The Hook

That's Tar Sands

Why the sudden switch from Tyee policy of calling a spade a spade?

I see Mr Mair is still using the 'Tar Sands' in his piece....

Resources have no value

Canada can have all the resources in the world, but if they cannot be sent to market, then they have little or no value. The natural environment only has value to the people that use it, either the tourist industry or local hunters/fishermen (hopefully with a register long gun and a fishing licence). If Canada limits its markets, then it also limits the value of its resources.

Bulk haulers, including those carrying hydrocarbon liquids, have been sailing into Kitimat for 50 years with little damage. But accidents will happen and clean ups needed, but maybe not for another 50 years.

As for Iggy, he is being a hypocrite and only looking out for Ontario's well being. Does Iggy even know where Kitimat is and that it is nearly 100 km from the sea? Except for Vancouver (because he went to the Olympics with tickets given to him by Harper), does Iggy know or care where BC is?

@ Sask Resident

said, "The natural environment only has value to the people that use it, either the tourist industry or local hunters/fishermen (hopefully with a register long gun and a fishing licence). If Canada limits its markets, then it also limits the value of its resources."
I have never read a more inane remark here. We all use the environment and that is where we live. If we destroy our homestead, we are doomed!

no moratorium

From the story:

"Ignatieff this morning vowed the Liberals would formalize a moratorium, first established under Pierre Trudeau, on oil tanker traffic in Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound."

There is no moratorium on tankers and there never has been. There is a voluntary tanker exclusion zone -- agreed to by the Americans -- designed to keep the Alaska tanker traffic as far out to sea as possible. It says nothing about inbound or outbound tanker traffic to any of the ports on the northwest coast -- and in fact there is considerable tanker traffic now into Kitimat. That traffic does not violate anything, contrary to what this story says.

I don't mind people arguing that there should be a moratorium. I just get annoyed when I see it stated -- over and over again -- that there is one. Even Dogwood Initiative now admits there's no smoking gun here.

@Blackie

Small vessels with hydrocarbons for gas stations go into Kitimat, not super tankers longer than football fields..

Your spin and con fools no one.

We have no right to risk what we do not own and can`t replace, when the orca die there will be no more, when the kelp is gone everything will die.

As for the Exxon Valdez disaster...That was a tiny tanker in comparison to the big super tankers..

And the Valdez was a tiny spill in comparison to other oil tankers castastrophes.

number 35 on the list of oil tankers disaters, a fraction of the size of large oil tanker spills!

Do your research before you spout off.

Why the sudden switch from

Why the sudden switch from Tyee policy of calling a spade a spade?

I see Mr Mair is still using the 'Tar Sands' in his piece....
============

It is the tar sands but most media is buying the spin from big dirty oil into calling it the 'oil sands' as it sounds nicer.

Nice rant

Toobad says: "Do your research before you spout off."

Nice rant, but you didn't challenge what I said, namely that there's no tanker moratorium. I said nothing about size or cargo of the tankers -- that's your line.

Do some of your own research, and prove me wrong. Find me the cabinet order, or marine regulation, that prohibits tankers of any kind from visiting Kitimat et al. You won't find it because it doesn't exist. It's myth perpetuated by environmental groups and a lazy media.

I don't expect you to like the truth -- just accept it.

Iggy's grasping for votes....

Pathetic really!

ugh

"The natural environment only has value to the people that use it, either the tourist industry or local hunters/fishermen"

funny... I like to breathe clean air and drink clean water and eat uncontaminated food - the environment's services are worth billions of dollars - and unlike a corporation the earth performs those services for free. All we have to do is let it be.

I would personally not see a future where I have to work long hours in order to spend my paycheck buying a cannister of purified air, thanks.

And aside from all the things the environment does for EVERYONE - it exists for itself and for other species.

It is repugnant that you believe other species and the ecosystems they belong to don't have their own right to exist and survive.

and the tar sands only have

and the tar sands only have benefit to the big multinationals that exploit them... the pennies of taxes our governments scrape from the bottom of the tar barrel are not worth a fraction of the environmental liabilities these projects are costing.

blackie, here are the facts

...as I reported in this article in 2007

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/04/30/OilCoast/

"...first a brief history of the moratorium the PM says never really existed.

"Former Liberal environment minister David Anderson was there when it came into being. Actually, he was instrumental. In 1971 he and others successfully sued the U.S. government to prevent tankers laden with Alaskan oil from endangering the Canadian coastline. Congress then took it up and the two countries entered into an understanding that U.S. oil vessels would stay 70 nautical miles offshore. It's a fact reflected on nautical charts still.

"Anderson told The Tyee he convinced the prime minister at the time, Pierre Trudeau, to go a step further and ban offshore oil drilling along B.C.'s coast, and to apply the U.S. tanker ban to other oil carriers as well, a practice that has been maintained by every federal government, until now. The offshore drilling moratorium is still in place (for now). As is the diplomatic understanding concerning the Alaska tankers. So why is Harper turning a blind eye to other carriers?..."

nice try

...as I reported in this article in 2007

That has always been Anderson's position -- but no one else in a position to know has ever backed him up. Don't you find it interesting that both the offshore drilling moratorium and the tanker exclusion zone are in writing, but the tanker ban isn't?

If you are going to ban a type of traffic (i.e. tankers) from a piece of water, it has to be spelled out in a variety of regulations, cabinet orders, whatever -- and it has to show up on the charts. Otherwise you'd have no way of enforcing the rule against some ship that violated it. It would be like giving a ticket to a guy for going through a red light when there's no light at the intersection.

I'm sure Anderson (maybe even Trudeau) had every intention of including tankers -- but their marine advisors likely told them that a whole slew of small ships carrying all manner of petroleum products to coastal communities like Kitimat would be out of business and a whole lot of isolated coastal communities would become ghost towns.

You've just accepted, uncritically, Anderson's version of events. As a journalist, you shouldn't do that. Bottom line, there is nothing in legislation or rules anywhere to back up Anderson's claim. At the very least, you need that before you can just accept what he says.

Anderson is the part of the piece I excerpted

his comments were fact checked with others. I was clear in the piece about the legal nature of the understanding. The moratorium was an accepted fact, adhered to, until Harper declared his government no longer would. That's what has changed here.

fact checked?

"his comments were fact checked with others. I was clear in the piece about the legal nature of the understanding. The moratorium was an accepted fact, adhered to, until Harper declared his government no longer would. That's what has changed here."

OK -- I read the article again. The only attribution is to Anderson. If you fact-checked his comments with some one else -- who were they and why didn't you quote them?

And what do you mean by the "legal nature of the understanding." There is either a rule/restriction., or there isn't. If there is, it has to show up on navigation charts. It doesn't

The "moratorium" was never an accepted (or contested) fact because, up until Enbridge/KM came along, no one was proposing to send big tankers in and out of Kitimat -- at least not since the old proposal (circa 1979) to bring Alaskan crude to Kitimat for pipeline shipment south. It was quite easy for previous federal governments to stay pure, wasn't it?

On the Moratorium

There are no legal obstacles to further development of this industry on our coast.

Period.

Well, I think there's room for argument

Clearly the current federal government does (or did) want to play cards with Enbridge and adopt the position that there is no moratorium on tanker traffic along the Inside Passage...

The Harper Government has done all it can to create the impression that the 1972 ban on oil exploration and tanker traffic is not a BAN at all.

It was widely accepted and was not contested until Enbridge saw that it might be in their interests to do so - clearly, they have a sympathetic ear in Pee Wee's cabinet.

I further believe that this understanding does have a basis in law - if not in legislation. However, as a country where precedent and the Common Law are still instrumental the fact that there is no specific legislation covering the moratorium is not particularly pertinent.

In its commentary Natural Resources Canada said:
"...No activity can occur until the former permits are converted to exploration licences. The decision not to negotiate with industry to convert those permits is a pure policy decision. There is no statutory impediment to carrying out those negotiations," ...in re of the exploration situation.

Josh Paterson, with West Coast Environmental Law, said there appears to be no cabinet order or other official document to support the tanker ban. Nevertheless, he said the ban has been recognized by every Canadian government since 1972.

"The current government has created a lot of ambiguity around this by going back and trying to rewrite history, by taking the extraordinary step of reaching back to a document that a previous government had written, and correcting it," said Paterson.

"It's a matter of such critical importance that we can't afford to have these unwritten policies that are subject to different interpretations."

Further, and probably more important, even Pee Wee's government interpretation of the moratoriums appears to contradict recent comments by senior federal ministers. In response to a question last week by Liberal MP Joyce Murray in the House of Commons, Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis said: "...There is a moratorium in British Columbia and no tankers are allowed into the Inside Passage," which includes the territory covered by the 1972 moratorium.

"That will not change," said Paradis.

show it to me....

Please provide the:

1972 Moratorium

That all these governments have been recognizing since.

The drivel from the crats in Pee Wee's government is shocking.

Why?

Cuz you would think the message would be totally clear in a post GoM spill environment.

Yet the crats acknowledge that a 40 year old OIC (?) does not a moratorium make and in fact may little if any basis in law, which I would suggest equals no obstacle to this industry.

I have not seen a moratorium or even so much as an MOU let alone the required legislation, policy and regulation required for such a "ban" or "barring" let alone a moratorium that would stymie this industry.

Hmm!

I'd say THIS, (which I already posted) is the current government's policy:

Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis said: "...There is a moratorium in British Columbia and no tankers are allowed into the Inside Passage," which includes the territory covered by the 1972 moratorium.

"That will not change," said Paradis.

If the minister of Natural Resources of the Harper Government calls it a MORATORIUM then I'd say it's a MORATORIUM.

Furthermore, given that events in the Gulf of Mexico and the utter irresponsibility of the oil industry itself relative to safety appear to have overtaken us, I'd say the idea that there will be large scale tanker traffic in BC coastal waters anytime soon is dreaming in technicolor....

Whatever goodwill the industry may have had it's gone.

Good luck with that

You will note that even the minister has referred to the moratorium since his own government acknowledged no legal obstacles exist.

There seems to be a real love affair for the moratorium, so much so, that people cant let go.

However no one has provided the elusive moratorium.

I agree with the notion that it is ludicrous to believe any government would move forward as this government as regardless of recent development in the Gulf but they have.

But they have what?

In fact, they haven't.

And, in my view, they won't.

Period.

why?

And who are they?

I would also add

that by your own posts you point out they have even gone back to the work of the former government and corrected or updated the material.

So this suggest they have.

It's TAR SANDS not oil sands

Please use the descriptive, accurate term for what is in the sand. If it was oil, they would not such damaging extraction methods. It is TAR. They are Tar Sands. I am surprised the Tyee is following the cue from the PetroCorps and using their "PR-friendly" term.

sz

I agree....in fact, the Tyee was notable for not succumbing to political correctness AND using the construction TAR SANDS.

If you use the search function (search the Tyee) with the words TAR SANDS you'll see all the articles (there are at least a handful) that were written - prior to the last month or so - and which referred to the tar sands properly.

Something appears to have happened to change the editorial policy in the past few weeks and now, for some reason, there have been a number of instances where someone has decided to use the offensive and inaccurate term 'oil sands' in some articles.

Rafe Mair, you'll notice, is still employing the more accurate historical term.

Tar

The Tyee is correct, the bitumen in Alberta did not originate in trees.

"Tar is modified pitch (resin) produced primarily from the wood and roots of pine by destructive distillation under pyrolysis. It is still used as an additive in the flavoring of candy, alcohol and other foods. Wood tar is microbicidal and has a pleasant odor — a sweet musky scent much like that of barbecue."

Wiki

Tar can be quite a pleasant substance but that's not what is in the Alberta hills.

You can pull into a service station in your Chevy and say, Fill 'er up with gas" but you really mean 'petrol', which comes from oil.

When was the Tyee correct?

In the several articles (and the current one by Rafe Mair) that used the term Tar Sands...or in the couple or three in the last little while that use the petroleum industry friendly and laughable oil sands.

As for British usages like 'tyres', 'petrol' and 'windscreen' ...please, shove it in your 'boot'.

Apparently, in Britain they also still drive on the left side of the road….strange. Lots of confusion across the pond.

You might want to check with the 'Chevrolet' Division of General Motors too - apparently they're a little exercised about all the folks who call their cars 'Chevies'.

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Take+Chevrolet+levee/3140310/story.html