The United States is running out of energy. Its growing oil shortfall has been widely reported and its gas reserves are diminishing quickly. To deal with these impending crises, the United States is looking more and more to Canada for secured energy supplies.
The Athabasca tar sands in Alberta constitute an immense reserve of oil, some of the last great deposits on the planet, but in a form that is extremely hard to extract. It holds about 2.5 trillion barrels of oil, about 311 billion of this is "recoverable" with today's technology. The Mackenzie Valley pipeline would bring natural gas twelve hundred kilometres from Canada's far northwest through fragile watersheds to provide the energy for the oil mining operations. The massive amounts of natural gas would come from the ecologically pristine Mackenzie Delta of the Northwest Territories.
Testifying before Congress in 2002, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the "continued development" of the Athabasca tar sands in northern Alberta could be a "pillar of sustained North American energy and economic security." By 2003, over half of Canada's oil-and-gas production was controlled by foreign companies, mostly American, and some analysts predict that foreign ownership in the Athabasca tar sands will reach 60 per cent by 2010.
Guaranteed access to Canada's energy was a central objective for the United States in both the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA. Under Chapter 6 of NAFTA, Canada agreed to a "proportional sharing" provision according to which Canadian energy supplies to the United States are guaranteed in perpetuity, even in the circumstance of a national crisis. As a result of proportional sharing, the 65 per cent of Canada's oil and 61 per cent of its natural gas which is now exported to the United States cannot be reduced. But Canada is not producing enough oil to maintain these levels of exports to the United States. In order to fulfill its NAFTA commitments to the United States, Canada is now importing almost half the oil it uses, even though its production has grown by 64 per cent since the FTA was signed. (It should be noted that Mexico, another oil and gas producing nation, excluded itself from these NAFTA obligations.)
Moreover, Canada is running out of natural gas. At current production volumes and with remaining gas reserves, Canada has less than ten years of natural-gas production remaining. Yet recent analyses show that at the rate the tar sands are being developed it will probably need to claim all of the gas from the Delta. So Canada would concede one of the few remaining major untapped gas sources to supply oil to a superpower that refuses to implement conservation measures while allowing Canada to go without.
The Council of Canadians believes that the plans for the Mackenzie Valley pipeline should be scrapped and a moratorium placed on further development of the Alberta tar sands while a full assessment is made of both the environmental impacts of tar-sands development and the political and economic ramifications of American control of these resources. The Council also believes that a cap should be placed on the current exports to the United States while a new Canadian energy policy is being developed.
What can you do?
Contact your Member of Parliament and demand that the federal government:
- Impose a moratorium on the further development of the Alberta tar sands until a Canadian Energy Strategy is implemented.
- Serve notice of NAFTA renegotiation to scrap the proportional sharing energy provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement.
- Direct the National Energy Board to ensure Canadian energy needs are met before allowing unlimited oil and natural gas exports to the United States.
Canadians have the ability to change government policies and priorities. With a minority government and less than eight months to an expected federal election, citizen power has never been greater. Act today.
