OTTAWA — NDP leadership candidate Rob Ashton says that he’d be open to lifting the federal moratorium on coastal tanker traffic as prime minister, if he saw clear support for shipping heavy oil through British Columbia’s northern coast.

“If a province says we’re going to block all tankers, B.C., but there’s a project that everybody wants, let’s find a safe way to move those tankers up,” Ashton told the National Post in an interview on Wednesday.

“If, say, from Alberta to B.C., you have community support. You have indigenous support, whether it’s oil being trucked in by rail, truck, or pipelines … And then you get to the water and you can’t move it away, then there has to be a discussion about how do we make this safer,” he added.

“I’m definitely open to that conversation,” said Ashton

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