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As Thomas Mulcair can attest, it is rather easier to speak about the oil sands than it is to actually get up here and see what is going on. Fort McMurray, Alta. is remote, and while my first visit was rather longer than Mr. Mulcair’s, it was still only a full day.
Three years ago, upon the occasion of the merger of oil sands pioneer Suncor with Petro-Canada, this column examined some of the ethical questions posed by oil sands development. The argument then was just emerging about “ethical oil,” namely that Alberta oil is morally and strategically superior because it does not support odious regimes, from Venezuela to Saudi Arabia to Russia. The argument has only become stronger since then, propelled by Ezra Levant’s eponymous book, and adopted in the rhetoric of the federal government.
The argument is actually stronger than comparative politics, with “democratic” oil trumping “tyrannical” oil. Only some 25% of the world’s oil reserves are developed by private companies; the vast majority are state enterprises. Of that quarter of global reserves, half are in the oil sands. The oil sands are a minority phenomenon in the oil business – development by private companies subject to the rule of law, accountable to public shareholders, and disciplined by market forces. Those displeased with the oil sands can lobby Suncor and the other companies operating here, they can shape the public policy environment, they can even invest and become shareholders, something rather easier to do in Calgary than in Caracas.
Indeed, the oil sands exist in a public environment shaped largely by their adversaries. Being toured around for the day by the folks at Suncor, I had to remind myself that energy production was the whole point of the endeavour. Aside from the actual extraction plant, where the liquefied black gold oozes forth, all the talk is about the environment, aboriginal relations and community involvement. It’s almost as if an enormous social development project – recreation centres, health clinics, mobile dentistry units, school funding, investment in aboriginal enterprises, immigration assistance, translation services – was the main task, with a lucrative sideline in energy production to fund it all.
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