Canada's Committment to Developing the Tar Sands

Over the past few weeks politicians and the mass media have been ranting about the development of the Alberta tar sands. Thomas Mulcair, the new leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP), and a number of left leaning economists have argued that the massive investment in the development of the oil industry in Canada has been giving Canada a dose of the Dutch Disease. The influx of foreign investment has boosted the value of the Canadian dollar and has resulted in the steady decline of the manufacturing industry all across Canada. This is what happened to The Netherlands in the 1960s when its government stressed the rapid development of their offshore petroleum industry. In 2008 the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) had warned Canada about this development.

There should have been a serious debate on the issue, but the politicians and the mainstream media, including the CBC, shot that down by posing the issue as a conflict between central and western Canada.

 But far more important is the question of whether or not the tar sands should be developed at all. It seems that no one in any position of authority in Canada wishes this issue to be opened up to a general, democratic debate.

Tar Sands in Alberta

The position of the NDP 
Thomas Mulcair has regularly stated that he is not opposed to the development of the tar sands. ‘It would be senseless to stop development.” You will “never hear me speaking against the development of the oilsands,” but “we should do it sustainably.” What does Mulcair (and the federal NDP) mean by sustainable development of the tar sands?

First, the federal NDP has demanded the elimination of the $1.4 billion in annual federal subsidies to the oil industry. Quite a few progressive economists, known to be supporters of the NDP, have also called for the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan to raise the provincial royalties on the oil industry. Edmonton’s Parkland Institute, using data provided by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), has demonstrated that the province of Alberta collects virtually no royalties from the development of the tar sands. As the dissenting economists point out, Canada has by far the lowest resource royalties in the world, no national energy plan, and no state owned oil corporation. When we are giving oil and gas away, how could the corporations resist?

Second, Mulcair and the NDP argue that it is necessary for the federal government to impose either a carbon tax or a “comprehensive cap and trade plan” to deal with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Then there is the issue of local environmental pollution. The corporations profiting from the extraction of oil from the tar sands should also pay for the damage they are doing to the environment in the boreal forest and the toxic pollution of the Athabasca River basin. The principle here, supported by Canadians in a number of public opinion polls, is that the polluter must pay. Full cost pricing is necessary. The public is not happy with the present system where polluting industries pass on the environmental, social and health costs to the public at large.

Tar Sands and the Athabaska River

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change 
By far the most important question is whether the tar sands can be developed without having a major impact on the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This seems to be the issue that all of our political and business leaders wish to avoid.

The science is quite clear on this matter. The burning of fossil fuels in increasing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is raising the earth’s temperature and causing serious climate change. Even the Calgary Herald, the mouthpiece of the oil industry, recognizes that the scientific evidence is convincing.

Over the last 150 years the level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 393 ppm. In 1959, the first year that carbon dioxide was measured at the U.S. Weather Bureau station at Mauna Loa , it stood at 316 ppm. The level is steadily increasing. Scientists warn that we are moving towards the “dangerous anthropogenic interference” level where we would experience radical change to our ecosystem. If the tar sands were fully developed, as projected by the oil industry, this alone could raise the level of carbon in the atmosphere by 120 ppm.

The fact is that the oil extracted from the tar sands is a relatively “dirty.” The GHG released through the extraction and refining process is between 3.2 and 4.5 times greater than that of conventional oil. The level of GHG released will increase as the extraction shifts from open pit mining to the in situ process, which requires the consumption of enormous quantities of energy from natural gas and coal to extract the underground bitumen A study by Environment Canada in 2008 projected that the tar sands would be responsible for 95% of the increase in Canada’s industrial GHG emissions over the next ten years.

The only way to reduce the amount of GHG released in the extraction process would be through a major system of carbon capture and storage (CCS). But this “solution” appears to be a pipe dream. Only a couple of projects are in operation, both of which use carbon dioxide to extract more oil and gas. The two test projects begun in Alberta, heavily subsidized by the federal and provincial governments, have been recently abandoned. The private corporations involved withdrew, arguing that they were too costly.

Tar Sands Tailings Ponds

The choice for Canadians 
So what does this mean? James Hansen, who is the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and one of the pioneers in research on global warming, recently set forth what we can expect. (NYTimes, May 9, 2012). If the tar sands is developed the way the industry and Canadian governments project, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will rise to over 500 ppm. This level would be “higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now.” There would be the disintegration of the polar ice sheets. Sea levels would rise significantly. “Global temperatures would become intolerable.” Hansen concludes that “civilization would be at risk.”

But even over the short term – the next 20 years – Hansen argues that we would see dramatic changes in climate in North America, including “semi-permanent drought” on the plains, extreme events with heavy flooding, the loss of irrigated farmland in California, and dramatic increases in the price of food. He argues that there must be a comprehensive plan right now to significantly reduce GHG emissions. The last thing we need is to expand the fossil fuel industry.

So Canadians face a clear choice. The likely scenario is that it will be business as usual for the foreseeable future. In 2015 it is possible that the NDP could be elected the government of Canada. Mulcair and the NDP could introduce some kind of plan for a “sustainable” development of the tar sands. We can be sure that the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan will strongly object. But the development of the tar sands would continue.

However, given the past history of NDP governments in Canada, and social democratic governments in other countries, there is no reason to believe that a serious plan would be adopted to reduce Canada’s GHG emissions. The Romanow-Calvert governments in Saskatchewan (1991-2007) were strongly opposed to the Kyoto Protocol and stood with Alberta governments on these issues. We can’t put our eggs in the NDP basket.

Stephen Harper and the NDP

Act Up in Saskatchewan
May 3, 2012

It is a year this week since the last federal election. Active members and supporters of the New Democratic Party (NDP) celebrate this event, for their party passed the Liberals to finally become Her Majesty’s Official Opposition in the House of Commons. However, others, like myself, remember that day for the fact that Stephen Harper and his Canadian Alliance/Reform Party colleagues were able to squeeze out a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. For us, it was a day of mourning.

For those who live on the prairies, it was worrisome, as we knew the Reformers better than people in the rest of Canada. For years we heard them attacking gay rights, denouncing feminists, opposing abortion and any form of gun control, opposing state-supported child care, denouncing economic support for Aboriginal communities, supporting two-tier medicare, denouncing environmentalists and insisting that climate change was bad science by communists. A great many were Christian fundamentalists, demanding public support for their own separate school systems where they wouldn’t have to teach evolution. They were strong supporters of free market capitalism and opposed collective democratic institutions like the Canadian Wheat Board. They wanted Canada to go into Iraq with the Americans.

Stephen Harper’s relationship with Jack Layton’s NDP
Jack Layton came from a well-known Quebec political family. His grandfather had been a cabinet member in Maurice Duplessis’ Union Nationale government. His father had been an active member of the Quebec Liberal Party and then served as a Member of Parliament and a cabinet member in Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government. 

After a move to Toronto, Layton became a prominent activist in municipal politics. He was elected leader of the NDP in 2003 and won a seat in the House of Commons in the 2004 federal election. His goal was to have the NDP replace the Liberals as the major party of the progressive centre-left. Under his leadership the party became more professional and made a considerable move to the political right. His long term goal was the same as that of Stephen Harper: Canada would move to a two party system similar to that in the other Anglo-American countries.

Bringing down the Liberals
Paul Martin’s minority Liberal government, elected in 2004, was deeply hurt by the Sponsorship scandal. Layton and Harper saw their chance. A non-confidence motion was introduced by Stephen Harper and seconded by Jack Layton. The Liberals were defeated, and an election was held in January 2006. In the campaign Layton and the NDP concentrated their political attack almost exclusively on the Liberals. This strategy gave Canadians their first Stephen Harper government, although it was a minority government.

Two years later opinion polls indicated increased support for Harper and his government. He convinced the Governor General to prorogue the Parliament and call an election for October 2008.  But the Conservatives again failed to win a majority of the seats. In December, in a poorly planned and feeble attempt, the three opposition parties asked the Governor General to allow them to form a coalition government. Harper went on the attack and demonstrated that he is a cunning and skilful political leader. He also had the Governor General in his back pocket.

In what was a coup by the party’s right wing, the Liberal Caucus dumped Stephane Dion and replaced him with Michael Ignatieff. No leadership convention was held. Ignatieff had spent most of his productive adult years in Great Britain and the United States and was unknown to Canadians. The majority of Canadians were opposed to the policies and politics of Stephen Harper’s minority government. But how were they to translate that into an alternative government?

With the Liberals greatly weakened, Harper was keen on a holding a new election, one which promised to give him a majority government. Again, he was aided by Jack Layton and the NDP caucus. In March 2011 Layton and the NDP insisted on voting non-confidence in Harper’s budget and brought down the government. They had a clear option, to denounce the budget but to abstain from casting their votes. But Layton saw an opportunity to move ahead of the Liberals in the House of Commons, and he chose to put the interests of his party first. Harper was elated. On May 2, 2011 with only 38% of the votes, the new Conservatives narrowly won the majority of seats in the House of Commons. Only 59% of Canadians bothered to vote. We are now all paying for that decision.