Even the most conservative corporate interests come around when they finally understand that this will effect the bottom line more than just about anything.
Even the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is calling for absolute emission reductions AND endorses “environment taxes” e.g., our carbon tax…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071001.wrceos1001/BNStory/specialComment/
Climate change top issue, CEOs declare
From Monday’s Globe and Mail
October 1, 2007 at 1:52 AM EDT
OTTAWA — Canada’s top chief executive officers have reached an “unprecedented consensus” on the need to combat global warming and their obligation to do more to help.
Monday morning, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is releasing a declaration calling climate change “the most pressing and daunting issue” today, and acknowledging the need for “aggressive” action including “absolute” emission cuts. It’s the clearest signal ever sent by a broad coalition of Canadian businesses that they embrace the fight against climate change and accept the need for emission cut targets.
Even more significant: the CEOs acknowledge a necessary part of the battle will be government intervention to raise energy prices as a means of influencing consumption. “We share the goal of slowing, stopping and reversing the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions over the shortest period of time that is reasonably achievable,” the 150 CEOs announce in a declaration obtained by The Globe and Mail.
They say they’re confident that technology investment – spurred by incentives – could help Canada become a leader in trimming emissions output. But the CEOs acknowledge that governments must step in with an emissions trading market or even something most of them don’t welcome: environment taxes.
They say even without government intervention in markets, consumer preferences are shifting toward more environmentally friendly alternatives, but market forces alone are unlikely enough to meet the challenge of climate change.”
The declaration is an attempt by the CEO group, whose companies generate more than $800-billion in revenue a year, to secure a greater role in the national debate on tackling climate change.
“It’s meant to go on the offensive in a positive way as opposed to being in a defensive position where I think the industry has been for the past [few] years,” said Thomas d’Aquino, Council of Chief Executives president.
A key goal in this public embrace of the battle against global warming is to forestall measures from current or future governments that would unduly penalize the Canadian economy.
Both Ottawa’s minority Parliament and provinces are divided over what sort of policies are best to reduce greenhouse gas output.
“Unless we pull together and get a degree of consensus in the country … Canada will continue to be mired in this highly destructive, non-productive debate that eventually will lead to – I don’t know – maybe Draconian regulations that make no sense whatsoever,” Mr. d’Aquino said.
However, there is still plenty of time to influence the direction of Canada’s climate-change abatement strategy because the Harper government is still in the process of assembling it.
After announcing that Canada could not meet the heavy emissions reduction obligations under the 1997 Kyoto treaty, the minority Harper government is trying to chart a new course to reduce greenhouse gas output over a longer period.
Once considered a global-warming skeptic, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears more resolved to act now.
He told global leaders earlier this month that the “growing menace of climate change is one of the most important public policy challenges of our time.”
Is the author freaking kidding me? What a bunch of crap. No one in their right mind can actually think that Stephen Harper has any intention whatsoever of doing a damn thing about climate change.
The CEO task force that drew up the declaration, co-chaired by Alcan Inc.’s Richard Evans and Suncor Energy Inc.’s Rick George, also sounds the alarm about the lack of a coherent national strategy to combat climate change, saying it’s undermined by conflict between the provinces and Ottawa.
Finally, the CEO group cautions, if real gains are to be achieved on climate change, any long-term plan must include all countries that are major emitters.
Yet another example of why I am embarrassed that Harper represents Canada on the international stage
I feel like I need to apologize for things like this:
http://www.thestar.com/article/261475
Canada defends presence at climate talks
September 28, 2007
Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON–The Bush administration has opened a two-day climate change conference here fighting off charges it is undermining the United Nations and choosing voluntary goals over mandatory cuts in a post-Kyoto world.
Canada was among 18 participants huddled for two days of talks at the U.S. State Department. Environment Minister John Baird said the meeting was key because it showed American engagement in finding global warming solutions.
Is this not the funniest thing you have ever heard? Like honestly, how can anyone, after the last 7 years of George Bush, and his Clear Skies Act and Healthy Forests Initiative, how can anyone claim that the U.S. wants to find global warming solutions. Sorry Mr. Baird, but this is nothing more than an outright lie.
But many critics suggested it was an 11th-hour bid for credibility on climate change from a lame-duck administration that has none on this issue.
Ya think?
“For so long, people said they wanted to see U.S. engagement. We’ve got U.S. engagement,” Baird said.
“Is it perfect? None of us around this table are perfect.”
Sigh….simply pathetic.
He said Ottawa was not throwing in its lot on climate change with the Bush administration, but was joining with the other participants, which comprise about two-thirds of the global population, produce 80 per cent of the global economy and are responsible for about 80 per cent of global emissions.
“Unless we get the active participation of the United States, China, India, this isn’t going to be successful at the end of the day,” he said.
Bush will address the conference today, but the meeting fired passions even in his absence.
Some 49 demonstrators were arrested yesterday and a Canadian environmentalist lashed out at Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Baird, telling international reporters the two did not represent the Canadian view on global warming and that the Prime Minister considered the Kyoto Protocol to be a socialist plot.
Very true, on both points.
Steven Guilbault of the Montreal-based Équiterre told a press conference organized by an alternative summit of international non-governmental organizations, that Harper and Baird are using dishonest base lines when they talk of cutting emissions.
“The truth for Mr. Baird and the Harper government is a very relative thing,” he said.
“I would invite delegates from every country in the world to put pressure on Canada. This government does not represent Canadians.”
Guilbault also said Harper believes NGOs had invented the climate change challenge and does not believe in the science of climate change.
Although Europeans were represented at this meeting, they brought with them much skepticism.
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told German radio he could not be too concerned about the Bush emphasis on green technology and “flexibility” among nations.
“We all know that they will be out of office in a few months,” he said of the Bush administration.
After the first day of the meeting, Gabriel tempered his remarks, saying it was positive that Washington was at least involved in negotiations.
In her opening remarks, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S., as a major economy and a major emitter, “takes climate change very seriously.
“Climate change is a global problem and we are contributing to it, therefore, we are prepared to expand our leadership to address the challenge,” she said.
But, she added that every country must deal with its own needs, its own interests, its own sources of energy and its own domestic politics.
“This is not a one-size-fits-all effort,” she said.
Baird said Ottawa is showing leadership, trying to bring other countries on board, because nothing can be done if not collectively.
“If we could get everybody to adopt mandatory targets, obviously that would be better,” he said.
“What is it going to do to engage other countries? It is not going to take a lot of rhetoric and bellicose (talk).
“It’s not going to be done by painting anyone into a corner.”
The U.S. talks came on the heels of the UN climate meeting Monday and aims to forge a global position beyond 2012, the expiry date of the UN-brokered Kyoto Protocol, which mandates greenhouse gas cuts by industrial nations.
Bush took Washington out of Kyoto.
Before the meeting, the Bush administration launched an aggressive effort to try to counter global suspicions and give its process some needed heft.
The U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Boyden Gray, wrote an op-ed in the The Financial Times saying Bush was trying to streamline a process at the United Nations which led to an endless series of international meetings that “produce no discussion or new facts.”
Bush’s man in Ottawa, Ambassador David Wilkins, used the pages of The Globe and Mail to argue that a “diversity of solutions” from the world’s major polluters could lead to a consensus that would speed the hopes of a broader agreement at the UN.
A truly frightening article.
This was from July 6th, and I was reminded of this recently.
Everyone needs to be extremely concerned when politicians push so hard for new nuclear plants.
http://www.thestar.com/article/233052
Nuclear selloff in works
July 06, 2007
Tyler Hamilton
Energy Reporter
The federal government is in advanced negotiations with U.S. industrial giant General Electric Co. to sell a large share of Crown-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Star has learned.
Sources say Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn has been leading the privatization discussions along with AECL’s new chair Michael Burns.
The aim is to establish the strategic partnership by year’s end, giving the Ontario government a chance to consider the new arrangement in advance of any decision to build new nuclear reactors in the province.
“Lunn is driving this himself,” said one source close to GE. “GE is very confident that this is a done deal.“
AECL has been the heart of Canada’s nuclear industry for more than 50 years and its engineers are considered world class.
Its CANDU reactor technology –somewhat unique for relying on heavy water and natural uranium fuel – is behind the construction of 22 nuclear power reactors across the country over the past four decades, most of them in Ontario where the Crown corporation’s workforce is approaching 4,000.
But AECL also has the reputation of being a sinkhole for taxpayer dollars and a struggling underdog in a market increasingly dominated by three global giants – GE, Areva and Westinghouse.
Past projects in Ontario have been controversial, and future projects based on next-generation CANDU technology are uncertain, raising questions about the company’s ability to compete globally and the willingness of taxpayers to continue funding it to the tune of more than $100 million a year.
A strategic partnership with GE would likely aim to shift much of the financial risk of nuclear projects away from Canadian taxpayers, keep the CANDU design and its proud heritage alive, and protect Canadian jobs in a nuclear-power sector on the verge of a renaissance.
GE would gain new intellectual property related to reactor design, waste storage and fuel recycling, as well as access to a talented pool of nuclear engineers.
The company would also have another product to offer its global customers as it bids against Areva and Westinghouse for lucrative contracts in the United Kingdom, the U.S. and massive emerging markets such as China.
Such a deal would require cabinet approval, and the government may yet decide to open the process to other bidders, particularly France’s state-owned nuclear giant Areva Group.
Lunn and other federal officials met with Areva’s Paris-based CEO Ann Lauvergeon, considered the most powerful businesswoman in France, and Areva Canada president Armand Laferrere on June 19 to discuss Areva’s role in the Canadian nuclear industry and its willingness to invest in AECL, according to a source connected to the meeting.
When contacted by the Star, Laferrere confirmed that a meeting took place but would not discuss details, saying only that Areva is interested in a partnership with AECL that could include part ownership.
One source said the government’s preference is to maintain a 51-per-cent stake in AECL’s commercial CANDU business. Ottawa would retain sole ownership of the Chalk River laboratory, AECL’s research and development arm.
The majority interest in the commercial business would give Ottawa veto over any changes to the structure of AECL or threat to CANDU’s survival, but the minority partner would get to appoint management and have complete operational control.
Sources point to the recent decision by AECL chief executive Robert Van Adel to retire in November, well before his contract expires, as a sign that the federal government is determined to get a deal done by year’s end.
“We don’t comment on speculation or rumour,” said AECL spokesperson Dale Coffin. GE officials, including the company’s Canadian nuclear boss Peter Mason, would not comment.
A spokesperson for Lunn said only that the government “sees expressions of interest” in AECL “from time to time,” but would not confirm that a deal with GE was in the works or that Lunn met with Areva executives last month.
Some industry observers estimate that a 49-per-cent stake in AECL could fetch up to $300 million, but an agreement is likely contingent on Ontario selecting CANDU’s heavy-water technology either alone or in combination with the winning bidder’s light-water reactor design.
Light-water reactors, by far the most popular models in operation and used exclusively in the United States, use ordinary water and enriched uranium as fuel.
Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan has repeatedly said that Ontario is open to choosing a foreign nuclear reactor supplier if it’s found to be in the best interest of the province’s economy and hydro ratepayers.
Laferrere, in a speech last month at the Toronto Board of Trade, argued Canada would be better off if it diversified its choice of nuclear reactor design.
“Canada should not only develop skills in its homegrown technology, which accounts for 10 per cent of the existing global fleet, but also gain a significant foothold in the light-water technology which today represents clearly more than 90 per cent of world demand,” said Laferrere.
It’s an argument that could just as easily come from GE, which in many ways has a natural edge over Areva in any dealings with Ottawa.
GE’s historical ties to AECL run deep. The two companies collaborated on the original CANDU reactor design, but GE decided in the late 1960s to leave the heavy-water business so it could focus on other areas.
More recently, GE and AECL have agreed to collaborate closely on any CANDU refurbishment contracts and, according to AECL’s annual report, GE has no immediate plans to enter the Ontario market because of its “strong alignment with CANDU products” in Ontario.
Specifically, GE supplies most of the uranium fuel that is used in CANDU reactors operated by Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power.
It has fabricated uranium pellets at a Toronto facility since the 1960s and turns those pellets into CANDU fuel bundles at a Peterborough plant, representing a constant flow of revenue worth protecting.
GE’s nuclear business in Canada is worth about $60 million and could grow with stronger ties to AECL and by maintaining a stable fleet of CANDU reactors that need a stable supply of fuel. Alternatively, it could shrink if AECL and Areva link up.
Industry officials say Van Adel has strongly opposed any partnership between AECL and Areva. They point out, however, that the government may have called a meeting with the Areva executives after Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked about nuclear power issues with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on June 5 at a meeting of G8 leaders.
Laferrere was a personal adviser of Sarkozy when the French president was minister of interior between 2002 and 2004. Sarkozy, personal friends with Lauvergeon, is reportedly keen on expanding and privatizing Areva’s global nuclear business.
The nuclear industry has been hit with a wave of consolidation that has already seen Areva team up with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan’s Toshiba acquire Westinghouse, and GE partner with Hitachi.
More on Harper and the environment
http://www.thestar.com/article/260167
Harper still off-base on environment
September 25, 2007
James Travers
Ottawa
Consultants, CEOs and, yes, Conservatives insist that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. But when it comes to climate change, Stephen Harper isn’t keen to measure what he prefers others to manage.
At the United Nations yesterday, as in Australia two weeks ago, the Prime Minister skirted hard facts in repositioning Canada from near bottom of the polluter pack to top of the heap of energy giants whose love of green extends beyond the Yankee dollar. That compliments his Canada Day claim that, in every way that matters, Conservatives are putting this country back on the world stage. Heck, it might even be tolerated as harmless hyperbole if so many scary measurements weren’t being reported even as Harper promotes the hee-haw notion of laissez-faire climate-change management.
For starters, it’s pretty darned certain that Arctic sea ice is going the way of cubes in a cocktail glass. And because the ecumenical National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy says so, it’s known that the Harper government is systematically exaggerating expectations for its latest, grudging, green plan.
If candour were to slow spin, the Prime Minister would admit that far from being back, Canada is backsliding in the international theatre where the climate drama is playing. Almost as disturbing, this country is keeping bad company.
With notable variation but shared purpose, Canada is advancing with the U.S. and Australia a post-Kyoto protocol that is more inclusive and accommodating by being less demanding. More than a rubbery response to a concrete threat, that relaxed approach to safeguarding humanity’s nest contrasts with the iron fist these countries are shaking at the far less existential danger of global terrorism.
Pity the former prime minister who has to autobiographically explain why compelling evidence of an environmental death spiral was ignored while the government was otherwise engaged in a war on a tactic that, no matter how vile, has no lasting power to knock confident democracies off course. It will be even harder to persuade grandchildren that their health wasn’t worthy of economic sacrifice or as important as protecting the ruling party’s resource-rich base.
Just catching up with consensus would make those apologies unnecessary. A poll published hours before Harper’s New York speech again shows government lags behind voters on climate change. Unlike Liberals who mostly limited their effort to signing Kyoto and Tories who hope new rhetoric will erase memories of climate-change skepticism, Canadians are serious about protecting the planet.
Climate change now looms larger than health care or Afghanistan. More disquieting still for politicians juggling competing interests and prospects, the issue is no longer abstract, it’s personal. Among the interesting findings of the Harris/Decima polls is that an overwhelming majority, 68 per cent, report experiencing the effects of climate change.
Politicians put themselves at risk by shirking responsibility when public concerns become personal worries. Harper took that chance in New York by casting his government in a supporting role, leaving the lead to technological advances and market forces.
No doubt both are essential. But this prime minister, burdened as he is with a spotty record and inclined toward the easy way forward, needs to prove before the next election that he’s willing to measure and to manage what Canadians agree is most important.
Harper tried to mislead on climate change. Are you as shocked as I am?
When will people realize that Stephen Harper is an enemy of the environment.
And Environment Minister John Baird, who I have known for a few years and who is very close to my in-laws in Ottawa, may believe in the environmental movement personally, but he has chosen to sell out and put his own political ambition ahead of his personal beliefs. There is no way that you can be the Environment Minister within this government and go along with what Harper demands, and still be committed to the environmental movement.
http://www.thestar.com/article/259339
PM’s climate plan `misleading’
Government accused of exaggerating its proposals for cutting emissions in report by advisory panel
September 22, 2007
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
The federal government’s latest climate change plan is badly flawed and won’t help Canada to hit its international climate change targets, its own advisory group says.
All nine programs in the plan, unveiled last month after Parliament passed a law that ordered the government to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, won’t do the job, the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy said yesterday.
“With respect to the realization of Canada’s Kyoto commitments, we conclude that the plan … will likely not allow Canada to meet those commitments,” the report states.
The highly critical report came just three days before Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to defend his government’s actions on climate change at a major UN meeting in New York.
The report accuses the Conservative government of using “systematic” exaggeration, “double accounting,” “not accurately reflecting” emissions reductions, “important inconsistency” and “overestimated” reductions to produce false conclusions about the effectiveness of its plan.
It concludes that of the nine federal climate-change programs it studied, the government had exaggerated the benefits of three and failed to produce sufficient information to support the other six.
In one example, the report says the government is wrong for claiming greenhouse gas emissions will be cut when companies that exceed pollution limits pay a penalty in a new technology fund. The fund is to invest the money in new, cleaner technologies, and the government assumes every dollar put in will produce a certain amount of reductions.
However, the Conservatives claimed a silver lining.
They noted that the 38-page report also concludes the government plan will, over time, result in significant emissions reductions. The Tories say greenhouse gas emissions will stop increasing by 2010 under their plan and will actually drop 20 per cent by 2020.
“What’s clear through this exercise is our government appears to be on the right track,” said Garry Keller, a spokesperson for Environment Minister John Baird.
What world is this guy living in? It’s truly scary how these guys can spin bad news into outright lies.
The Roundtable was required to issue its report by the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, enacted in June after the opposition parties pushed it through the Commons and Senate.
The Act gave the government 60 days to come up with a plan that would enable Canada to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Baird responded at the deadline, basically restating an earlier plan the opposition said was inadequate.
The Act then gave the Roundtable 30 days to report on whether Baird’s new plan was satisfactory. That led to yesterday’s conclusion that it does not comply with the Act.
Earlier this week, two environment groups filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Canada asking for a ruling to say Baird’s plan doesn’t comply with the law and asking for an order to comply.
Baird noted that the report criticizes the short-term focus on Kyoto in the Act and that it states climate change should be addressed in the medium- and long-term.
The government also noted that the document said the deadlines set by the Act were too short. The Roundtable went out of its way to complain that it did not have enough time to do a thorough study, Baird said. As a result, “they had to make a lot of assumptions.”
This really comes as no surprise, since Canadians are generally intelligent.
Harper on wrong side of climate change debate: poll
Peter O’Neil, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, September 24, 2007
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, at the United Nations Monday for a climate change summit, is running with the “wrong crowd” of international allies on the issue, according to a poll released Sunday.
The survey of 1,000 Canadians by the firm Harris/Decima, commissioned by an environmental group, indicated that six in 10 respondents (61 per cent) want Canada aligned with European countries that favour strict Kyoto-like emissions targets.
Only one-quarter agreed with the notion that Canada “should be siding with countries like the U.S. and Australia who want non-Kyoto targets.”
Harper has refused to go along with countries, primarily in Europe, who backed the Kyoto pledge to reduce emissions below 1990 levels by 2012. He has instead pledged to reduce Canada’s current emissions by 2020, and has praised efforts by countries like Australia and the U.S. to seek alternatives to the Kyoto approach.
“Canadians want our prime minister to quit running with the wrong crowd when it comes to international efforts to combat climate change,” said John Bennett, executive-director of ClimateforChange.ca, in a news release.
Harper and U.S. President George W. Bush will be among more than 80 world leaders scheduled to address the special UN session intended to accelerate global negotiations on a new climate change agreement to replace Kyoto, which expires in 2012.
The poll also indicated the environment was considered the most important issue facing Canadians, with 30 per cent choosing that issue compared to 13 per cent selecting health care, which placed second. Just under half of Quebec respondents (46 per cent) chose the environment as the top issue, compared to 19 per cent of Canadians in the prairies surveyed by the firm.
The poll was conducted last month and has an error margin of 3.2 per cent, according to Harris-Decima.
© CanWest News Service 2007
What? John Howard, George Bush and Stephen Harper would try to undermine global climate change treaties? I don’t believe it…
Greens criticize ‘fraudulent’ APEC deal
Canadian Press
September 11, 2007 at 1:18 PM EDT
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper reached a “fraudulent” agreement on climate change with his fellow Asia-Pacific leaders, the leaders of Green parties in Canada and Australia said Tuesday.
APEC leaders agreed Saturday to a so-called “aspirational goal” of slowing, stopping and eventually reversing greenhouse gas emissions.
But the APEC meetings have always been about trade, Canadian Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said.
By trying to set the rules on climate change, the APEC leaders were attempting to circumvent United Nations talks on the environment, Ms. May argued Tuesday during a news conference.
“This is a direct effort to sabotage the upcoming meetings in Bali, Indonesia, at the 13th conference of the parties on climate change,” she said.
“(That’s) where negotiations belong, within the United Nations system.”
Ms. May and Australia’s Green party accused Mr. Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard of trying to diminish global efforts to fight climate change.
Australia’s environmental party, known as the Australian Greens, issued a statement Tuesday calling Canada and Australia spoilers on climate change, suggesting their governments are being swayed by the energy and logging industries in both countries.
“Prime Minister Harper is desperately trying to renege on Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol,” said Greens spokeswoman on climate change, Senator Christine Milne.
“So it’s no wonder he feels at home with Prime Minister Howard, who is equally keen to avoid any binding targets or real action to reduce emissions.”
Mr. Harper has said the Sydney declaration brings together a divided world on the issue of climate change.
Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Howard stressed that the real significance of the APEC statement was that the world’s biggest emitters – China, Russia and the United States – signed on after finding common ground.
Without specific targets or timelines, however, the declaration was immediately panned as a political stunt.
The declaration said APEC member countries would try to improve energy efficiency by at least 25 per cent by 2030.
It also called for forest cover to be increased by at least 20 million hectares by 2020 as a way of fighting climate change.
If that were achieved, the additional trees could store about 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to about 11 per cent of 2004’s global emissions, the statement said.
Is Canada the latest emerging petro-tyranny?
Sorry I don’t have the original link…
PUBLICATION: The Globe and Mail
DATE: 2007.06.11
BYLINE: Andrew Nikiforuk
Every day, the First Law of Petropolitics quietly insinuates its way into
the nation’s political blood like a rogue parasite. The law, first coined
by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, posits that the price of oil
and the quality of freedom invariably travel in opposite directions.
As the price of crude oil goes higher in an oil-dominated kingdom, the
average citizen will experience, over time, less free speech, fewer free
papers and a steady erosion of the rule of law. The reason, argues Mr.
Friedman, is simple: Oil and gas regimes don’t need to tax their citizens
to survive because they can simply tax another tar sands project, so they
really don’t have to listen to their people either.
According to Mr. Friedman, the First Law astutely explains the emerging
petro-tyrannies of Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria and Russia. But should Alberta
and Canada be added to the list?
By any conservative definition Alberta is already a poster child for the
First Law. The government now derives approximately 40 per cent of its
income from oil and gas revenue and has been ruled as a one-party state
for 36 years. It’s no accident that Kevin Taft, the leader of Alberta’s
fledging Liberal Party, has just written a book about Canada’s oil-soaked
kingdom called Democracy Derailed. The derailing has seemingly erased
distinctions between business and civic affairs. Within six months of
quitting his job as Alberta’s No. 1 honcho, Ralph Klein (a.k.a. King
Ralph) became a paid, senior business adviser in the oil patch for Borden
Ladner Gervais LLP. Meanwhile, his former chief of staff, Peter Elzinga,
leapt from the employ of oil-sands giant Suncor only to serve as the
executive director of Alberta’s Conservative Party months later.
Given their one-sidedness, oil regimes fear transparency. This explains
why Alberta operates one of the most secretive governments in Canada. Just
last year Alberta’s Conservative government made it legal for its
petro-tyrants to lock away internal audits for 15 years and for government
ministers to keep their briefing binders out of public view for five
years.
Making propaganda is also one of oil’s many antidemocratic
characteristics. The Alberta government currently spends $14-million a
year and employs 117 full-time staff in its Public Affairs Bureau to tell
Albertans what to think. Not even President George W. Bush employs a
propaganda arm this large in the White House.
The tone of government has also become increasingly authoritarian. Alberta
Premier Ed Stelmach, for instance, declares that he can’t even touch “the
brakes” on rapid development in the tar sands any more than his
counterparts in Venezuela or Russia can, say, touch the brakes on
aggressive nationalization. Alberta has also sacrificed the rule of law.
It seems whenever open public debate threatens to challenge another
government-sanctioned energy project, the Energy and Utilities Board
(EUB), a de facto rubber stamp for disorderly development, shuts down
public participation citing “security” reasons. You never know what a
disenfranchised 80-year-old citizen might say before regulators beholden
to hydrocarbons.
Elected bodies no longer pull much weight in Alberta either. Three times
last year the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, a democratically
elected body representing the hardworking citizens of Fort McMurray,
presented compelling arguments for a slowdown of tar sands development in
order to preserve some sense of community. The EUB, an appointed body,
overruled the democrats every time with the same authoritarian élan
championed by Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile the democratic gap between rulers and ruled grows wider every
day. Polls show that Albertans overwhelming favour absolute reductions for
carbon emissions, yet their government champions calculated inaction.
Rural Albertans have asked for tough groundwater protection but get more
oil and gas drilling in their backyards instead.
Exercising freedom of expression in Alberta can be risky too. When David
Swann, the medical officer of health for the Palliser Health Authority,
endorsed the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, for medical reasons no less, he got
fired with a Venezuelan-like promptness. When Dr. John O’Connor, asked for
a proper health study for first nations living downstream from the oil
sands, Health Canada and Alberta Health, complained to the College of
Physicians and Surgeons that he was “agitating the local population.”
Alberta’s politics mirror a global phenomenon. In a recent study of 105
oil-rich states between 1971 and 1997, political scientist Michael Ross
consistently found that reliance on oil exports made a country less
democratic regardless of its size, location or ideology. Oil corrupts and
corrupts absolutely. Given that Canada is now ruled by Albertans and
claims to be an “emerging energy superpower” as well as a “secure source
of almost limitless energy resources” for North America, can Canada defy
the axiom of our age?
Politicians serve those first who deliver the most revenue.
© COPYRIGHT 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.
