Canadian decision being “hijacked” by foreign interests, PM says

Thank God that we (including the PM) are waking up at last to the negative, destructive influences of foreign money on one of the most important aspects of our national economy. AGS

And thus the true purpose of this site is revealed.

Now Harper can say – “Growing concern has been expressed to me about the use of foreign money to really overload the public consultation phase of regulatory hearings just for the purpose of slowing down the process,” the Prime Minister told reporters Friday in Edmonton.

Just like when he said that people were in a tizzy over the long form census.

The Globe and Mail called EthicalOil.org: “The petroleum lobby group”.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/foreign-money-could-gum-up-pipeline-approval-harper-warns/article2294309/

how is it possible that they could not hear you… big oil funds ethical oil org… who in turn pushes a conservative party agenda… seems logical our fearless leader would hear you… Velshi is his right hand man… The one thing that gives me hope and a good laugh is with all the noise ethicaloil.org is making about certain things it is going to be funny when all the rocks get turned over and the skeletons come leaping out of the closet about ethicaloil.org.

In 2011, Alykhan Velshi, a former staffer for Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney, founded a website to promote the ideas put forward by Ezra Levant in his book. The website, EthicalOil.org, launched a campaign to compare Canada’s ‘Ethical Oil’ against OPEC’s ‘Conflict Oil’ and features controversial advertisements comparing conditions for women, gays and other minorities in OPEC countries to those in Canada. EthicalOil.org has staged counter-protests in response to opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline project. After setting up the ethicaloil.org website, Velshi has returned to Parliament Hill in late 2011, in the position of Director of Planning for the Prime Minister’s Office.

Wow. A lot of enviro-nazis commenting. Are all the Insite safe injection sites closed today? So when will you people be happy? What will your end state be? When all Canadians are unemployed, starving and freezing in the dark because the only sources of power left will be the failed “renewable” sources that barely work on a sunny or windy day?

It’s being reported that these pipeline hearings could take from eighteen months to two years, with at least 4000 submissions. In that case they have already been hijacked. These submissions should be going through a pre screening to weed out the foreign money, the silly repetition, all those who’s only agenda is to destroy our energy industry. Select only ten. These could easily be heard in two weeks.

Who Canada chooses to partner with and the decisions we make – for or against any project – must be decided by us, and certainly not by foreign companies and governments. (I might add that we should not be doing that to other countries, either.) Environmentalists, if legitimate, should have their say, I suppose, but why should Venezuela have a say? That is just laughable. Anyone who knows anything about Chavez knows that he doesn’t like competition of any kind…say… I wonder what his environmental record is? Delightful chap, really. I mean, his frienship with Iran should be enough to persuade any Canadian that Venezuela’s national oil company should be intervening in our public consultations.

here is an interesting article for you to read, and yes I am Canadian, I live in Alberta actually, my husband even works in the oil industry…. the foreign $ is not only coming in to support our environment…but more so to support foreign interests in the oilsands http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/real+foreign+interests+oilsands/5981230/story.html

When it comes to planetary well being and making choices that will benefit future generations, the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline is a massive step in the wrong direction. It is a multi billion dollar venture that will result in countless environmental disasters in sensitive ecosystems on land and in BC coastal waters, and even more tragically will serve to be both a symbolic and physical crippling hindrance to the global effort to decrease carbon emissions.

One only has to look at this map of oil spills from pipelines in the United States in the past two decades to realize that pipelines are historically prone to spills.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/09/business/energy-environment/pipeline-spills.html

Canada is also prone to pipeline spills. Just last year over 4.5 Million liters were spilled from a pipeline in Northern Alberta.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/panther-lounge/2011/05/albertas-biggest-oil-spill-in-30-years-is-a-call-to-action-for-canadians/

Crossing over a thousand km of BC/Alberta land, it’s inevitable the Northern Gateway pipeline would be subject to spills due to land slides and sabotage alone, not to mention a host of other causes.

In regards to ocean based oil spills, once again, the historical track record speaks volumes.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html

The issue of land and ocean based oil spills are dwarfed however, when compared to the threat of global warming.

As a computer science student at the University of Victoria I opted to take an Earth and Ocean Science class as an elective. It was in this course that I first learned of the global threat of climate change. In this class my professor explained how scientists have proven, without a doubt, that an unnatural warming of Earths atmosphere, is a direct result of green house gasses created by humans. My professor went on to explain how certain checks and balances such as, the melting of the polar ice caps due to global warming, will have a snowball affect on global warming, resulting in a situation where man kind needs to drastically reduce emissions, or else risk an incurable run away planetary fever. This understanding of climate change is now agreed upon by the vast majority of credible scientists. Only a select few who are paid by gas and oil companies would dispute this claim for obvious reason.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8550090.stm
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/30711

It is this runaway nature of global warming and it’s devastating global impact that is making it the most pressing environmental crisis facing humanity today.

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/5-deadliest-effects-of-global-warming/276?image=1

A concept from software engineering can be applied to the process of reducing carbon emissions. Software engineers use a theory called The Big O Factor, to increase the efficiency of software. The production of Alberta tar sands oil, is a Big O Factor, when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. Refining a barrel of tar sands crude contributes 3-5 times as much global warming emissions as does refining traditional crude.

http://forestethics.org/tar-sands-the-facts

Furthermore, opening this supply of Oil to Asian Markets, is going to discourage such markets from pursuing other more environmentally friendly energy sources. The 6 billion dollar budget for the pipeline should be used to implement green energy initiatives.

Canada is a highly respected first world country. If we don’t set an example for other countries with respect to reducing green house gasses, you can be sure that other less developed countries will follow in our foot steps, condemning future generations to a life plagued with catastrophes.

In closing, choosing to go ahead with this pipeline is a short sited decision that will financial benefit thousands of people in years to come. The cost will be a host of environmental disasters, however the greatest will be that of leading the planet further down a path of fossil fuel reliance. This cost will jeopardize the lives of billions or perhaps trillions of people, for generations to come, if not for the rest human civilization’s time on Earth. This gamble is grossly unreflective of Canada’s core values.

It is a bit hard to take “Ethical Oil” seriously when they are backed by Enbridge.

It just makes me really sad. Regardless of personal opinions this is a really big issue. Yes it is a resource within Canada. But it is a situation with global impact. All this talk of foreign interests reminds me that the best that we can do to support Big Oil/Big Profit is to fight among ourselves. As I bash you and your opinion and you bash me and mine in turn.. well that is all the distraction an opportunistic entity needs to ensure that it’s own interests are secured. I love life. I love nature and trees and all that. I love my car and planes and all that.

Seems that we have forgotten that Humans are the most valuable resource on this planet. We live sometimes as if we have a backup planet or two waiting around to replace this one. We don’t. If we want the oil we act as if all evidence that may threaten that comfort is a lie and a conspiracy. If we are opposed to the oil.. we seem to forget that we drive our cars and flush our toilets just like the “other-side”. I can only imagine that if we want a better world that we need a higher and more tolerant level of communication across the board. I will be an old man sooner than not. My Son and his children and thus your children and theirs will be the ones to inherit the bulk of our problems.. are you saying that we as human beings don’t have the emotional capacity or maturity to ensure the safety and security of our future generations?

Thanks to all of you for your ideas and feelings. Oil or no oil. We have to stand together.

It just makes me really sad. Regardless of personal opinions this is a really big issue. Yes it is a resource within Canada. But it is a situation with global impact. All this talk of foreign interests reminds me that the best that we can do to support Big Oil/Big Profit is to fight among ourselves. As I bash you and your opinion and you bash me and mine in turn.. well that is all the distraction an opportunistic entity needs to ensure that it’s own interests are secured. I love life. I love nature and trees and all that. I love my car and planes and all that.

Seems that we have forgotten that Humans are the most valuable resource on this planet. We live sometimes as if we have a backup planet or two waiting around to replace this one. We don’t. If we want the oil we act as if all evidence that may threaten that comfort is a lie and a conspiracy. If we are opposed to the oil.. we seem to forget that we drive our cars and flush our toilets just like the “other-side”. I can only imagine that if we want a better world that we need a higher and more tolerant level of communication across the board. I will be an old man sooner than not. My Son and his children and thus your children and theirs will be the ones to inherit the bulk of our problems.. are you saying that we as human beings don’t have the emotional capacity or maturity to ensure the safety and security of our future generations?

Thanks to all of you for your ideas and feelings. Oil or no oil. We have to stand together.

WHAT’S RADICAL ABOUT THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE NORTHERN GATEWAY PIPELINE?
BY Jim Harding

The Syrian regime blames its domestic uprising on “foreign-supported terrorists”. The Harper regime joins the international chorus condemning Syria’s suppression of the democracy activists. Then the Harper regime blames “foreign-funded environmentalists” for trying to stop Canadian jobs from Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline. The oppositional activists, whether environmental, Indigenous, or ecumenical are lumped together as being “anti-Canadian radicals”.

Such phony nationalist hyperbole has been a steadfast propaganda tool for authoritarian governments and under Harper, Canada is now on a slippery slope.

This skirmish began when Harper’s Natural Resources Minister, Oliver, released an open letter attacking those opposing the Northern Gateway pipeline. He tried to backtrack a little when facing the TV cameras, saying he didn’t mean all environmentalists and Indigenous people “were radicals”, but his letter says otherwise. “…There are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade” it reads, and continues: “Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families and lost jobs and economic growth.”

ENEMIES OF…

The Harper government is using the same kind of “attack ads” on Canadian citizens that it has already used to discredit opposition political leaders. Who knows what linguistic twists Harper’s propaganda team will come up with next; perhaps those supporting sustainability will soon be called “enemies of economic growth”. Or perhaps, “enemies of the nation”!

To defend democracy and sustainability we must deconstruct Harper’s manipulation of language. Oliver’s letter sets out a complete attack-narrative on pipeline opponents before the review by the National Energy Board had even started. It is reminiscent of Harper’s Environment Minister Kent attacking proposals to replace the Kyoto Accord before the international conference to establish a climate treaty had even started. Harper got his majority through such pre-emptive strikes on opposition leaders. He apparently wants to rule the whole country using similar combative tactics.

Oliver’s letter says “These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking the public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects.” This discredits citizens who have a right to appear before the Panel which reviews and recommends on the pipeline. It discredits a rational, democratic, discussion about the benefits and burdens of the pipeline by attributing hidden motives to all critics. Involvement in the regulatory process is equated with “hijacking” it, which is a means for Harper to discredit the federal environmental review process itself. Oliver’s twisting can easily be turned back on his boss, for Harper’s preemptive strike can be seen as an attempt to undermine the regulatory process itself, to achieve his “radical ideological agenda”.

WHAT IS RADICAL?

David Suzuki and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May were quick to respond, arguing that those opposing the pipeline were the antithesis of “radical”. May went so far as to quote the Webster dictionary which says “radical” is “relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough”. They are right that environmentalists and indigenous communities are actually against “radicalism” in that they don’t desire to alter “the fundamental nature” of eco-systems. Harper’s quest for Canada to be an Energy Superpower, apparently at any cost including undermining the environmental review process, is what is “radical”.

Radical can be defined slightly differently, drawing on the phrase “far-reaching or thorough”; it’s about trying to understand something by “going to the roots”. In this sense good science is radical. Harper’s goal is clearly not towards enhancing intelligent public participation by “going to the roots”.

DEFINING NATIONAL INTEREST

Oliver’s letter continues its attack, claiming these “radical” groups “…use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest”. Think about that, an environmental group like the Sierra Club which exists in both the U.S. and Canada is undermining “Canada’s national interest”. Meanwhile a multi-national corporation like Enbridge, which wants to export unprocessed bitumen across Western Canada and the Pacific Ocean, is not. As Harper presents himself as the savior of Canadian workers, the biggest energy union estimates that Enbridge’s export of unprocessed bitumen will cost us 40,000 jobs. And as Green Party leader May points out, Canada still has “no energy policy. We are still importing more than half the oil we use.”

Mindless rhetoric about “economic growth” undercuts the careful weighing of options. In the big picture, as we plan towards a sustainable economy, protecting the Great Bear Rainforest from massive oil spills would be in the fundamental national interest. Perhaps laying a 1,200 km , three foot round pipeline from Edmonton to Kitimat, that moves 250,000 gallons of raw tarsand oil a day across 600 creeks and rivers, including some where threatened salmon spawn, is not in the fundamental national interest. Perhaps, as May says, overturning “the current moratorium on oil tanker traffic on the B.C. coastline”, and allowing huge Chinese tankers to use the “300 km of perilous navigation in highly energetic tidal conditions is a bad choice”.

MOTIVES REVEALED

Harper is not interested in reasonably reconciling ecological and economic concerns. It’s full-steam ahead with his radical agenda to gut environmental protection in the interest of energy corporations like Enbridge. This is why his government has consistently sabotaged international attempts to get an effective climate treaty. His destructive approach will never create sustainable energy or sustainable economic policy.

The motive for Harper’s attacks on democratic public participation is becoming clear. On a CBC Power Point panel, Harper spokesperson MP Stella Ambler expressed concern about letting “the environmental process kill the project”. It’s environmental protection itself, not “radical environmental and indigenous groups” that Harper is targeting. Harper not only wants to side-step the federal responsibility to consider the ecological impacts of mega-energy projects, but the federal “duty to consult” with First Nations who would be directly affected. Environmentalists and First Nations are all marginalized and demonized as opponents to “Canada’s national interest”. Ambler’s reiteration that this decision must be “made by Canada and not foreign interests” is a smack in the face of the many thousands of Canadians who registered to speak at the Gateway Hearings.

KEYSTONE WHISTLE BLOWER

Oliver and Harper are trying to push the Gateway Pipeline through because the proposed Keystone Pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. has been held up due to public concerns about contaminating a huge aquifer in Nebraska. We’ve already had a warning about how the Keystone Pipeline puts the environment at great risk. On Jan. 3rd Canadian Press reported on a pipeline engineer who had been fired by Bechtel Corp for his whistle blowing; he had written of, “Cheap foreign steel that cracked when workers tried to weld it, foundations for pump stations that you would never consider using in your own home, fudged safety tests…short cuts on the steel and rebar that are essential for safe pipeline operation, and siting of facilities on completely inappropriate spots like wetlands.”

With the U.S. market now so uncertain, Harper is pushing for Alberta’s tarsand oil to go to China, regardless of the risk to our national-environmental interest. China, along with the U.S., is the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases. That the Kyoto Accord did not require China to meet targeted reductions has always been the main reason Harper used to justify his government not following through with the Kyoto Accord. Now he wants to make China one of our biggest customers of the greenhouse gas-laden tarsand oil. Hopefully connecting these dots will help Canadians better see through Harper’s spin-propaganda.