to coastal nations.

Federal proposals to accelerate permitting and approvals have intensified the debate. Some government supporters have suggested the pipeline could move “at least one million barrels a day,” a capacity that would significantly increase tanker traffic along routes that include treacherous stretches such as the Hecate Strait — described by author John Vaillant as a “malevolent weather factory” notorious for violent winter storms and hazardous sea conditions.

First Nations Opposition And The Tanker Moratorium

Coastal First Nations, representing multiple nations along the central coast, have swiftly rejected any plan that would lift the tanker ban. More than 600 chiefs voted unanimously for Ottawa to uphold the moratorium — formalized into law in 2019 — and to withdraw from federal–Alberta agreements that could force the project forward without consent. “It would never happen,” declared Coastal First Nations representatives, emphasizing that the tanker ban is non‑negotiable.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May echoed those concerns: “There is no chance on God’s green Earth that an oil tanker will ever move through the inner waters between Haida Gwaii and the north coast of British Columbia,” she said, arguing that scientific evidence and regional conditions make the idea untenable.

Cultural Losses, Legal Gaps And International Advocacy

For the Heiltsuk and other coastal peoples, the threat of another spill is not only economic but cultural. Under current maritime compensation frameworks, cultural losses — such as the loss of access to traditional sites and erosion of intergenerational knowledge transmission — are poorly recognized or compensated. The Heiltsuk have sought international attention, sending a delegation to the International Maritime Organization in London to press for reforms that would better account for cultural harms.

“We’ve been fighting for justice through this colonial legal system and it’s really a process of ‘show me your receipts,’” Slett said. “But how do you show a receipt for the loss of our ability to transmit knowledge and cultural practices between generations?”

Response Effort And A Stark Comparison

Salvage and cleanup after the Nathan E. Stewart grounding required 40 days of operations, though severe weather suspended work for 11 of those days. The response involved 45 vessels and more than 200 people during initial reaction and longer cleanup efforts. Slett noted the scale: “That was a spill of fewer than 700 barrels and yet it polluted over 1,500 acres of our territory. Modern supertankers can carry in excess of two million barrels — we simply cannot accept that risk.”

What’s Next

As the pipeline discussion continues, provincial and Indigenous leaders have signalled clear conditions: projects that move ahead must manage risks to community safety, environment and culture — and must have the free, prior and informed consent of affected First Nations. British Columbia’s premier warned that lifting the tanker moratorium would be a “grave mistake” and could jeopardize existing agreements with Indigenous partners on other resource projects.

The debate remains unresolved, balancing national economic ambitions against ecological vulnerability and Indigenous rights. For coastal First Nations who still feel the effects of the 2016 spill, the message is simple and urgent: the risk is too great to accept.