EthicalOil
 

Thomas Mulcair can’t see the difference between Canada and Nigeria

May 18th, 2012  |  By: Jamie Ellerton

In his increasingly reckless attack on Western Canadian energy producers and workers, the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair yesterday compared Canada’s Ethical Oil industry, employing thousands of decent and hard working Canadians, to the impoverished and corruption riddled Nigeria. Canadians everywhere implicitly understand the difference between ethically produced Canadian oil and conflict oil from corrupt, abusive OPEC regimes. Thomas Mulcair went to so far as to say Canada’s producers are following Nigeria as their model.

Mulcair’s remarks were disgraceful, all in his ploy to score political points. He has shamelessly smeared the character and morality of the hundreds of thousands of construction workers, engineers, accountants, geologists, welders, truck drivers and the hundreds of other jobs Canadians do every day to help make this country’s energy work, and our country prosper.

It is simply insulting to compare these Canadians to a regime that has been cited by Human Rights Watch for mass arbitrary killings. Unlike Nigeria’s bloody conflict oil, Canada’s ethical oil is produced without any shots being fired, or bodies piling up.

In Nigeria, corrupt officials siphon off oil industry profits. According to Nigeria’s own Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, more than $360 billion of Nigeria’s wealth has been skimmed off by embezzlement, bribes or theft. That’s why in one of the oil-richest countries in the world, nearly three quarters of the population subsists on less than a dollar a day. According to the United Nations Human Development Report, “The Niger Delta is a region suffering from administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructure and services, high unemployment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict.”

Compare that to Canada’s ethical oil industry that employs over 500 000 people in good, well paying jobs, with the Canadian Energy Research Institute projecting close to a million jobs in the next two decades. In Nigeria, you certainly won’t find many truck drivers making six figure incomes, as they do in Alberta

All those hundreds of billions of dollars stolen by Nigeria’s corrupt officials could have gone a long way to getting Nigerians decent access to clean water or immunization. As it is, disease and malnutrition are so serious that the average life expectancy in Nigeria is a tragic 51 years, compared to Canada’s 81 years. On the UN’s Human Development index — which measures health, education, income equality, prosperity and quality of life — Nigeria ranks among the worst on the planet (156th); Canada is sixth in the world.

Nigeria’s unethical approach has permitted thousands of oil spills, left in need of remediation, contaminating the waters and landscape with no plans to clean them up. Not to mention their industry burns off the natural gas that comes out of its oil wells in a process known as flaring that blackens the Nigerians sky with uncontrolled pollution.

Canada on the other hand maintains world class environmental standards and regulations. Industry, government and the scientific community work together, constantly striving to be better. They’re also succeeding. Per barrel carbon emissions from the oil sands are down 29% since 1990.  There is also research underway to reduce other environmental impacts, like those from tailing ponds.

That’s what makes Canada’s oil sands a source of ethical oil: Thousands of Canadians working every day to do a better job; businesses that value and reward workers; and a nation that stands for the rule of law, rights, peace and stability.

You almost couldn’t propose a starker difference between two oil producers than Thomas Mulcair did in comparing Canada and Nigeria’s conflict oil regime. That vast gap doesn’t only make Mulcair’s hysterical accusations look irresponsible, they’re offensive to so many Canadians. Thomas Mulcair owes Canadians an apology.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=727459675 Steve N Laurel Davis

    I wonder when it will sink in to the media that this guy now officially spews verbal diarrhea whenever he opens his mouth. It really isn’t even worth reporting on – he has past from reality to a magical world of his make-believe a long time ago.

  • Anonymous

    OMG…you’re just a mouth piece to Stephen Harper…shut up…I’m sticking my fingers in my ears and going “la la la la la la la” so I don’t have to hear you! You are hurting my feelings so I am going to the HRC…I’m going to QQ more!!!! WAAAAaaaaaahhhhhh.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001153833835 Brian Saber

      They made a sweeping epic movie about you..
      A man and his quest to deny all reason

      Avatard

  • Likarok

    Very scary to see the following this waco Mulcair has. Does he even understand that the vast majority of Canadians that work in the Alberta oil sands are from eastern Canada?

    The Oil Sands is employing Canaadians! Not just Albertans!

  • the dictator

    The entire comparison between Nigeria and Canada is totally bogus simply because you are comparing situations that are very complex. The Niger Delta Oil producing area is about the size of the Maritimes but with the population twice or three times that of all Canada. You would indeed be hard pressed to develop even the Oil Sands around Fort McMurray with that type of population density without impacts on people living there. Canada indeed would be the best place to do it but ask the Cree of Northern Alberta what has gone on with the Oil Sands and their health. The Niger Delta of today is remarkably different then even three years ago when kidnapping of expat oil workers was daily event. Oil Spills in Nigeria have been for many causes including pipeline oil thefts and outright sabotage by Nigerian Militants in the past. Today that activity is the domain of organized crime and is being abated by former Niger Delta rebels who are on the Governments side as security personal. Niger Delta militants signed peace accords about three years ago with little notice or reporting by western media. On the area of corruption nothing was more corrupting then European Multinationals in a country. Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by a military government in 1995 or 17 years ago basically on the whim of Shell Oil. Much again has changed since 1995 including a democracy since 1999 that has improved vastly all indexes of living in Nigeria. The Nigerian Governments are in a constant battle with Western Oil companies about gas Flaring and Gas powered electric plants have been built in partnership with oil companies. European and America Oil companies are being replaced over time by Indigenous and even one Canadian Oil company. The EFCC is convicting corrupt Nigerian Politicians who looted Nigeria of the Natural Gas and Oil Wealth including the recovery of money looted by one of Nigeria’s past military dictators. The painting of Nigeria or Canadian Oil Sands in a negative light by Thomas Mulcair is disingenuous and dishonest.

  • Wgammon

    Mclair will burn out soon enough . Idiots will only rant as long as some one listens

  • Oilsands Born n Raised

    I like How none of the ppl that post on this site actually know anything about the oilsands!! ..everythimg you learned was probly from some enviromntal group. Ive working in the Mine in Extraction, in Upgrading, on the tailings Ponds!! Ive ate fish from the Athabasca 2km from Suncor, with a huge tailings pond right across the river from me! I seen 2 Beavers mating up a creek that flows into the athabasca 2 km from suncor. I hunt in these woods all the time!! N let me tell you any spot that doesnt have a building,road, plant, mine or tailimgs pond on it is perfecrly fine!! Litterly 50ft from a tailings pond u will
    find a perfectly healthy forest full of deer moose bears rabits wolfs cyotes n so much more!….The rivers and forests around the tarsands are perfect!!!! ….and part of there lease states that all land has to be put back Exactly as it was found!! …..every mm of a reclemation are in engineered!! Every twig every shrub every rock is all landscaped and engeneered perfectly off old pictures of the area. Syncrudes 1st mine is Now a massive field that id home to several hundered endanged buffalo…..Suncor recently revlaimed a tailigd Pond! I drive by it every day! Its a beautiful field!!….the only emessions are from 1. Heavy equipment n 2. Boilers…massive natural gas furnaces that you find at any Refignery …..90% o the water used comes from massive tailings ponds! And any water they put back in is 100 times cleaner then when they took it out!! The one saw mill in athabasca polutes the river more than all the oilsands!..the oilsands is always developing newee cleaner technology….. Syncrude is spending over 1 bilion on SERP(Syncrude emession reductiin projuct) they r building a whole plant just for reducing CO2 n NO2 emmisions! It will not efect production at all! Only for envoromental purposes, thats over 1 billion$ ….Suncor is also spending Over 1 Billion on TRO(Tailings Revovery Operation) that will extract the sand and bitumen residue from tailings, form it into pellets(witch get burried) and sent the water back for re use….thats over 1 billion each syncrude and Suncor our spending on enviromental projects!( closer to 1.5B$ actualy, each) …the Alberta goverment is spending over 1 billion$ on Carbon capture and storge reaserch!!! ….even the local
    municapality spent tens of millions of dollars setting up doozens of hi tech air monitoring stations ….how much money did Greenpeace spend on actuall enviromental scientific research???

  • Oilsand born n raised

    I like how none of thesse ppl are actually affected by the oilsands. Yet it is there right to try and shut it down? …I was born and raised in ft mac, ive been an electrician in the oilsands since I was 15, Im now an Instrument tech I build and maintain Industrial Control systems. Ive worked in Mining, extraction, upgrading, and tailings areas…Ive been out on the Tailings Ponds on Boats and working on the Barges. The Idea that tesse tailings Ponds are Some sort of Toxic Waste dump that can never be reclaimed is absurd! …simply put drop oilsands in hot water, give it a little stur n the bitumen floats to the top…..all that water is now Tailings!! Thats all it is! Water,Sand, and Small amounts of hydrocarbon residues! ….They take an old mine(big mSive holw in the ground) lay gypsn so nothing can seep out tgen use it as a Tailings Pond….the Ponds have about a 30 year life…they pump the sandy/oily water there let the sand settle and reuse the water. It takes about 30 years for enough sand to settle to fill up a 100 ft deep lake. Then all the Sandy Bittmen sludge is covered with more gypsm(totaly contained) covered with topsoil …..then they Engineer a reclemation are based off picture!…..every rock every tree has to be put back exactly as it was for the reclemation to be certified!!!! And the lease agrements state 100% of the lease has to be reclaimed!!!! The only areas desterbed are the areas that curently have runing operations!!

  • Crusader11

    If NEP created western seperation, Mulclair getting elected would finish it. The NDP policies would guarantee if Mulclair is elected the west would be gone before the next federal election as we dont mess around like Quebec.

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