Blood minerals feed conflict in Congo – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – December 1, 2012)

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO — A few hours after rebel fighters swept into Goma last week, a mysterious convoy of six trucks rumbled up to the Rwandan border on the edge of the city. They were loaded with “conflict minerals” – including tin and tantalum – from warehouses in Goma.

The potholed streets of this sprawling, refugee-filled city, built on volcanic rock, were largely empty. Most people were huddled inside their shacks or high-walled compounds as the rebels seized the city. But at about 5:30 p.m., just before the frontier closed, the trucks reached the border and the guards allowed them to cross from Congo into Rwanda.

“A convoy of six trucks at the same time is unusual,” said Fidel Bafilemba, a conflict-minerals researcher in Goma who received a flood of calls from witnesses when the trucks crossed the border. “Rwanda knew the city had fallen to the rebels, yet they allowed those trucks to enter. They should have stopped them.”

The M23 rebels have been promising for several days to withdraw from Goma, although the pullout was delayed on Friday when United Nations peacekeepers refused to allow the rebels to take a cache of army munitions and equipment from Goma’s airport.

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Suddenly, everyone’s an economic nationalist – by Doug Saunders (Globe and Mail – December 1, 2012)

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

If you’re a true-blue free-market conservative, this moment could not have been better engineered to make your head explode.

At some point before Dec. 10, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet will have to choose between less-free markets or more government involvement in the economy. Mr. Harper will have to decide whether Ottawa will accept or reject two foreign purchases of Canadian petroleum companies, Nexen Inc. and Progress Energy Resources Corp.

This will be a test of the long-accepted principle, articulated by Brian Mulroney in 1985 and broadly accepted by all Canadian governments since, that “Canada is open for business” and welcomes foreign investment.

In the three decades since, Industry Canada has received 1,664 applications for foreign takeovers of Canadian companies, leading to a foreign-ownership stake of $915-billion. So far, it has formally rejected only one.

What complicates things is that the buyers in the Nexen and Progress Energy cases are state-owned corporations: China’s giant oil company CNOOC, and Malaysia’s Petronas.

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Joe Oliver pledges gentler approach to selling natural resources projects – by Nathan Vanderklippe (Globe and Mail – December 1, 2012)

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Calgary — Joe Oliver is standing by the foreign “radicals” barbs that incited anger among many Canadian environmentalists and others opposed to some resource development.

But the federal Natural Resources Minister is nonetheless promising a kinder, gentler approach to selling pipelines, making personal visits to first nations leaders and pledging to take public feelings into account.

It is a hint of a change in course for the federal government, which has spent years strongly promoting projects like the Northern Gateway pipeline – and deriding critics – at a time of increasing public opposition to such projects.

“Facts and information [are] crucial. But it’s not enough,” Mr. Oliver said in Calgary Friday at an energy summit organized by the Economic Club of Canada. The public, he said, has to be convinced that government is working “to protect Canadians and to protect the environment, and that we care about these issues – and we’re with them when they express their love for the natural beauty of this fantastic country.”

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Ottawa dials down support for Northern Gateway pipeline, citing ‘huge challenges’ – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – December 1, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

CALGARY — With new options firming up to pipe Western Canadian oil to Eastern Canada, and a decision in the United States on the Keystone XL pipeline months away, Ottawa appears to be dialing down its support for the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline through northern British Columbia.

In a discussion Friday with energy industry leaders in Calgary, Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, said Ottawa is still very keen to develop new markets for Canada’s oil, but is also keeping an eye on public opinion.

“If we don’t get people on side, we don’t get the social licence — politics often follows opinion — and so we could well get a positive regulatory conclusion from the joint panel that is looking at the Northern Gateway, but if the population is not on side, there is a big problem,” he said at the Canada Energy Summit hosted by the Economic Club of Canada.

“We understand there are huge challenges there, and looking at that and how we can deal with it and looking at all the alternatives at the same time.” It’s a new tone for the minister, who during a visit to Alberta last summer said: “Gateway, in our opinion, is in the national interest.”

Mr. Oliver said he supports the eastern option because refineries can purchase crude at lower prices than they are paying now to foreign producers, there is opportunity to create jobs, and even reduce the price of fuel.

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