Alberta bishop is right about oilsands

Bishop Bouchard, however, is right. The development of the oilsands -- at the pace and scale of recent years -- is highly problematic and the myriad ethical issues presented by their development are not answered by facile generalizations such as "Canada's general abundance of natural wealth is a gift."

Far from being an unequivocal "social benefit," oilsands "riches" present enormous challenges. What are they? Here are four:

1) The Alberta economy has been eaten alive by oilsands demands for labour and capital, with little remaining for other sectors. Albertans are left with steeply increased prices, and generally lousy service to boot. The labour force, seduced by easy money, doesn't finish school, thus imperilling the future productivity of the province.

2) Tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers fill jobs in Alberta under sloppy programs that exploit them and essentially guarantee many will stay on illegally.

3) There are environmental issues of staggering proportions -- massive disruptions of land (with virtually no reclamation), voracious water consumption and water pollution that kills fish and other animals (most famously, the 500 ducks that died in a toxic tailing pond and whose deaths are now the subject of an environmental prosecution against Syncrude) and which may cause cancers in downstream aboriginal communities.

4) The problems caused by oilsands development also extend into politics and gnaw at the roots of our democracy itself. It was award-winning American journalist Thomas Friedman who first described the "First Law of Petropolitics": "The price of oil," he wrote, "and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions in oil-rich states... The higher the average global crude oil price rises, the more free speech, free press, free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, and independent political parties are eroded."

Friedman formulated his "First Law" to explain the lack of democracy in oil-rich developing nations. Sadly, his "law" also seems applicable to Alberta. According to Andrew Nikiforuk, a well-known Canadian journalist, "The democratic gap between the rulers and the ruled grows wider every day. Polls show that Albertans overwhelmingly favour real reductions in carbon emissions, yet their government champions a laughable program to reduce emissions by 14 per cent by 2050. Most people want a slowdown in the tarsands, but the government will hear nothing of it."

And now, with U.S. President Barack Obama getting tough on climate change and "dirty oil," even the economic benefits of the oilsands could be shaky.

These challenges and the many others presented by oilsands development, demand robust public policy responses, not a hands-off, let-the-market-decide cop-out.

It's not as if we don't have an example to follow. The Norwegian government, which saved most of its royalty revenues for the future and paced project approvals to spread the benefit of North Sea oil production over time, provides a counter-example, unlike Alberta, to Friedman's "First Law of Petropolitics." Governments in other petro-states -- think of Saudi Arabia, Russia and Nigeria -- don't even pretend to put their citizens' interests ahead of their inept (and deeply corrupt) management of oil. Surely Albertans, and Canadians, would rather be compared to Norway?

Could we do things different in Alberta? Of course, but only if new policy initiatives are implemented to end the harm caused by our "no-brakes" approach to oilsands development. But, as Bishop Bouchard says, just making an effort -- even if sincere -- "doesn't cut it."

The current economic slowdown and, in particular, low price of oil gives us the opportunity to get a policy handle on what has been, to date, a devastating tsunami of negative publicity of the social, political, economic and environmental impact of the oilsands.

The dirty way -- the way we are currently developing the oilsands -- doesn't guarantee jobs: you only have to read about the current round of lay-offs in the Alberta oilpatch and central Canadian manufacturing sector to see that. And we know, from the experience of other developed countries, that green-energy strategies do indeed generate greater employment because they are more labour intensive.

Even if you don't share Bishop Bouchard's religiously based misgivings about oilsands development, his moral concerns are well-founded. The seriousness of the matter cannot be over-stated: ethical leadership on development of the oilsands is desperately needed.

Janet Keeping is president of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership in Calgary. She is a former researcher on energy law and policy in Russia and Canada.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 22, 2009 A9