alberta2In a defiant move against the desires of the Canadian people, the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal was recently approved, despite surmounting evidence suggesting the danger associated with such a project; a detailed economic analysis by the Alberta Federation of Labour and others. The interests of big oil industries were favored once again over the common good and wishes of the people.
Since the approval, Alberta has begun to shut down one of its energy and environmental regulators, instead opting to replace it with a group (tasked with many of the same powers) who are funded instead by oil, coal, and gas industries. In a strategic fashion, over 75 environment officials, who had observed the oil industries’ activities, have walked away from the provincial environment department, and decided to take up higher paying positions with industry-funded Alberta Energy.
For oil, gas, and other projects, permits are commonly acquired through application to the environment department, and to the now obsolete Energy Resources Conservation Board. The provincial government has shamelessly catered to the energy industry by creating a “one window” method, where new regulators will be funded solely by the industry, instead of by the government (also known as “public money”). Those who crossed over are looking to add a significant increase to their wealth; their salaries in some cases are 25 to 80 per cent higher, noted Mike Dempsey, a vice-president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
Alberta has been under the spotlight, and energy companies under fire, since TransCanada first proposed the Keystone XL pipeline; a plan proposed to bring oil extracted from Alberta’s tar sands (which needs more than twice as much water as normal extraction, and only produces 2 barrels of oil for every 1 invested) to the United States. Protests, overwhelming dissent, and resistance continues to flow from concerned citizens, and various environmental groups. The pipeline is due to run from Hardisty, Alberta and extend almost 2 thousands km across the US-Canadian border to Steele city Nebraska, and then on to East Texas where the southern leg of the pipeline is set to become operational in January.
Ignoring numerous catastrophic environmental disasters from pipeline, and other oil accidents, TransCanada has assured the people who near it that the pipeline is being “built to high standards”, and comically, they don’t foresee any future travesties being likely to occur. When millions of dollars are invested, and billions proposed to be made, its hard to imagine a reason for them to say anything different. After all, it is routinely cheaper and more profitable to lie about problems until they are proven and then paying pennies on the dollar to make them go away. The concern for the common good and the environment cannot compete with the promise of jobs, lower prices, and corporate favor.
Unfortunately, this is not just a Canadian problem. In the face of overwhelming evidence pointing towards the unsustainable and often even ecocidal nature of many projects: regulators and politicians march blindly in the face of public and scientific opinion towards the pursuit of profit, potentially to our death.