'What Those Who Killed the Tar Sands Report Don't Want You to Know'
YOU MUST READ Nikiforuk in full. Excerpt below:
So there you have it: some of the dismal evidence that the federal government didn't want to share with the world. The facts show that Canadian regulators have not behaved responsibly, honorably or prudently.
Ottawa has squandered surface and groundwater resources in the region.
It has failed to collect baseline data making the project both unsafe and insecure.
The ponds are leaking and the project is polluting the river.
The federal government has failed to issue national standards for regulating tar-sands pollutants such as naphthenic acids.
It, too, has neglected to transparently monitor water quality and quantity in the world's third largest watershed.
This evidence partly explains why the committee destroyed its final report. Tory MPs that behave like wannabe bitumen salesmen explain the rest.
Linda Duncan, an NDP MP who served on the querulous committee studying water and bitumen, promises to soon write her own report. Francis Scarpaleggia, the vice chair and Liberal MP, says he'll do the same.
But what stuns Duncan (and should anger every blue-blooded Canadian) is simply this: "The federal government has failed to properly regulate the oil sands and in so doing they've put the resource at risk."
Isn't that what corrupt U.S. oil regulators did in the Gulf?
4 Comments:
At 3:29 AM,
Gletscher Eis said…
Maybe they tore up the report so it wouldn't undermine any future business.
At 9:56 AM,
The Mound of Sound said…
I think you're reading Nikiforuk's Tyee piece incorrectly. As he makes plain in his book "Tar Sands" (what you truly "must read"), the scandal of Athabasca is, in the Ottawa context, every bit as much Liberal as Conservative.
As the opposition parties are in the majority on that committee, the report wasn't shredded without their support.
Don't forget that the greatest cheerleader for the Tar Sands over the past year has been the Harvard schoolboy. Yes, Athabasca is a rotten deal but your Iggy has swept all that straight under the carpet.
Once again instead of challenging Harper, putting Furious Leader on the tarry spot, Iggy is supporting him on the Tar Sands. What a way to make Liberals proud.
At 6:41 PM,
Eugene Forsey Liberal said…
MoS: Nikiforuk only speculates that it was Cons that killed it, which would only be possible with help of at least one Opposition MP, which led me to write this:
http://eugeneforseyliberal.blogspot.com/2010/07/mps-cancel-oilsands-pollution-probe.html
The Edmonton Journal had more knews, which led me to write this:
http://eugeneforseyliberal.blogspot.com/2010/07/ndp-duncan-voted-for-killing-probe-wtf.html
I need no lessons in criticising the LPC when I think it in the wrong, and I fully acknowledge its mistakes when in office, though to be fair, all must be viewed against backdrop of 93 election and recession and massive deficit, and national unity implications. Still think they were wrong, but there was a justifiable argument behind their actions, and context must be remembered.
Let's hope we can change OLO's mind. We can at least demand an end to all subsidies (free market principles, right?), hidden as well open, and proper application of regulatory framework. Just those two things would make a huge difference, and should be non-partisan.
At 6:42 PM,
Eugene Forsey Liberal said…
GE: good catch. But I think it's bigger than that. Someone in Opposition helped Cons. Why? What's the endgame?
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