Meet the former Bay Streeter leading Tory charge against oil-sands opponents [Joe Oliver] – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – March 7, 2012)

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Joe Oliver has assumed the mantle as the Defender of the Oil Sands, a role he is clearly relishing. The fourth natural resources minister to serve under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mr. Oliver has more than any of his predecessors taken up the cudgels for Alberta oil producers who face a concerted, international campaign to shut down their aggressive expansion plans.

After just a few months in office, the 72-year-old rookie minister was thrust into a raging debate over the future of the oil sands, a major source of growth for employment, exports and greenhouse-gas emissions. He chose to stake his ground with an open letter – a full-throated denunciation of “environmental and other radical groups” that “use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interests.”

In launching its all-out attack, the government had a twofold goal: to undermine oil sands critics who succeeded in delaying the Keystone XL project in the United States, and prepare the ground for controversial reforms to the regulatory system that will speed up environmental reviews of major resource projects.

In an interview in his Parliament Hill office, the cabinet minister from Toronto made it clear he feels no discomfort at leading the government’s charge against opponents of the oil sands.

“At the end of the day, it was important to get the message out,” he said. “We’re sitting in on immense natural resources that can provide prosperity and security for Canadians for generations to come. But to achieve that objective, we have ship our resources from where they are to where they’re wanted.”

It was a bold move at a crucial time – just as the National Energy Board was commencing public hearings on the hugely controversial Northern Gateway pipeline project – projecting an image of a confident minister unafraid to take on detractors.

But there was a longer game in plan as well: The minister was clearly aiming to undermine critics who are gearing up to oppose the Harper government’s plan to overhaul environmental assessment laws to speed up approval of major resource projects.

At a mining conference in Toronto this week, Mr. Oliver embraced Canada’s role as “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” rather than seeing it as a resource curse.

“Canadians are taking a new pride in our country’s status as an energy superpower and a mining giant,” he said. “They understand what our natural resources have meant to this country in the past, and what they mean to our future.”

During his nine months on the job, the former Bay Street banker has at times appeared unsteady, stumbling in the House of Commons and courting controversy with evasive answers to opposition questions. And while his open letter was cheered by supporters, its uncompromising tone exposed a political blind spot, alienating those with reservations about the pipeline project, failing to differentiate between “radicals” and local residents, including first nations, who oppose it in their backyard.

His denunciation of “foreign funded” groups has created an atmosphere of a witch hunt as Conservative MPs and senators take up the cause and threaten to expose charitable groups who oppose oil sands development and take funding from international sources, as most mainline charities do.

For the rest of this article, please go to the Globe and Mail website: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/joe-oliver-stands-up-for-the-oil-sands/article2360952/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Politics&utm_content=2360952