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Such a designation would also help Canada manage the much larger families of vessels that are now beginning to enter the global fleet. Lewis-Manning said container ships now reach well over 300 metres in length, and carry as much fuel as a tanker carries in crude oil.

“The management of risk goes well beyond just what we would assume in a crude oil tanker,” he said.

This bill will cement their view that Canada is not interested in becoming a global supplier of choice

Tim McMillan, head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the oil moratorium threatens to scare away foreign investors, who have already reduced investment levels in Canada amid a deepening lack of confidence in Canada’s regulatory regime. In the past five years, investment levels by oil and gas companies have fallen from $82 billion to an expected $40 billion this year, according to the association.

“This bill will cement their view that Canada is not interested in becoming a global supplier of choice,” McMillan said.

He also said he would support an application for PSSA status, and said that marine shipping regulations are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Lewis-Manning said the government already has the ability to restrict certain vessels off the B.C. coast, after it quietly introduced regulatory changes as part of its sprawling 884-page omnibus budget bill late last year.

“In some cases this bill is redundant,” he said.

Environmental concerns around marine shipping were a critical feature in opposition to the Northern Gateway project, and are now central to the fight against the Trans Mountain expansion project. Expanding Trans Mountain, now owned by the federal government and operated by a crown corporation, would increase capacity threefold to 890,000 barrels per day.