Dirty oil, dirty secrets

In opening his lecture at the Potter Auditorium Wednesday evening, award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk jokingly promised “lots of dirty pictures from Northern Alberta.”

He lived up to that promise and then some: in exploring the highlights of his latest book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, Mr. Nikiforuk provided attendees with a sobering look at how the development of the Alberta tar sands has dramatically reshaped the Canadian economy and our system of government – without, he argues, a national dialogue on what those changes represent.

“Canada has become a ‘petro state’ in the past 10 years, without us even realizing it,” he said.

Alberta’s tar sands – Mr. Nikiforuk refuses to use the preferred “oil sands” term because he’s “never seen oil floating on sand before” – represent the world’s largest energy project. They have transformed Canada into the United States’ number one provider of crude imports, sending almost 2 billion barrels a day southwards. Back home, approximately 50 per cent of Canada’s energy comes from the production of Albertan bitumen from the sands.

“If you were to shut down the tar sands today, the economy of Western Canada and much of the Midwest U.S. would die,” he proclaimed.

While he spent a good deal of time discussing the environmental implications of the sands, much of his talk concerned the economic and political changes they have brought. He noted the significant labour movements they have caused – 14 per cent of Atlantic Canadians have moved west at some point to work in Alberta – and the social effects brought with them both out west and here in our region. He particularly focused on the dramatic link between the value of the Canadian dollar and the price of oil and the increasing dependence of both the federal and provincial governments on oil revenue as opposed to tax dollars.

That dependence, he argued, means that efforts to combat climate change have been little more than token gestures, at best. He was highly critical of carbon capture as a long-term solution and also of the various climate change strategies that have been mapped out by the federal government thus far. “We burn money in Canada to fight climate change,” he sarcastically joked when discussing previous efforts, later adding: “We’re not serious. We really don’t give a damn.”

The core of his argument was that the development of the tar sands has taken place without a national, democratic argument on their implications. He believes that it is up to Canadians to start to change the conversation and actively engage their governments about what the tar sands mean for the future of our country. Until then, he argued, “they will not behave like governments. They will behave like oil executives.”

Andrew Nikiforuk’s tour through Nova Scotia concludes with appearances in Chester and Blockhouse. His lecture at Dalhousie was presented by the College of Sustainability.

LINK: The Canadian oil boom in National Geographic