📋 A note to everyone who signed (and is about to): We renamed two of our internal program labels to better describe what we actually do. "Tanker Ban Advocacy" is now called "Community Stewardship", and "Lobbying" is now called "Environmental Monitoring". Nothing about the petition, the signers, or the goal has changed — only the labels. The new names more accurately describe community-led ocean protection work and meet the audit language required by our non-profit funding partners (NDIT / NRT). Thank you for standing with us. 🌲
"I want to collect at least 3 million signatures in 3 months — from coast to coast. We are the 99 percent and we said no — for our children, and 7 generations to come."
— Sorriso · Haida Gwaii
An open letter from Sorriso, founder of Ride N Share, to anyone who loves a coastline anywhere on this earth.
Greetings friend,
My name is Sorriso. I live on Haida Gwaii — a small chain of islands off the north coast of British Columbia. The water here is the kind of clean you don't really believe until you see it. Sea otters crack mussels in the kelp. Whales pass close enough to the boat that you hear them breathe. The salmon come home in the fall and the bears come down to meet them and the eagles get fat in the trees. It is one of the most alive places I have ever stood on.
I'm writing this from the heart. We are all connected — you, me, the trees, the salmon, the whales, the people in Calgary, the people in Ottawa, the people who haven't been born yet. I am you and you are me. What lands on this coast lands on all of us.
In 2019 the Government of Canada finally passed Bill C-48 — the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act. It keeps the big oil tankers out of Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound — every channel that wraps these islands. It only happened because the Coastal First Nations stood up and said no, year after year, decade after decade, until the rest of the country caught up.
That law is the only reason the Great Bear Sea is still alive today.
And in 2026, right now, there are powerful people working to tear it back up. They want to reopen these waters to tankers carrying diluted bitumen — a kind of oil that, when it spills, sinks. It can't be skimmed. It can't be cleaned. It just settles into the ocean floor and stays there. Forever. They want to push 200,000-tonne ships through Hecate Strait, which Environment Canada itself has called the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world.
That is not a risk I am willing to let anyone take with my home. With your home. With the home of every species that lives here.
What "permanent" means in this petition: not just keeping Bill C-48 alive on paper — but writing the ban into Canadian law in a form that cannot be undone by the next government, the next election, or the next pipeline lobbyist with a briefcase. Locked in. For good.
March 24, 1989. Prince William Sound, Alaska. 40 million litres of crude oil dumped into water that looks just like ours. That spill happened 37 years ago, friend. You can still dig two feet into the wrong beach today and pull up oil. Herring populations never came back. Whole pods of orca went sterile and faded out. Cleanup cost $7 billion and brought back almost nothing.
And that was light crude. What they want to ship past my front door is diluted bitumen — heavier than seawater. It sinks straight to the bottom. There is no cleanup plan. The consultants will hand you binders full of booms and skimmers, but nobody — nobody — has ever tested those tools in 4-metre seas in November in Hecate Strait. Because it can't be done. The ocean wins.
The loudest voices trying to repeal this ban are in Calgary — in the boardrooms of oil and gas, in the Alberta legislature pushing for tidewater access. So that is where I am going. In person. Face to face.
I'm bringing your name with me. To MPs, to industry execs, to whoever will sit across a table and look me in the eye. I'll keep going — to Ottawa, to Victoria, to whoever I need to talk to — until this ban is written into Canadian law in a form that cannot be undone by the next election.
I'm one person from a small island. That's all. But every name on this petition is another voice standing beside me in that room. Every postal code is another community I can name out loud. Every story you write below is a reason that lands harder than any chart or statistic ever could.
This is bigger than rideshare. This is bigger than any one person. This is about the water and the trees and the salmon and the whales and our kids' kids' kids being able to stand on this coast and breathe. This is about doing what's right for you & me & the trees. 🌲
Pls sign your name. I'll carry it for you. With everything I've got.
Háw'aa — thank you.
— Sorriso
Haida Gwaii · Founder, Ride N Share
It's easy to say no. It's harder, and it's braver, to say what we're saying yes to. So here is the yes. Here is the future we are pivoting toward — with everything we've got — for our children, and for the seven generations after them. 🌲
The honest truth, friend: we don't need to wait for some magic technology that hasn't been invented yet. The tools to walk away from oil are already in our hands and they get better every year.
These are the technologies that are leaving the lab right now. Not someday. Now.
The science fiction of my childhood is the engineering of my kids' adulthood. We don't have to live to see it built — we just have to leave the door open for those who will.
We have hydro that already runs the lights. We have the Ring of Fire under our feet for geothermal. We have one of the strongest tidal coastlines on earth right outside the door. We have the wind, the rain, the Pacific itself. We have brilliant universities and Indigenous communities who have lived in balance with this land since time immemorial.
What we don't need? A pipeline. What we don't need? Tankers in Hecate Strait. The economy of the next 100 years is sitting right here, friend, and it doesn't smell like crude oil. It smells like cedar after rain.
So here is what I'm asking, with everything in my chest:
Don't just sign the petition because you hate what tankers might do. Sign it because you love what comes next. The cleaner grid. The salmon coming home to rivers that never knew bitumen. The grandkids asking us, fifty years from now, "wait — there used to be oil tankers in the Great Bear Sea?" And we get to laugh and say "yeah, kid. But we stopped it. And then we built something better. Together."
I am you and you are me. One coast, one ocean, one chance to get this right. Let's pivot. 🌲
— Sorriso · Haida Gwaii
The petition is the public face. Behind it is a formal partnership proposal to the Council of the Haida Nation and the Skidegate Band Council — because protecting this coast isn't just about signatures, it's about sovereignty, community, and building something that lasts.
Cost-sharing rides between Daajing Giids, Skidegate, Tlell, and Masset — keeping the money and the data on-island.
Community members earn supplemental income renting their vehicles to neighbours and visitors — no corporate middleman.
Elders share traditional knowledge or language tutoring and earn transportation credits in return. Community-governed, community-defined.
Every ride request, confirmation, and community listing will be available in both Haida dialects — Old Massett and Skidegate. A voluntary "Language Steward" role lets Elders and community members directly edit app terminology. Any change requires two trusted community approvals before it goes live. The community owns the language. We just build the shelf for it.
A portion of every dollar RidenShare earns will fund community members — Elders with low income, single parents, youth entering the job market — to collect petition signatures across BC and Alberta. Starting in June, I'm traveling to Calgary and on to Ottawa if needed, carrying those names directly to lawmakers and industry leaders. The goal: a firm legislative commitment by August.
I am extending an open invitation to Gaagwiis (Jason Alsop), President of the Haida Nation, and Ginaawaan (Darin Swanson) to lead this delegation alongside me. Your presence carries a weight no petition alone can match.
Submitted to the Council of the Haida Nation and the Skidegate Band Council · May 17, 2026 · Non-binding Letter of Intent
Permanent ban on all oil tankers along BC's North Coast.
Your name will be presented in Calgary, in person, to lawmakers and industry.
Every share doubles our reach. The pipeline lobby has billions of dollars. We have each other.