In which a humorous writer takes an adventure in Canada’s newest theme park.
Dateline: Monday, March 10, 2008
by Tom King
Last week I flew out to Alberta for a vacation, and when I got to the carousel to pick up my bags, whom should I see but Stephen Harper and Stéphane Dion. It’s not often you run into the Prime Minister of Canada and the Leader of the Opposition in an airport, so I walked over and said hello. You might think that Mr Harper and Mr Dion would be a little aloof, being as they’re famous, but they were quite friendly. I told them I was going to Banff to hike the Rockies.Mr Harper said that the Rockies were beautiful and all, but that nature tended to be overrated, and that he and Mr Dion were off to a new, all-inclusive resort near Fort McMurray called Alberta Oil Sands Land. Mr Dion said that Alberta Oil Sands Land was supposed to be better than Wonderland in Ontario or Disney Land in California and more exciting than the West Edmonton Mall.I have to admit that the place did sound tempting.Well, before you knew it, Mr Harper was insisting that I come with him and Mr Dion to Alberta Oil Sands Land, and, in no time at all, we were on a Government of Canada jet headed for the resort. Read the rest of this entry »
Alberta’s oil reserves are seen as a long-term supply option for the United States
Al Jazeera’s People & Power programme recently visited the Candian province of Alberta where the region’s vast oil reserves are provoking both prosperity and opposition.Much of the terrain is blanketed in trees but underneath the forests of the remote north of the Canadian province of Alberta are an estimated 174 billion barrels of heavy crude oil.While much of the world’s attention has been focused on Iraq and what is going to happen to the country’s vast reserves of oil, the oil industry has been investing massively in the sparsely-populated region around the small city of Fort McMurray.Indeed it is believed there could be as much as two trillion barrel’s worth of oil in the tar sands here with 1.5 million barrels currently produced a day, a figure that is expected to double in just a few years.Like many parts of the world, Alberta is running short of light crude oil and the world is turning its attention to so-called heavy oil that is trapped in thick gooey tar sands. Read the rest of this entry »
When Norway began extracting North Sea oil, its government worried that the sudden influx of revenue would distort the economy, so it placed its new wealth in a rainy-day fund. Now that the North Sea reserves are diminished, Norway’s state-owned oil exploration company is looking elsewhere, to Alberta’s tar sands.
The oil may be dirty and expensive, but the happy land of Canada welcomes foreigners with capital and can offer a stable regime unencumbered by any state-owned petroleum company of its own. American companies are already busy strip-mining the tar sands and piping the oil to U.S. markets, but Norway, a leader in reducing the carbon footprint of extraction, promises it will get at the oil without destroying the landscape.
Tar Sands: The Selling of Alberta (Doc Zone, CBC, 9 p.m.) is a documentary that may make you join a protest march in Edmonton or Ottawa - or simply buy a one-way ticket to Oslo.
The film, by documentarian Tom Radford and producer Peter Raymont, begins with clichés: After Sept. 11, everything changed. “The only thing certain was uncertainty.” But it rapidly finds its feet, as it explains how the heavy oil once considered too expensive to be attractive at five times the extraction price of regular crude, has suddenly found a market.
The application of treaty rights as a legal strategy implemented by the First Nations themselves must be the key focus in efforts to challenge Big Oil in Alberta. Resources and effort must be placed into building the knowledge and capacity amongst First Nations and Métis leadership, including grassroots, elders and youth, to engage in both an indigenous-led corporate-finance campaign and in decision-making processes on environment, energy, climate and economic policies related to halting the tar-sands expansion. Canadian policy makers need to understand that there is an inextricable link between indigenous rights and energy and climate impacts.
The Tar Sands: What, How, For Whom?
The tar sands lie beneath more than 141,000 square kilometres (54,000 square miles) of northern Alberta forest. In 2003, thirty square kilometres (160 square miles) of land had been disturbed by tar-sands development. By the summer of 2006, that number had grown to 2,000 square kilometres (772 square miles) — almost five-fold within three years. These tar sands are the second-largest oil deposit in the world, bigger then Iraq, Iran, or Russia, and exceeded only by Saudi Arabia. If current, approved projects go forward, 3,400 square kilometres (1,312 square miles) will be strip-mined, destroying a total area as large as the state of Florida. The current process limit of 2.7 million barrels of oil per day is estimated to increase to six million barrels per day by 2030. Current and future high oil prices make the extraction and processing of bitumen very profitable.
EDMONTON — Janelle Vermillion owns a house in the tiny northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan. Her family, including her brother, still lives there. She considers it home.But the 27-year-old woman says she will never again feel safe living there.
“I just want to move back home,” she said, fighting back tears as she gestured to the pink-clad six-month-old baby in the stroller in front of her.
“But this is my daughter, and I don’t want to bring her back.”
Vermillion was one of about 200 people who rallied on the steps of the Alberta legislature Saturday calling on the provincial government - whatever form it takes after Monday’s election - to pay more attention to rates of cancer and illness in the community 600 kilometres north of Edmonton.
Many people believe oilsands development and major forestry mills in Fort McMurray, which is upstream from Fort Chipewyan, have led to contamination of the water and wildlife in the region.
Emotions ran high as the crowd listened to stories from people who have lost loved ones to cancer. The community of 1,200 has seen six deaths in the past month. Some who planned to attend the rally were instead at home attending a wake.
People rally at the Legislative grounds to support the people of Fort Chipewyan. Increasing numbers of people from the aboriginal community in Fort Chipewyan have been diagnosed with cancer and other auto-immune diseases. (Jack Dagley/Special to Sun Media)
EDMONTON — People who have lost multiple family members and friends to cancer on a northern Alberta reserve choked back tears as they told their stories at a rally Saturday in front of the Alberta legislature.About 200 people, many of whom who made the 800-kilometre drive down from Fort Chipewyan, stood before the legislature steps holding signs with slogans such as “Water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”
