Poll: Albertans want a healthy environment

Albertans torn between resource riches, protecting environment

Kelly Cryderman

Canwest News Service

Saturday, September 13, 2008

CALGARY — Albertans are torn between wanting to reap the full benefits of their natural resource wealth and protecting the environment, a new survey suggests.

“They’re very concerned about the environment, but they don’t want to mess around with the economy,” says Leger Marketing pollster Marc Tremblay.

More than half the Albertans surveyed in the poll for the Calgary Herald – 58 per cent – said governments should take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – even if it means limiting economic development or eliminating jobs.

Abandon Tarsands says Investor

Abandon oil sands, urges big investor

• Heather Connon, investment editor
• The Observer,

One of Britain’s biggest investors will launch a campaign this week to persuade Shell and BP to drop their plans for heavy investment in oil sands and shale projects in North America.

Co-operative Asset Management is concerned that the huge environmental costs of producing crude from oil sands or shale could change the economics of these so-called ‘unconventional’ fuel sources, putting the oil companies and their investors at risk of a huge wasted investment.

Dion Needs to Deal with Tar Sands

Liberal leader pitches green plan to green-minded youth from across Canada

17 hours ago

Edmonton — Still dressed in a style fitting of his stop at the Calgary Stampede, federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion pitched his party’s environmental plan to a group of green-minded youth in Edmonton on Sunday.

Dion wore jeans and a checkered shirt as he spoke to roughly 100 participants at the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition conference at the University of Alberta, where he said Canada could make “megatons” of money selling eco-friendly technologies.

Several participants at the conference suggested his plan doesn’t go far enough, but Dion stressed that the economy is important too.

Canadian Youth say Dion Carbon Tax a good first step but….

July 7, 2008 Green bonanza! Grit leader predicts his carbon plan will mean ‘megatonnes of money’ for Alberta

By GLENN KAUTH, SUN MEDIA

Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion brandishes a copy of his Green Shift carbon emissions reduction plan while addressing the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition conference at the University of Alberta yesterday. Dion fielded questions about global climate change from youth across the country. (JAMES MacLENNAN/Special to Sun Media)

A Liberal plan to tax greenhouse-gas emissions will mean “megatonnes of money” instead of economic disaster for Alberta, Stephane Dion vowed yesterday.

The so-called Green Shift tax proposal, which would slap a $40-per-tonne levy on carbon emissions, “will be good for a province like Alberta as it will be for the whole of Canada,” Dion, the leader of the federal Liberals, promised a crowd of dele-gates at the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition conference in Edmonton.

“Imagine Fort McMurray to be sustainable,” he told the audience. “We’ll have the know-how that we’ll be able to export around the world and we’ll make megatonnes of money with it.”

Dion, who has been touring the province in a bid to sell the carbon tax, said the advantage to Alberta will come from economic diversification fostered by the levy.

Dion slams Tories ‘greenhouse gas’ mentality

Dion slams Tories’ greenhouse gas ‘mentality’

Liberal leader sees bleak environmental future with current government attitude on emissions

Erika Beauchesne

The Edmonton Journal

Monday, July 07, 2008

CREDIT: Larry Wong, The Journal Federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is shielded from the rain under an umbrella held by his wife Janine Krieber while talking with students at the University of Alberta on Sunday, where he spoke at the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition summit.

EDMONTON – A group of young activists had federal Liberal Leader Stephane Dion dancing and singing along to an anti-climate change ballad Sunday at the U of A.

“Ooh, it’s hot in here, there’s too much carbon in the atmosphere,” rhymed Dion, clad in jeans and cowboy boots for his tour of Western Canada.

Dion was in town Sunday to sell his green shift carbon tax plan. And while he was singing the same tune as the more than 100 young people attending a climate change conference, Dion has had a harder time convincing the Alberta government of the plan’s benefits.

Greenjobs are the Future for Alberta and Saskatchewan

Dion’s plan targets oil-rich provinces

Tax to hit Alberta, Saskatchewan hard

CAROLINE ALPHONSO

From Friday’s Globe and Mail

June 27, 2008 at 4:00 AM EDT

TORONTO — Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion says 40 per cent of Canada’s carbon emissions come from Alberta and Saskatchewan and the two western provinces will have to do the most to change their habits under his new green plan. But he said it will be good for them – and he’s taking that message to the Calgary Stampede next weekend.

“If we do this plan, Alberta and Saskatchewan will be better off 10 years from now than if we don’t do this plan,” Mr. Dion said. “Their economies will be more diversified, their universities will be at the centre of something big happening around the world, and investments will grow.”

He rejected the notion that the two highest polluting provinces having to contend with a greater carbon tax burden could result in Western alienation.

Enlarge ImageLiberal leader Stéphane Dion announces his carbon tax plan in Ottawa on June 19. (Tom Hanson/The Canadian Press)

“To do the right thing will be beneficial for them,” Mr. Dion told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board. “I care about Alberta and Saskatchewan. I know many people who want to do the right thing. Many will know that it will create jobs there – green jobs.”

Oil man calls Dion’s green plan “stupid’

Sat. Jun 21 – 4:32 AM
A Toronto philanthropist who made his fortune with investments in the Alberta tar sands has little praise for the federal Liberals’ new “green shift” policy.

Seymour Schulich said Friday that Stephane Dion’s plan to tax carbon emissions but cut taxes for the poor, the elderly and those living in rural communities “is one the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.”

“He’s committed political suicide,” Mr. Schulich said in an interview in Halifax before launching a renewable Dalhousie University scholarship worth more than $2 million.

“Everyone I know is already aggravated by high gas prices, and he wants to push them higher in pursuit of some mythical goal. It is ridiculous.”