Not Counting Canadians: Canadians want an energy policy that protects supplies and the environment

Canadians want an energy policy that protects supplies and the environment

89% of Canadians agree that Canada should establish an energy policy that provides reliable supplies of oil, gas and electricity at stable prices and protects the environment

of Canadians agree that Canada should establish an energy policy that provides reliable supplies of oil, gas and electricity at stable prices and protects the environment, even if this means placing restrictions on exports and foreign ownership of Canadian supplies.

So why has the Harper government committed Canada, through the Security and Prosperity Partnership’s (SPP) energy working group, to a fivefold expansion of the environmentally disastrous Alberta tar sands? Why are we focused on North American
energy security when it means Atlantic Canada imports more oil and gas each year? And why has Harper adopted “a market-based approach,” to energy resources that privileges exports over a stable, domestic supply? These SPP policies don’t make Canada an “energy superpower,” as Prime Minister Harper likes to call us. Instead, these policies make us an energy satellite for the United States.

Canada exports 60 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States, not including the vast quantities that are burned up to power Alberta tar sands production. The National Energy Board now predicts that Canada will be a net importer of natural gas by 2028.

In February 2008, according to a Statistics Canada report, Canada hit the one billion barrel mark in oil production. That’s about 40 per cent more oil than we consume, yet oil imports actually increased last year, to 851,000 barrels per day, mostly from Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Just prior to the third SPP summit in Quebec last August, the Harper government signed a treaty-level Agreement for Cooperation in Energy Science and Technology. The agreement makes it easier for energy workers and technicians to cross the border, and to explore and develop new resources. Ecologically sound energy and environmental policies are an afterthought.

In February, Environmental Defence reported that the tar sands were the largest and most environmentally destructive industrial project on earth. Water is being polluted by toxic seepage from tailing ponds that are killing birds; fish downstream are found floating with deformities; acid rain is falling as far away as Saskatchewan. There is also evidence of heightened cancer rates in First Nations communities bordering the tar sands.

The National Energy Board is nothing but a rubber stamp for new pipelines. Kinder Mor gan wants to build a pipeline from Alberta to Texas that would carry 300,000 barrels of crude per day. Enbridge’s “Clipper” pipeline will move 400,000 barrels a day to the Chicago region by 2011. TransCanada’s “Keystone” pipeline will move 600,000 barrels to Illinois and Oklahoma.

Canadians recognize that a “market-based” energy policy really means no policy at all. In fact, according to our poll, support for an energy policy that protects the environment and even places restrictions on exports and foreign ownership was highest in Stephen Harper’s home province of Alberta, with 92 per cent of those surveyed agreeing we need a more hands-on energy policy. Energy integration through the SPP is making that impossible.

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