Oil sands

Tuesday September 23, 2014

Tuesday September 23, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 23, 2014

Stephen Harper to skip UN Climate Summit, attend dinner instead

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting a major climate summit in New York on September 23, “to mobilize political will” towards reducing global emissions.

U.S. President Barack Obama will be attending, as will U.K. Prime Minster David Cameron.

In fact, 125 heads of state will be there.

Friday July 18, 2014Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, however, will not.

In a statement released by the Prime Minister’s office on Wednesday afternoon, spokesperson Jason MacDonald said that Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq will attend the summit in his stead.

“The Prime Minister will take part in the related dinner with the Secretary-General to discuss climate issues,” noted the statement.

Incidentally, Harper will be in New York that week to attend the Every Woman, Every Child event hosted by the Secretary-General on September 25th and to address the UN General Assembly.

The climate summit is not an official negotiating summit but comes one year ahead of a 2015 meeting in Paris where world leaders are aiming to a achieve a new legally binding and universal agreement on climate change — the first one since Kyoto.

Ban Ki-Moon hopes the summit on September 23 will be a catalyst towards that deal.

“Time is running out. The more we delay, the more we will pay,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Huffington Post last week.

“Climate change is accelerating and human activities are the principal cause, as documented in a series of authoritative scientific reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The effects are already widespread, costly and consequential — to agriculture, water resources, human health, and ecosystems on land and in the oceans. Climate change poses sweeping risks for economic stability and the security of nations.” (Source: Yahoo News Canada)

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Tuesday, January 14, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Neil Young blasts Harper government for allowing development of Alberta oilsands

Neil Young is accusing the Canadian government of “trading integrity for money” when it comes to Alberta’s oilsands.

Speaking at a news conference Sunday, the rock legend suggested the Canadian government is “killing” First Nations people by pushing forward with rapid development of the oilsands.

“The blood of these people will be on modern Canada’s hands,” he said.

Young was speaking in Toronto ahead of the first of four benefit concerts aimed at raising money and awareness for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s legal fight against Shell Canada’s Jackpine oilsands mine expansion plan.

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator -The federal government approved the project last month despite a review panel’s conclusion that the project would result in severe and irreversible environmental damage.

Shell has said it will double its bitumen production in the region to 300,000 barrels a day and the project will create 750 jobs.

Young, who said he recently visited one of the oilsands sites, was joined at his press conference by a panel of anti-oilsands activists. The panel was moderated by environmentalist David Suzuki.

The “Honour the Treaties” concert will take place Toronto’s Massey Hall Sunday night, and moves to Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary later this week.

“I want my grandchildren to grow up and look up and see a blue sky,” Young said, noting he instead only sees a government “out of control.”

“Money is number one, integrity isn’t even on the map,” he said.

Jason MacDonald, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, countered that “projects are approved only when they are deemed safe for Canadians and (the) environment.” He added that the resource sector creates “economic opportunities” and “high-wage jobs” for thousands of Canadians. (Source: CTV News)

Wednesday June 1, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday June 1, 2012

Federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair tours Alberta oilsands

Thomas Mulcair came close to dropping the T word here Thursday, but on a day devoted to conciliation he saved himself at the last second.

In his first-ever visit to the Alberta oilsands as NDP leader, Mulcair was about to substitute “tar” for “oil” when he hastily corrected himself.

Mulcair smiled as he recovered from his almost slip of using the word “tarsands.”

“They’re bitumen sands because the chemicals are neither oil nor tar,” he said at a news conference hours after being taken on a tour of the mine and tailings pond reclamation process by Suncor Energy of its site in northern Alberta.

“If removing that linguistic impediment can make the conversation easier, I’m not going to keep it in place intentionally,” he said after the near slip of the tongue. “Unfortunately a linguistic cleanup doesn’t change anything about what we’re talking about in terms of the ecosystems.”

Mulcair created a furor among three Western premiers with his view that the resource-driven economies in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia — most notably the massive oilsands projects — have inflated the Canadian dollar. That in turn, he said, hurts other sectors in different regions of the country, particularly manufacturing in Quebec and Ontario.

Mulcair has come under fire for using the phrase “Dutch disease,” which explains how a country’s currency rises when there is high international demand for natural resources. The three Western premiers have condemned Mulcair’s comments, saying that he is using wedge politics to divide the country. (Source: Toronto Star)