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CALGARY – Aboriginal chiefs backing a pipeline through northern British Columbia plan to challenge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “ill-conceived” moratorium on oil tanker traffic off the northern section of Canada’s West Coast.

“I think it’s for the betterment of the country that we do challenge it,” Woodland Cree Chief Isaac Laboucan-Avirom said Monday of the federal Liberal government’s planned tanker ban.

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The Liberals introduced Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, on Friday to stop tankers from shipping oil through ports in northern B.C.

“The decision to do that impairs not only the people on the coast but it impairs the diverse Canadian economy,” Laboucan-Avriom said, adding there was “absolutely a lack of consultation.”

Laboucan-Avirom is a member of the chiefs’ council for Eagle Spirit Energy, which he describes as “the largest First Nations endeavour in the world” and has proposed a $14 billion pipeline between Fort McMurray, Alta. and Prince Rupert, B.C.