And to all mothers reading this, Happy Mother’s Day!

My Mother’s Day was made on Friday with a delivery call from the door of our building to say I had flowers.  It was the first time my 28-year old Cate has ever sent me flowers. And what a gorgeous bouquet of local flowers and ethically sourced and packaged! (A shout out to the Victoria florist Cate found on line, for COVID precautions and ecological blooms – Bespoke Blossoms). And a note: “Happy Mother’s Day – Sending lots of contact-free love and hugs!”

So, in an odd way, I can thank this oppressive time of pandemic and distancing for my first-ever Mother’s Day flowers. If we had hugs, I would not have needed the flowers nearly as much. John says I light up whenever I look at my bouquet – as if I am smiling at Cate.

I got back Thursday night from the stretch of 10 days in Ottawa. I was able to cover two face-to-face sessions in Parliament– now held every Wednesday – as well as the non-stop, all day long sessions of various standing committees, as well as virtual sittings by zoom on Tuesday and Thursday. The 24-7 work on COVID19 and responding to pandemic hit a milestone yesterday – the 50th daily briefing for parliamentarians by telephone conference from senior civil servants and officials. We deal daily, and, for most of the last few weeks, seven days a week, on the wide array of problems and technical details of new well-intentioned and invariably flawed programmes.

As Greens, we have not had any media coverage in quite a while so we decided to hold a news conference on Wednesday morning May 6th. My theme was to discuss the various options under study for virtual parliament.  I had no intention of creating a media storm. Nor had I planned to say what I wrote in last week’s GSM: “Oil is over.”

CBC reporter Julie Van Dusen asked about a bail out for the oil sands and attempted to summarize my response. I shared with the media the many reports I wrote about in last week’s GSM. She asked “are you saying oil is dead?”

Would the outraged protestations been any different if I had said “oil is over?”  I doubt it.

I am not uncomfortable with being attacked. It is not a happy place to be, but someone had to be the first one to say what a gathering global consensus knows.

We are being bombarded with demands that the federal government provide a further $20 billion in bail out funds for an industry that is struggling against market forces, an historic plunge in demand, Saudi-Russian manipulations to push the price through the floor, inherent low value, with the added reality that “saving” it poses a threat to our future.

The defense of oil has a predictable number of recited facts, most of which are exaggerations. John Ivison wrote what was, at least, a respectful piece disagreeing with me. His column in the National Post gives me a perfect opportunity to confront some of the wild and false claims about our dependence on oil and gas. (I have written a reply to the NP. We’ll see if they decide to print it!)

It never ceases to amaze me how frequently the so-called facts are cited as a compelling reason that we absolutely must prop up a dying industry.

Ivison: “It is the country’s largest export industry, responsible for 10 per cent of GDP; employs more than half a million people; and, contributes around $8 billion in tax revenues.”

Fact: Oil and gas are 5.6% of GDP; 169,000 jobs (1%) and $2.13 billion revenue and taxes combined at federal and provincial level.

425 foreign owned, so 42% of dividends go offshore.

Source: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/science-data/data-analysis/energy-data-analysis/energy-facts/energy-and-economy/20062

Ivison: “The price of Western Canadian Select has stabilized, trading at around $22 on Thursday, but that’s still below break-even for many producers.”

True enough, but does a $22/barrel price make bitumen viable?

Not according to the Government of Alberta (2019): “the breakeven [WTI] price for a new stand-alone mine is currently within the US$75-85/ bbl range,” while in-situ production is lower, at around US$55 or US$60 per barrel”

Source: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/4170759/resource/e5c850e9-d479-494c-9343-284320d10ac7

I hope to continue this conversation. You can watch my debate with former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall today on CTV “Question Period” -11:00 AM ET/8:00 AM PT. It also airs on the CTV News Channel at 2:00 PM PT.

See below in the post script a number of important announcements and the links to my full press conference and my article in Policy magazine setting out the case for the end of oil sands bitumen as a viable product.

Stay well. Stay safe.

We will get through this together – and Happy Mother’s Day!

Love and thanks,

Elizabeth

P.S.

The results of the Green Party federal council election will be released today.

On May 13, please join Paul Manly, Jenica Atwin and me for a national bilingual webinar on what kind of world we want after the pandemic.

Register at this link: https://www.greenparty.ca/en/content/what-kind-world-will-emerge-post-covid-19

May 6th Press conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALOcQ6SDPSM

Speech: Elizabeth May speaks on the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands

Policy magazine article explaining why “oil is dead:” https://policymagazine.ca/the-reports-of-oils-death-are-not-greatly-exaggerated/

This weekly blog is published by Elizabeth’s EDA in Saanich-Gulf Islands. You can sign up for it here.

The post Good Sunday Morning – May 10 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

No magical process has intervened, no testing of the evidence, there are no facts to justify this decision, and we know that dilbit cannot be cleaned after being spilled.

Will the Prime Minister reconsider and suspend yesterday’s decision to find the facts and the evidence that will show that approving Kinder Morgan is not justified?

Justin Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the interim process we put in place both extended the consultation period with indigenous Canadians and strengthened the applied science.

We understand we made commitments throughout the election campaign and leading up to it. Getting resources to market in smart sustainable ways is a fundamental responsibility of the prime minister and of the Canadian government. One which was failed by the previous government, but one that we have delivered today.

The post Elizabeth May: Question on Kinder Morgan Approval appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Perhaps the most shocking omission is the climate crisis. It is remarkable that in a budget tabled seven months before the deadline negotiations for a comprehensive climate treaty, at COP21 in Paris, the words ‘climate change’ are nowhere even mentioned—zero versus 108 references to oil. Having put all their eggs in the bitumen basket for so long, the Harper administration reacted to low oil prices like a bunny in the headlights—delaying the budget by months, while ignoring economic opportunities. In the Green Party’s pre-budget submission, we had urged the minister to move quickly to provide needed boosts for those sectors of our economy that benefit from the low dollar—specifically tourism, film and television production, and manufacturing. While the budget acknowledges that tourism is a significant sector of our economy, no funding is committed. It was this prime minister who cancelled all advertising in the US market to promote Canada as a tourism destination. Now, he has blown it again by missing the chance to boost our visibility as a vacation destination in advance of the 2015 summer season.

The treatment of tourism (a subject and a heading, but no money) is repeated on many other topic areas. The budget is bizarre in having included sections, even relatively long ones, about departments and programmes that receive no new funding. For example, there are two pages extolling the virtues of our national parks system, itself the victim of a 10% budget cut in 2012, without a penny in funding.

It was also surprising to find no funding announced after the bolded headlines and text devoted to credit unions, digital infrastructure, consumer protection framework for banks, and mental health. Meanwhile, much of the new funding, such as for municipal infrastructure, is not slated to even begin for another two years. Budget commitments starting in 2017 are a bit rich from a government on the eve of an election.

This budget’s forecasting uses rose coloured glasses anticipating a growth rate consistently higher than that set out in the most recent Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report, further compromising spending set to begin in 2017.

Funding pledges set to begin in the 2017- 2018 fiscal year include: public transit, enhanced funding for Department of National Defence, and increased funding for the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. Meanwhile, the Harper administration has continued largesse to polluting industries, like oil sands and nuclear energy. Violating the prime minister’s own pledge to the G-20 to stop subsidizing fossil fuels, the 2015 budget opens up a whole new category of accelerated capital cost allowances to promote fracking and LNG.

Anticipating the Energy East pipeline and dilbit spills in the St Lawrence River, there is new money for spill response there, and in the Arctic. There is also enhanced funding for the NEB and CEAA to conduct pipeline and fossil fuel project reviews. Almost comical is the section boasting of the world-class spill response already in place for the BC coast: ‘Since 2012, the Government has provided funding to strengthen Canada’s marine spill prevention, preparedness, and response regime….to more effectively manage oil spill response operations….’ Clearly, this was sent to press before the English Bay spill.

A whole series of measures are destined to be meaningless without federal leadership to ensure coordinated action with the provinces. For example, much more effective federal action is needed to eliminate internal barriers to trade than the creation of an Internal Trade Promotion Office within Industry Canada to only ‘support’ a long overdue review of the cumbersome and ineffective Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) that dates back to 1995. The same lack of critical federal initiative is evident in the lack-lustre reference to harmonizing training and certificate requirements.

In our federation, it makes no sense to throw money to trades and apprenticeships without working with the provinces and territories to develop a rational national approach. The same can be said of the changes to the Workers Income Tax Benefit where provincial engagement is critical to remove barriers for workers or in providing money to immigrants for foreign credential recognition process.

And again, a $2 million announcement for a consultation on Autism Spectrum Disorder—without taking a lead in working with the provinces and the territories getting actively engaged in health care—is laughable. There are many more sections on which I could comment— funding for ‘security’—but nothing for increased oversight in the face of the terrifying C51, funding for the bombing of Iraq and Syria, nothing for the sustainability of Canada’s health care system. It is worth noting some welcome measures to stop the claw-back of student income from their student loan needs assessment, and to assist small business. And as I have pointed out in comments about recent budgets, the bottom line about this budget is that it omits the bottom line. There are no actual budgets, department by department, to allow any citizen—or MP—to find out if departments are set to receive more or less funding than in the previous year. But, by now, anyone who looks to this government to deliver sensible budgets has just not been paying attention.

It is a big thick brochure for the next election. And, as Joe Oliver noted, the instability in federal funding can be sorted out by Stephen Harper’s grand-daughter.

The post 2015 budget holds few surprises; a litany of lost opportunities appeared first on Elizabeth May.

True, Canada rode out the 2008 financial meltdown better than most. Our prime minister was quick to take credit for that, but the credit should have gone to the previous administration for rejecting the banking industry’s demands for deregulation. Ironically, had Harper’s party succeeded in persuading the government of the day to accede in the banks’ demands, he would have had a much rougher ride.

He was lucky – lucky that our banks were regulated and unable to join in the high-risk global derivatives market, lucky that he had inherited large surpluses. Even before the financial crisis hit, Harper shifted our budget from surplus to deficit. That’s bound to happen if you slash revenues while spending more. Our first quarter in deficit arrived before we had spent a single cent in stimulus investments in response to the recession.

While the media, pundits and politicians focus on the relatively minor question of whether we’ll have a small surplus or small budgetary deficit this year, they’re ignoring the problem of the national debt. Stephen Harper – a person who likes to call himself a fiscal conservative – has increased the national debt to its highest level ever – over $600 billion.

Twenty-four per cent of that debt was accumulated by Stephen Harper as he borrowed money to give out economically foolish boutique tax cuts. It’s one thing to bribe voters with their own money. It’s a step beyond shameless to borrow money to do it. The interest payments on the debt will cost Canadians $29 billion this year alone.

One might imagine that Harper’s high-spending ways would come to an end in tough times. Not so: The current federal civil service is larger than it’s ever been before. While spending on environmental science and support for veterans was slashed, more bureaucrats were hired to audit environmental groups, to work in Corrections Canada and Canadian Border Services. One big growth area in federal employment has been in information officers; their numbers are up by 15 per cent as they work to control – and limit – our access to government information.

Since Harper became prime minister, productivity has fallen, innovation has grown stagnant and our exports have tilted back to what previous industrial strategies sought to avoid. For years, successive governments sought to move us away from relying on raw resource exports, to create wealth through value-added production. To use a Conservative-branded turn of phrase, Harper’s “laser-like focus” on putting all our eggs in the bitumen basket did not include processing the bitumen before shipping it out.

And now, it seems, his luck has run out. Maybe he didn’t see Saudi Arabia coming. But the OPEC oil shock of the early ’70’s was not that long ago. Of all global commodities, oil is the one that is most open to manipulation, creates the most security threats and launches the most wars.

Anyone who understands economics knows that an economy is more resilient to nasty shocks when it is diversified. Truth is, Canada was never all that dependent on the oil sands, which amount to only two per cent of GDP. It’s not that large a contributor to our national revenue. And many sectors of the Canadian economy will benefit from the lower dollar.

If I were prime minister right now, I would be finding every policy tool available to give those sectors that benefit from an 80 cent dollar some rapid ramping-up to expand their workforces. One prime example is tourism. For some inexplicable reason, Harper appears to hate tourism. Policy after policy has hurt the sector – from eliminating the GST-HST rebate for foreign visitors (a cheap goodwill gesture), to added visa requirements, to slashing the budget for tourism ads, to undermining seasonal employment through the EI system.

Over the last few years, not one penny was spent in the U.S. market to promote Canada as a dream vacation. Where ten years ago Canada was in the top seven for world tourism destinations, we’re now 18th.

The only spectacular photographs of Canadian wilderness paid for by the Government of Canada in the U.S. were used to promote the Keystone pipeline. Just one Keystone ad in the New Yorker last year cost over $200,000. Still, tourism employs over 600,000 Canadians and contributes over $30 billion to our economy.

It was announced recently that Harper is prepared to spend over $20 million for a major ad campaign targeting Europe, the U.S. and Asia. The international PR firm FleishmanHillard has won the contract. And the ads will promote the oil sands.

When will someone stand up to say “the economist is naked?”

The post Harpernomics 101: Oil, debt and fantasy math appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Debate has been about how best to export raw, virtually unprocessed bitumen — as much as possible and as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the eastern half of Canada depends on imports of foreign oil from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and Norway. As Gordon Laxer of the Parkland Institute tried to point out to a Parliamentary committee (before the Conservative chair ordered him to stop talking and stormed out of the room), Canada has no energy security.

I feel some responsibility for this shift in debate, as I was the first political leader to point out that there was something wrong with the picture.

RELATED: Sign the petition for an oil-free coast.

Unlike the US, we have no Strategic Petroleum Reserves. If there was a blockade of foreign oil or an economic embargo, those in Eastern Canada would have to wait for tankers to bring them bitumen for processing through the Panama Canal and up the eastern seaboard. As bizarre as that sounds, it was the solution offered by a Suncor executive when asked in committee about the vulnerability of eastern Canada to embargos.

Oppositional Canada

The irony is that the dividing line of foreign oil to the east and Alberta oil for the west was the result of deliberate government policy—aimed at helping the Alberta oil and gas sector. Back in 1961, the National Oil Policy decreed that eastern Canadians (east of the Ottawa River) would only receive imported oil while those in the West had to purchase Alberta product. By deliberate policy, Eastern Canadians became dependent on foreign oil, while Alberta oil was consumed by those in western provinces and exported to the US. Now it is time to think like a country.

The Solution: Shipping East?

However, the current proposal also makes no sense. Former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna has proposed shipping unprocessed bitumen to St John, New Brunswick, to put it in tankers to export it from there. Others are proposing refining it in New Brunswick.

The first decision point is Enbridge’s application to reverse its Number 9 pipeline. This pipeline was built in the 1970s and had originally flowed west to east. It was reversed in the 1990s as the markets favoured cheaper foreign oil.

Now, Enbridge is applying to reverse it once again, running a different product, dilbit, from west to east. The request to the National Energy Board is being considered in two stand-alone applications; Line 9A (Sarnia to North Westover) and Line 9B to Montreal.

From there the bitumen would likely go south through New England. When I was in Washington DC, I heard from quite a few Congressmen and Senators that they do not want those pipelines over their territory.

Bitumen

The nature of bitumen and diluents in pipelines is a critical issue in why the Green Party oppose pipelines of unprocessed product to either coastline. So, before talking about the direction of pipelines, we need to talk about the product.

Even after the extensive and intensive process of extracting the viscous material known as bitumen from the soil in which it is found (generally about 10% by volume), it is still not processed to even the level of crude oil. Crude oil can flow. Bitumen cannot. It has the consistency of peanut butter, so needs to be mixed with something else to flow. That something else is called ‘diluent’—a mix of undisclosed chemicals. The most commonly used diluent is a natural gas condensate, similar to Naptha. The public does not know the make-up of any particular diluent. Some have more benzene than others—benzene is a well-documented carcinogen.

The resulting so-called dilbit product is about 30% diluents and 70% bitumen. We do know a lot more about dilbit than we used to. And we did a lot of that learning through the 2010 Enbridge dilbit spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. We know it both floats and sinks; that it is far harder and far more expensive to clean-up than unprocessed conventional crude. The Kalamazoo spill is still not cleaned up.

Meanwhile a debate rages about whether dilbit is more likely to cause pipeline failure. Cornell University found that between 2007 and 2010 pipelines carrying dilbit had a spill-rate three times higher than pipelines carrying conventional crude. Oil sands products have a higher sulfur and a higher acidic content than conventional crude and those properties could explain its increased corrosive nature.

This finding led to the Department of Natural Resources to commissioning a study by a group called Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (ATIF). That study compared dilbit and conventional crudes and concluded the types of corrosive compounds between the two products were comparable. So we have labwork versus the real life rate of spills in US pipelines. At the moment, despite what Harper’s Cabinet ministers claim, the science on the corrosive nature of dilbit is not settled.

Meanwhile, if local residents along the Number 9 pipeline wish to speak before the NEB hearings, or even submit a letter, they are required to fill out a 10-page form, and are also encouraged to submit references and a resume! This is an NEB effort to meet the new requirements imposed by the horrific overhaul of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that took place last year in the Omnibus Budget Bill (C-38).

Unlike the previous CEAA, which was premised on a fundamental commitment to rights of public participation, the Harperized CEAA restricts access to only those ‘directly affected’. The NEB has made this restriction even worse by demanding that any citizens who want to make comments, fill out the forms and apply within a two-week period—which will close before this article will be in print.

Refineries In Alberta

So, what should be done? The best environmental, economic and climate outcome would be to slow down the boom-and-bust cycle of constant expansion in the oil sands. What the late Peter Lougheed used to describe as the ‘traffic jam’ of feverish expansion in the oilsands prevents the construction of ancillary infrastructure, like upgraders and refineries.

The hyper-inflationary bubble that sits on northern Alberta is what makes it cheaper for Big Oil to build a $7 billion pipeline to Texas, rather than build facilities in Alberta. Any reasonable carbon plan would set a level of managed growth for oil sands production—say 2 million barrels of oil a day (more than the current 1.7 million barrels, but less than Harper’s goal of 6 million barrels of oil a day). That level of production could cool down the capital and labour markets enough to build upgraders and refineries near the resource. Then, we could be talking about shipping—by pipeline, truck or train—a finished product whose properties are better understood. Shipping a product with a far lower risk of environmental impact in the event of spills.

If we are thinking like a country, we should get Alberta oil to Eastern Canada, but we should not ship bitumen + diluents.

The post Pipelines to the east? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

We are not going to have that opportunity.  With the 2012 budget, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have made it clear (as if it were not abundantly clear already) that discussion about Canada’s energy policy will be viewed by them as tantamount to a direct attack on the national interest.  To point out that ignoring the climate crisis actually hurts our economy with costs by 2020 of over $5 billion/year (conservatively), as the National Round Table on Environment and Economy (NRTEE) did, is sufficient cause for execution.  Given the small cost of the NRTEE, its origins in the Mulroney era, and its mandate to bring industry leaders together with labour, environmental groups and others to find multi-stakeholder consensus, the decision to kill it was a shock.  Environment Minister Peter Kent’s defence of the decision (obviously not his decision) that we no longer need such an advisory body because we have the internet is a joke.

For an environmental group to organize to protect the environment of British Columbia is to become targeted for “sanctions” under the Canada Revenue Agency, with $8 million set aside for going after environmental groups.  As the Globe and Mail pointed out “witch hunts do not come cheap.” The CRA has been conducting a steady campaign of harassment against environmental charities for years.  Audits have been frequent for years, with the desired chilling effect on public criticisms of government policy. Does Mr. Harper really need to direct $8 million more to equip CRA for even greater levels of harassment?

The decisions have all been made.  The problem is that in asserting that oil supertankers can safely traverse British Columbia’s northern coastal waters, the Prime Minister is ignoring quite substantial evidence.

Transport Canada shocked experts through a facile conclusion delivered to the Joint Review Panel hearings on the Enbridge supertanker scheme.  No doubt at the direction of their political masters, Transport Canada told the panel it saw no “regulatory difficulties” with the proposal.  The document tabled to the review process in defence of this pre-ordained conclusion is a shoddy piece of work.  There is no reference to the 1972 moratorium on oil tankers, respected by every federal and BC government since then.    The conclusion the route is safe is based on the width and depth of channels and whether supertankers can actually fit through them.  The only discussion of weather and wave and storms is to suggest that (over time) a system of weather warnings will be set up to warn tankers to stay in port if it’s stormy.  How the tankers are to handle the extreme conditions known to come out of nowhere in the area is simply not discussed.

In that it has ignored Environment Canada’s Marine Weather Hazards Manual which states that the Hecate Strait (through which the supertankers must pass) is “the fourth most dangerous body of water in the world.”

Author John Vaillant in his classic The Golden Spruce described the Hecate Strait as “a malevolent weather factory: on a regular basis its unique combination of wind, tide, shoals, and shallows produces a kind of destructive synergy that has few parallels elsewhere in nature.”  He goes on to describe how “blind rollers” – enormous waves that come out of nowhere — can expose the sea floor of Hecate Strait.  The submission to the review process never even mentions the Hecate Strait.

Department of Fisheries and Oceans review of the threat to humpback whales in 2005 named the proposed tanker traffic to Kitimat as a threat to whale recovery.  Humpback whales are listed as a species at risk in the threatened category.  Scientists actually think the fin whales may be even more at risk of tanker collisions. The Transport Canada document suggests they will have whale spotters to warn a captain to avoid a whale.  Really? Whale spotters can see whales in fog? At night? In a gale?  No wonder that even in the report to the review panel contains concerns from DFO and recommends that Enbridge continue to work on this problem.

Lastly, Transport Canada’s conclusions are based on a long list of safety features, including using two tug boats to assist in supertanker navigation, which are voluntary.  Enbridge will not own or control the tankers, but asserts its approach to tanker approval will ensure safety of the tankers it does not control.

Some people may buy this bland reassurance.  It is a lot easier if you only care about selling bitumen crude to China, and a lot harder if you care about the existing tens of thousands of BC jobs dependent on a healthy coastal ecosystem.   In fact, if you care about keeping BC’s coast oil-free, it is impossible.

The post Why oil supertankers have no place on the British Columbia coastline appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Former U.S. President G. W. Bush was caught on camera once referring to the “vision thing.” Some commentators have suggested Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not enunciated a clear vision. If Canadians wonder what Harper’s vision might be, look to the mania for slashing laws that might regulate the pace of fossil fuel development, to gagging and terminating scientific research that might call into question the impacts of said development, and the new obsession with attracting Chinese investment to ensure galloping growth in the oil sands. Harper has said that his goal is six million barrels of oil a day from the oil sands. This would amount to more than tripling the current levels of production. It is an odd goal for a government. It appears to me that all policy areas are subsumed to this one objective.

It did not come as a surprise that access to information requests from Postmedia’s Mike De Souza showed that, within the bureaucracy, the Enbridge Northern Gateway project was “top of mind” when drafting the 2012 budget. No wonder the repeal of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and its anaemic replacement within the omnibus budget bill; no wonder the gutting of the Fisheries Act, the re-working of the Navigable Water Protection Act to exclude pipelines as barriers to navigation, and the radical change of the National Energy Board Act to allow Cabinet to overturn a National Energy Board (NEB) decision. Now we hear the Species at Risk Act will be subjected to similar “streamlining.”

At the same time, there has been an unprecedented slashing of scientific capacity. Since spring 2012, allegedly due to internal decisions of the Departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada, pink slips have been issued to more than 70 scientists across Canada in the marine contaminants program, the government has announced it will no longer support the world-class Experimental Lakes Area (58 lakes in western Ontario, the only place on the planet allowing whole lake experiments in fresh water science), the closing of the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory (the closest research station to the North Pole on the planet, tracking key developments on climate and ozone depletion), as well as a raft of other closuressmokestack monitoring, climate adaptation research and all the work of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. The government’s only advisory body on sustainable development, the National Round Table on Environment and Economy, has also been killed.

The argument that these cuts are necessary as a matter of fiscal austerity would be more plausible if not for the reality that these cuts, cumulatively, come to less than the Harper Conservatives continue to spend on ads touting their wonderful record. Throw in the $28-million spent this year on celebrations of the bicentenary of the War of 1812, the $5-million for the 100th year of the Calgary Stampede, and another $5-million for the 100th year of the Grey Cup, and it is hard to see the elimination of scientific capacity as anything other than a pre-emptive strike against evidence.

The most dramatic proof that the only driving force of Harper’s policy is oil sands growth comes from his 180-turn on foreign policy in relation to China. When he first became Prime Minister, he was overtly frosty towards the Peoples’ Republic of China. Although I applauded his focus on pressing China on human rights, the snubbing of China was too extreme and undermined our diplomacy. Now, Stephen Harper visits China regularly, and craves the audience and photo ops with leaders he once avoided, like the now disgraced Bo Xilai. In fact, the last picture of Bo Xilai taken before his criminal charges was with Harper.

What could explain this about-face? It is the realization that there is simply not enough free market capital flowing into the oil sands. To meet the ambitious growth target (not of the industry, but of the Prime Minister), investment from China is needed. To secure that investment, concerns about human rights in China, indeed for Canadian sovereignty and national security are getting short shrift.

Tabled in the House on Sept. 26, with no debate planned, no committee review and no vote, is the Canada-China Investment Treaty. Under Foreign Affairs rules of procedure, the treaty could be ratified by order in council as soon as Nov. 2. It will bind Canada for a minimum of 15 years. If a future government wished to withdraw, a one year’s written notice is required, but any Chinese state-owned enterprises already invested in Canada receive a further 15 years benefits. What are the benefits?

Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will be able to launch claims for compensation if actions at the municipal, provincial or federal levels reduce their expectation of profits. These claims will first go to six-month secret diplomatic negotiations between China and Canada. If this fails, there will be a secret arbitration with three arbitrators in a hotel room somewhere deciding whether Canada’s laws or regulations have been “arbitrary.” From these rulings, there will be no appeal. Moreover, if Canada (or any level of government) wants to conserve resources, we can only do so to the extent we limit our own use of natural resources.

In short, the Prime Minister’s goal of six million barrels of oil a day from the oil sands is driving our foreign policy, our trade policy, has undermined our global climate commitments, is eviscerating our scientific capacity and is skewing our economy to one product at the expense of others. What no one seems to know is why our Prime Minister has more ambitious growth targets for the oil sands than those in the oil patch and why he has set a pace that no one can explain or defend.

Elizabeth May is the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands and Leader of the Green Party of Party.
Originally published in the Hill Times.

The post Why does Harper have more ambitious growth targets for the oil sands than those in the oil patch? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

May, who has an excellent attendance record in the House of Commons, feels that this sit-in is too important to miss. “I greatly value the work I am able to do in the House of Commons on behalf of my constituents and other Canadians, but there are times when more direct, non-parliamentary action is needed – and this is certainly one of them,” said May.

As a BC MP, she wants to show her support for the majority of British Columbians – whether in small communities, First Nations, or urban centres – who oppose the threats posed by treacherous pipelines through their pristine forests and across their streams and by risky bitumen-filled supertankers along their wild coastline.

WHERE: In front of the British Columbia Legislature, Victoria, BC
WHEN: 11 am Pacific Time, on Monday, October 22

 May will be attending from 11 am to 1 pm.

The post May to Take Part in Defend Our Coast Sit-In appeared first on Elizabeth May.

The question was to explore the contradiction between his government’s position that in the Summit of the Americas, which deals with Latin America and Canada and the U.S., we would not allow Cuba to participate, and we joined the U.S. in this exclusion, while at the same time we are expanding our agreements for trade with China. We are expanding the access to Canadian resources for Chinese companies that are increasingly buying up Canadian energy resources and other resources. In answer to the question, the Prime Minister was, at best, attempting to be humourous, saying that China could not be in the Summit of the Americas because it is not in the Americas, and he went on to say that the Summit of the Americas was exclusively for countries that were recognized as democracies.

It weakens the Summit of the Americas to exclude a country as important to the region as Cuba, and we really are on thin ice here in terms of any kind of distinction that can be made in terms of human rights and reasons to exclude communist Cuba while embracing communist China. Having gone through records of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, I see clearly that Cuba is making far more progress than China at being open to, for instance, religious freedoms.

In Cuba in March there was an open mass in which Pope Benedict was able to perform a mass for Cuban Catholics with President Castro in the front row. In contrast, in China any Roman Catholics who wish to have services hold them in houses in private and are at risk of arrest or detention if they are caught. Certainly the most repressive region on earth, according to many of the reports, is within China, with what is happening now in Tibet with suppression of Tibetan monks and the Tibetan Buddhist religion. We also see repression of other religious groups in China, whether Falun Gong or others. Freedom of religion does not exist at all in China. Since the Olympics in China, Human Rights Watch reports there has been a greater crackdown on freedom of expression within China. Regarding the record on capital punishment, the Chinese government executes prisoners at a very alarming rate. On the other hand, Cuba has commuted the sentences of some people who were on death row, and as of 2010, which is the last year for which I could find statistics, there were no prisoners in Cuba on death row.

There is very clearly some reason that the government prefers communist China to communist Cuba. The obvious reason is that communist China is prepared to pour billions of dollars into the oil sands. However, I ask members opposite if this is sufficient grounds for Canada to sell away our principles, our concerns for human rights, our concerns for freedom of religion or our concerns that we exert ourselves on the world stage as partners with other nations. Surely we should invest in and trade with Cuba. We should also invest in and trade with China. However, it is very important for Canadians to ask how much of Canada we want China to own.

If we are to proceed with a greater relationship with China, we surely must see the text of the agreement that the Prime Minister has already signed with President Hu of China, so we know what rights the Chinese corporations will have to sue Canada whenever they do not like our laws.

Deepak Obhrai: Mr. Speaker, before I respond, may I take this opportunity to congratulate you on being elected to the office of Deputy Speaker. We are looking forward to working constructively with you, having known you for many years.

In reply to my colleague from the Green Party, let me say there is absolutely no contradiction between our policies towards China and towards Cuba. We treat both of them with four Canadian values. We raise the issues of human rights when we have bilateral meetings with them, and Canada’s foreign policy includes promotion of democracy, rule of law and human rights.

Canada has had with a relationship with Cuba that goes back to 1945, and not only that: Canada maintains a relationship as one of the only two countries in the hemisphere never to have broken diplomatic relations with the island.

Canada’s policy on Cuba is different from that of the United States. We do not have an embargo against Cuba and we do not support their isolation. We believe that by engaging Cuba, we can support its move towards democracy and greater human rights. It is the same policy that we apply to China.

Canada supports democracy and human rights. It is very important for the member to understand what happened at the Summit of the Americas in 2001 in Quebec City, when the Conservative government was not in power. The leaders unanimously agreed that countries would only be joining OAS if they had showed movement toward democracy.

At this current time, the movement to democracy has not gone forward. That is why we are very adamant, but that does not mean that there is isolation toward Cuba; rather, we believe what we are doing here will open up Cuba.

On what the member is talking about, the great things that are happening in Cuba, this will encourage all of that. We will be partners with Cuba in trade and development and we will also be partners in the promotion of democracy and human rights in Cuba.

The post Adjournment Proceedings – Foreign Affairs appeared first on Elizabeth May.

The proposed purchase of Calgary-based Nexen Inc, Canada’s 12th-largest energy company, by the China National Offshore Oil Company, CNOOCLtd., for $15.1- billion (US) should be setting off alarms bells, stated Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Saanich-Gulf Islands MP.

‘This has been described as the largest takeover by a Chinese company in the world, so very serious questions must be raised about the wisdom of such an unprecedented move,’ May stated. ‘We simply cannot allow strategic energy resources to disappear from Canadian control at such a rate and level with no real oversight.’

State-owned CNOOC was the first Chinese company to make a major acquisition in the Canadian oil industry when it purchased a 17% interest in MEG Energy for $150 million in 2005. Then, in 2011, it expanded by acquiring OPTI Canada for $2.1 billion, giving it 35% of key assets like the Long Lake oil sands facility. Nexen controls and operates the remaining 65% of that site.

View the full original article >>

The post Chinese oilsands acquisition raises concerns appeared first on Elizabeth May.