Whether or not you're an NDP supporter, the party can be pretty proud of its history of standing up for progressive ideas. It's been a powerful voice for unionized workers across Canada, and around the world. The NDP has stood strong for gender equality and Aboriginal rights; a commitment to worldwide human rights has been a key pillar of the NDP's character since its very beginning.
So, why does NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp want to toss all of that proud party history aside in his blind crusade against the oil sands?
In his Globe and Mail column earlier this week, Topp attacked the federal government for defending Canada's oil exports as ethical. We've heard environmental extremists dismiss the ethics of oil before, arguing that the only ethical approach to oil is not to use it at all -- a utopian ideal that ignores the fact that we don't have any workable alternatives to oil, which is why it's critical that we differentiate our oil based on whether it promotes peace and human rights or not.
Those arguments are just naive. But Topp's attack on the oil sands is outright nasty and offensive. It has to be read to be believed:
"In addition to being a global salesman for carbon, Peter Kent can take on a new ethical sales job: Let's get into ethical landmines. Consistent with their vision, the Harper team can next withdraw from the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa Treaty.After all, if the world's despots and paramilitaries can't buy ethical landmines from Canada, they'll have to buy them from countries like Iran, Burma, and China. To the Harper government's mind, it's not ethical for a child to be killed by a landmine produced by prison labour, or in a country where women are not allowed to vote. Not when they could be killed by a landmine produced ethically right here in Mr. Harper's Canada."
Topp is mouthing the language of peace and human rights, but he doesn't actually believe it. If he did, he wouldn't be arguing against oil sands exports and ultimately working to ensure that Americans continue to bankroll OPEC countries that persecute ethnic and sexual minorities, subjugate women, and lack any reasonable standard of workers' rights. Thwarting Canadian oil sands development means protecting the worldwide oil dominance of misogynist, gay-murdering, terror-sponsoring regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia. If we want to stand against war and death and destruction, including the use of land mines, supporting ethical oil over the conflict oil of violent tyrants is exactly the place to start.
But worse than his disingenuous claims to care about peace and security, Topp goes further: he actually insults the thousands of Canadian working families who proudly earn their living from the oil sands. If only Topp had the nerve to go to Fort McMurray and stand before a roomful of union workers from the oil sands -- well-paid men and women who take pride in their work -- and tell them to their face that he considers them the merchants of death and destruction. The oil sands industry also employs more Aboriginals than any other industry in the country. Topp wants to take those jobs away from them.
In a 450 word column, Brian Topp shows his disdain for the rights of women, minorities, and workers worldwide while slandering an entire industry of unionized workers.
Follow Kathryn Marshall on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KVMarshall
David Suzuki: The Twisted Logic, and Ethics, of Nature's Opponents
Matt Price: On the Trail of Ethical Oil's Secrets
Hannah McKinnon: Canada Should Fight a Pollution Battle Instead of a PR Battle
Melissa Gorrie and William Amos: Exposing the Blind Side of the Ethical Oil Campaign
Landmines can be next ethical export for Harper government ...
The myth of ethical oil | rabble.ca
Keystone XL: A pipeline that should not be built - The Globe and Mail
I can see, you need to look at some photo's in order to straighten out your logic over this statement!
Here: http://tinyurl.com/cx7p2mc , you will find a Conservative President holding hands and face smooching with the Saudi King of the Kingdom, as you would fully expect, each being of the "Oil Faith".
But, you also find a Liberal President doing a "deep bow" in greeting that Saudi Kind of the Kingdom, which you also would fully expect, if you knew how the President of the United States is "selected" and "bankrolled" to power by the wealthy elites, as assembled in that 4000+ membership base of wealthy and corporate elites by David Rockefeller, chairman emeritus.
And, if Harpo ever gets invited to the Kingdom, he too will bow, curtsy and cajole the Saudi King.
And none will dare utter your comments in the King's presence.
I think your logic is impaired overall and it is you that should visit the Unethical Tar Sands and look at those two Hydrogen Gas Plants installed there to reduce the pollution from the "coking" processes.
If every town and city had one of these plants, it would accelerate the emergence of The Hydrogen Economy, of which you are dramatically unaware.
On a more practical side. You aren't going to change the middle east and the way they treat their people. We all want to be out from under OPEC's thumb. The only way that is going to happen is if they run out of oil. I say use OPEC oil until it is gone. Then they'll be back to where they were 75 years ago. Save you're tar sands as a reserve and protect your precious water and people. Don't be in a hurry to destroy your beautiful country.
The simple and unequivocal truth is this: tar sands oil is dirty oil. Extracting it is an environmental disaster; extractiing more of it will be an environmental holocaust. The Canadian government - especially this government - is absolutely dedicated to making Canada a "global energy superpower". It helps that the Conservatives have the ideological rigidity and stupidity to not believe in global warming. But there is no positive argument to be made for tar sands oil. As a society, we need to be moving away from carbon-based resources as fuels.
Compared to what?
In Saudi Arabia, one barrel extracted is one barrel of oil available for us to burn in our cars.
To get one barrel of oil from the tar sands, it takes two barrels of oil. (One barrel to cover the mining and conversion of tar+sand to = oil) This has been widely reported.
as a candidate for the NDP leadership, Brian Topp is entitled to his opinion.
&
and as an oil industry spokesperson, Kathryn Marshall is entitled to hers.
But my question is, who's being more honest about where their opinions come from?
And will the Kathryn Marshall moderators allow me to ask it?
The defining differences between the oil obtained from the Middle East and from the tar sands of Canada and Venezuela are:
-- Grade
-- Environmental impact, and,
-- Economic Return On Investment (EROI)
Extraction of bitumen from the Athabasca oil/tar sands, one of the dirtiest of all crude oils, requires huge amounts of freshwater and energy from shale gas, which is obtained by fracking.
Fracking also requires huge amounts of freshwater and hydro energy necessitating the flooding in British Columbia of another 5,340 hectare of land including over 3,000 hectares of of wildlife habitats, heritage sites and agricultural land . Extraction of both shale gas and bitumen comes at untold cost to Canada’s natural environment -- especially freshwater --and indigenous groups.
The only source of energy (including wind, tidal, photovoltaic, nuclear, and geothermal) with a worse EROI than oil from tar sands is bioenergy. What is unethical is the conscious decision by Canadian legislators to subsidize and permit carbon-intensive and economically inefficient forms of energy -- like oil from tar sands and natural gas from shale deposits -- to the detriment of human and environmental health. That is the moral outrage.
Does 1% of the flow of the river seem about right?
The oil sands oil has a smaller carbon footprint than much of the oil from the unethical producers.
People before profits
Nations before corporations
Either we cherish our biosphere or we go extinct. It might take a thousand years to reach that point, but that's no excuse. We're all in it together, it's about time we act the part.
Truth be told, that when we or us exploit this resource will it be a benefit to us the public with cheaper prices at the pump? I would say no,but will it be benefit for the econmic well being of the country? Again I would say no. Would exploiting the tar sands be of economical benefit to big oil? yes! This just seems that our government is exploiting the people on behalf of big oil.
Why must we go through this rapid expansion now, cannot we exploit this resourse as we do today?
Slow and steady would be the way to go for the sake of mother earth.
These Tar Sands need to be exploited slowly, not rapid expansion!
Fair trade coffee?
Thanks for your insight. It has shown me that the oil industry will go to any length to support its investments. To highlight NDP Brian Topp’s statements is one thing, but to suggest you can play critic to human right abuses, and at the same time play an advocate for unions and aboriginals insults my intelligence. While you advocate on behalf of the tar sands to the American public, I hope you don’t fall victim to your own propaganda. American thirst for oil can never be quenched by crude bitumen while it wages illegal military campaigns, and is addicted to a lifestyle of gluttony. Furthermore, you should educate yourself on the legacy of the oil industry’s treatment of the environment, unionized staff and indigenes communities before you declare them employers of the month.
You want to buy oil from Canada or you want to buy it from military dictatorships in the war torn areas of the world?