tar sands

Prime Minister Stephen Harper took to the stage today at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York to discuss Canada’s economy, environmental regulations and support of the Keystone XL pipeline among other things. The Prime Minister’s appearance marks a break in a steady stream of tar sands advertising shouldered primarily by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.

Harper’s overarching message when it came down to pipeline politics was this: Canada is working on its emissions problem, so Americans concerned about the environmental fallout of the Keystone pipeline needn’t worry. Besides, there are far more important economic benefits associated with the energy project that the U.S. “can’t afford to turn down.”

That is to say, the Prime Minister’s address, a rarity these days, brought little else than more of the same.

For a while now, the UK government has been dragging its feet behind other European countries trying to deter future imports of Canadian tar sands oil into the EU. The UK, home to British Petroleum (BP), has an oil industry with vested interests in the Albertan tar sands, and opened a new consulate in Calgary in 2011. Recent papers leaked to the Guardian by Greenpeace may be the clearest sign yet that the UK will support Canada in encouraging tar sands oil imports to Europe.

John Vidal writes in the Guardian, that "in EU negotiations on laws intended to encourage the use of low-carbon transport fuels, the UK has rejected language that would class tar sands oil as more polluting than conventional crude or other fuels."

The Canadian government's tar sands roadshow was in Europe this week trying to convince the European Union (EU) not to slap a “dirtier oil” label on the tar sands.

Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver visited Paris, London, and Brussels to argue against the EU implementing the latest version of its Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) that would discourage sales of fuels made from tar sands in the EU.  

The results have been in since December but there’s still no indication of when the Alberta government’s internal report on pipeline safety will be available to the public.

NDP energy critic Rachel Notley believes Energy Minister Ken Hughes is deliberately withholding the report out of fear that it will make safety an even greater issue in the pipeline debate. She told the Calgary Herald she believes it’s part of a broader communications strategy.
    

“At the end of the day what we really need is for the public to review the review,” she said. “We’re the ones to whom Ken Hughes owes an obligation—not the shareholders of multinational corporations.”
    

Hughes denies the allegation that keeping the results of the report from going public has anything to do the Obama administration’s upcoming decision regarding the future of the Keystone XL pipeline. He says the government needs more time to review the results and that industry is still reviewing its own practices as well. He added that pipeline safety is just one part of a larger process and that he will release the information “in the not too distant future.”