The agreement signed Thursday by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith includes an entry point to break Canada’s 53-year-old moratorium on oil tankers off B.C.’s North Coast, provided a new pipeline proposal crosses several hurdles.

The deal accepts that if an Alberta bitumen pipeline is approved, Canada “will enable the export of bitumen from a strategic deep water port to Asian markets, including, if necessary, through an appropriate adjustment to the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act.”

Thursday’s announcement was deeply opposed by B.C. Premier David Eby, Coastal First Nations and coastal communities that have viewed the tanker ban as essential protection for a North Coast maritime economy based on fishing and tourism.

Then Esquimalt-Saanich Liberal MP David Anderson

See Full Page