Overview
- MPs are set to vote later today on a Conservative motion endorsing a pipeline to carry Alberta bitumen to tidewater and urging changes to the northern B.C. tanker ban.
- The motion echoes a recent federal–Alberta memorandum but goes further by explicitly calling for the tanker ban to be lifted rather than altered only if necessary.
- Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson criticizes the motion as a cynical effort to divide MPs.
- Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull Masty says the motion is an insult to Indigenous Peoples.
- Regional tensions form the backdrop, with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation urging Manitoba to end bracket creep and cut sales tax and Alberta opinion pages voicing anger over local taxes and rising pro-independence sentiment.