Some voters say B.C. oil tanker ban must be lifted for national unity. Others warn it will reopen an old fight

If a ban on oil tankers off British Columbia's North Coast is lifted, Arnie Nagy is ready to fight.

A member of the Haida Nation living in Prince Rupert, more than 700 kilometres up the coast from Vancouver, he spent his career working in fish canneries that once employed thousands, and still takes to the ocean for salmon.

He didn't hesitate when asked what is at stake for him in the upcoming federal election.

"Our way of life," he replied.

"My family's way of life since time immemorial: The protection of the marine environment, the protection of our rights to go food fishing, the protection of the salmon resources and the marine resources that we used to build the economics in coastal communities."

Nagy, now 61, said he's been fighting proposals to put oil tankers in B.C.'s oceans since the 1970s. Today, the issue has been brought back to the agenda by the federal Conservatives, who are running on a promise to repeal Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act.

And the question of which message resonates more — getting oil to market or protecting coastal waters — could help decide the outcome of a federal election, in which this riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley is shaping up to be a key battleground if the Conservatives want to form government.

Passed in 2019 under then-prime minister Justin Trudeau, the moratorium act prevents tankers carrying more than 12,500 metric tonnes of oil from travelling along B.C.'s coastline between the north tip of Vancouver Island and Alaska, and was celebrated by Nagy when it became law.

But Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre argues the legislation is choking Canada's resource industry and has promised to lift it should he become prime minister. He's attacked Mark Carney for saying a new Liberal government would keep the ban in place. 

Poilievre has also framed the issue as a matter of national security in the face of tariffs and economic threats from the United States, arguing there is a renewed importance on opening up overseas markets for oil produced in B.C. and Alberta.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, meanwhile, has put out a list of demands for whoever becomes prime minister. It includes lifting the tanker ban alongside several other measures aimed at getting Albertan oil to market in order to "avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis."

"Albertans will no longer tolerate the way we've been treated by the federal Liberals over the past 10 years," she wrote on X.

Nagy, however, believes that's simply a smokescreen, dressing resource projects up in a message of patriotism when in reality they would reopen old conflicts.

"We've got to be united as Canadians, not divided on silly proposals that don't really benefit the Canadian people," he said, arguing the money from projects goes to companies rather than communities, while putting marine environments at risk.