Unbridled oil sands expansion risks tarnishing Canada's global reputation, read briefing notes prepared for federal natural resources minister Joe Oliver.
"Rapid growth in oil sands production has led to increased attention being focussed on this sector, such that this issue has become a threat to Canada's international brand," warn the notes, which are marked "Secret".
The briefing document was obtained through an access to information request by Postmedia News. Its warning appears to have been addressed to Oliver sometime after he became natural resources minister in May 2011, but before the fall of that year.
"The environmental performance of oil sands development in Canada is under intense public scrutiny," the notes read.
Key concerns, they add, include "water contamination"; "inadequate" monitoring; the impact of tailings ponds; and rising greenhouse emissions, which are set to grow to 12 percent of Canada's carbon footprint by 2020.
"How Canada addresses [these] environmental issues," read the briefing notes, "is of fundamental importance to Canadian trade and national and international energy security."
In December of 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government set off a storm of international protest when it formally withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol.
"Bad news for the fight against climate change," is how France's foreign ministry described Canada's withdrawal.
BBC News correspondent Richard Black linked the decision to "extensive tar sands development", a sentiment shared by many international observers.
In early January of 2012, minister Oliver accused the "environmental and other radical groups" opposed to oil sands development of receiving foreign money in order to "hijack our regulatory system."
Click here to read an in-depth Tyee series about the solutions being proposed to address the oil sands industry's massive, and growing, carbon footprint.
Geoff Dembicki reports on energy and climate change issues for The Tyee.
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Hakuin
45 weeks ago
TAR Sands!
TAR sands, TAR sands, TAR sands TAR SANDS!
Sheesh, an article about branding ought to get it it right, TAR!
Van Isle
45 weeks ago
Just another example that
Just another example that shows the CONS don't give a fiddlers-fu@k what people think. They have an agenda and they got another 3 years to complete it. In Canada we have a dictatorship in between election days. Just a side note: did anyone see that the CONS are now allowing certain US law enforcement personnel into Canada to make an arrest. Wow, in my book that's treason, pure and simple.
Hakuin
45 weeks ago
I did see that Van
And I sincerely hope the first yankee cop to gun down one of our citizens on our soil goes home in a box himself. A sentiment that is widely shared among real Canadians.
paisley
45 weeks ago
Couldn't agree more Haukin
Hear, hear. Why does the Tyee carry on with this branding BS? The original designation was Tar Sands for decades until some clever guy opted for "oil" instead of "smart" or "green" sands to sell this blight. Perhaps the Tyee doesn't care if they insult their readers with spin.
Fritz
45 weeks ago
Six "oil sands" to One "tar sands"
Heading: oil sands, paragraph 1: oil sands, paragraph 2: oil sands, paragraph 4: oil sands, paragraph 9: "extensive tar sands development", paragraph 10" oil sands and paragraph 11" oil sands.
(~_~)
Note: The one time the author used tar sands it was in quotes but he never used the "Ehtical Oil" favoured oil sands in quotes.
Gotta wonder if the author is maybe moonlighting with "Ethical Oil"??? {'_'}
headstrong
45 weeks ago
Canada's Reputation Tarred
Harper doesn't give a damn if he utterly destroys Canada's international goodwill, built up thru decades of good deeds, as long as he mollycoddles his Big Oil Cowtown puppetmasters, and destroys the environment along the way.
Oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
gracie17
44 weeks ago
I wrote to Tyee ages ago about that particular terminology
They never bothered to write back. I absolutely hate how they call the freaking TAR SANDS "oil sands". I hate it enough that I wouldn't even read their big multi part carbon article. And I was going to donate money because I truly think they do a great job but this freaking greenwashing "oil sands" business makes me so mad I just can't.
Dan the socialist
44 weeks ago
Does Canada own any of the
Does Canada own any of the tar sands anymore? Seems to be a race between China and the US to gobble it up...Albertans will regret in generations for getting diddly squat in royalties too. Then all the foreign labour...Like between foreign labour and giving it away what benefit is there really to Alberta or Canada? We all know Taxpayers will be paying and cleaning up the mess in generations to come, not big oil...
Yes it is the Tar Sands not Oil sands and it is disappointing that the Tyee continues to fall for the PR campaign by big dirty oil.
freebear
44 weeks ago
Maybe we should start calling Tyee; the 'Fish' :)
Just as the Northern Gateway pipeline will be carrying diluted tar (bitumen) not crude oil!
Hakuin
44 weeks ago
ya know...
it's a real bitch getting tar off everything when it's been trod on. I wonder what would happen if someone organized a Provincial Day of Tar in our urban centers? Mysterious pools that appear as if deposited by some passing tide, all outside the entry doors of the relevant corporations, our legislature, the cop shops, the pawn media and everyone else who thinks tar should be a daily part of our lives. Bet they would be scrubbing for months, if not years.
freebear
44 weeks ago
"Canada's 'brand' threatened by oil sands: 'secret' briefing"
Does that make the "Oil Sands" a terrorist according to Peter Kent, Joe Oliver and Steve Harper, also known as the 'Bitumen Boys'?
Pender Island Codger
44 weeks ago
Tar vs. Oil
Boys, boys! Settle down, now. Remember the article speaks to Canada's BRAND, and how we keep it. It will take more than an argument about semantics. I read an article the other week, for what it was worth, which suggested that "oil sands" resonated more with people than did "tar sands", partly because they understood better what it meant.
OwlRol
44 weeks ago
Semantics, PR & needs
"Oil sands" sounds like fluid crude can be just squeezed out of the sand, or, at worst, just boiled out of it with nothing but recoverable clean water. Furthest from the truth, much like fracked, but clean burning "natural" gas. It is TAR, more akin to asphalt than fluid. Yes, that also melts when it's hot enough, and its "cleaner".
Not just a matter of semantics, hired MSM PR has long used doublespeak to push the monied agenda, to the point of changing the frames of reference. Funny how "carbon sequestration" has mostly dropped off the radar, too costly and unpredictable, but for years it was supposed to be the redeeming technological fix to the tar sands' operations.
Still, we can't complain too much as long as we use foreign refined fuel to drive or fly away on holidays.
Off the grid, for the most part, plug-in hybrid & electric for heavy urban transport, better yet, walking, cycling, public transit, accomodating designs in and around our cities. Rural is different, but a lot of these innovations are possible if properly supported.
"Degrowth" of fossil fuel extraction & use, of which most is wasted and often destructively burnt, is our most necessary goal, but this political & financial elite, control & profit motivated, are blindly pushing us in the opposite direction, despite a few smaller scale, (well advertized, often "greenwash") projects. These might be a start, but miniscule to where we need to be.
Us Canadians, many who want to follow a different path than this official extraction, growth & export direction, are only starting to use both our citizen and consumer power to change that course.
Of course, having an anti-critical science, corporatist leaning govt. signing secret trade deals and ignoring all but their best buddies, surely doesn't help.
One more provincial year, but more importantly, 3 more years of these disusting feds & their PR hacks. Will enough Canadians wake up by then?
Shannon Smart
44 weeks ago
Tar Sands vs. Oil Sands
Thanks to everyone for the vibrant discussion. Just a note: in our reporting on Canadian oil, The Tyee's writers and editors have used both "tar sands" and "oil sands." You can confirm this simply by searching on The Tyee.
Pender Island Codger mentioned an article that elucidated the difference between the two terms, and it's familiar to me, too. The Tyee published it last April. Thanks for the reminder, Pender! Here's the link, for anyone that's interested - gracie17 might enjoy it. The impact of using one term over the other isn't quite what you'd expect.
'Tar Sands' vs. 'Oil Sands' Political Flap Misguided? by Geoff Dembicki
Hakuin
44 weeks ago
nope, TAR and ONLY TAR
tar on the bare feet of your children when you take them to what used to be the beach, tar on the sea birds, the otters, the whales, on everything that was once alive for the past ten thousand years since the ice retreated, tar in our once pristine drinking water, tar over our forest floors, mists of tar in our formerly clean air, tar on everything you everything you held dear and wanted to last forever.
That is your future BC. And why? So a few executives can buy their whores diamond encrusted coke spoons, so some red-neck rough neck can get an even bigger pick-up truck this year...
a noble bargain indeed.
judycross
44 weeks ago
It always comes back to the inane
Goop along our shores and goop in our streams from tankers and badly maintained pipelines is the problem we are trying to prevent. The Climate Change Thingy is kaput.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2012/07/washington-poststanford-climate-poll.html
Global Warming Science Facts: Medieval Warming Exceeds Modern Warming, Per New Research Using 120 Proxies
Those inconvenient global warming science facts that climate doomsday pundits hate - another major study determines Medieval Warming hotter than Modern Warming
http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/07/global-warming-science-facts-medieval-warming-exceeds-modern-warming-research-120-proxies.html
G West
44 weeks ago
Shannon
Sorry, that doesn't quite cut it...this isn't simply a semantic debate - using the 'oil' terminology has a distinct history and that's a history of deception and obfuscation which was pointed out very clearly in Andrew Nikiforuk's book on the subject.
He also happens to be the Tyee's own chief expert on the subject - the fact Dembicki hasn't got the message from your own chief spokesperson on the subject is pretty curious and, as many Tyee readers have noted, not a little strange and hard to understand.
Ernest
44 weeks ago
Influence
With Harper ensuring corporate oil and gas investment will be met in Canada with financial and legislative support, along with all the new and secret legislation, one can only wonder how much these flunkies are receiving in "extra" funds, also known as "graff, payola, bribes".
Canada is not the only country with these woes - readers reading the LA Times online regularly learn about political payoff scandals daily.
To say it is not happening here is foolish and naive. Our police should be monitoring the con and BC mobs all the time - I am convinced many would be arrested very quickly.