There's nothing that the Chinese government likes more than Western leaders dropping all that human rights stuff and instead coming around to kowtow before them, as Steven Harper will do with President Hu Jintao this week. The Chinese government is so pleased, it will even give him the panda treatment, freeing up two bears to visit the Toronto zoo.
And what has brought about this change? In a word: Oil.
A few years ago, the Chinese government was definitely not in the panda mood. Its pipeline to the tar sands across Northern B.C. was going nowhere, seemingly unloved by Harper who instead had the audacity to meet with the Dalai Lama, that notorious "splittist" still carrying on about how his homeland has been invaded and his people violently persecuted, even today.
PetroChina ended its agreement with Enbridge and the message was sent that Ottawa needed to do more to get the pipeline done.
Fast forward a few years and Enbridge puts together a secretive $100 million war fund from Chinese state oil companies and others to mount a regulatory and public relations push for the pipeline. But, has Harper heard the lesson? Has Harper heard his Hu?
Absolutely. About a month ago, the Harper government and its agents unleashed a bully campaign on behalf of China's pipeline, attacking opponents, discrediting Canadian voices, and even financially threatening a charity that supports one of the critics.
Team Harper's labelling of critics as "foreign radicals" would resonate with his Chinese hosts who use similar bully rhetoric, although it may also make them nervous considering all that Chinese money that has gone into Enbridge's lobbying campaign inside Canada. Harper can console them on this point though: Hypocrisy does not apply to those uninterested in self-reflection.
So Harper has heard his Hu and is now fully engaged on his behalf. Harper tries to wrap this pipeline up in language about Canada's "national interest," but allows no definition of that term that does not coincide exactly with what the tar sands industry wants, which is mindless expansion at any cost.
Yet Harper is unlikely to inform his hosts that despite his best efforts, the democracy called Canada is not ready to rubber stamp this pipeline just yet. He probably won't say that First Nations remain vehemently opposed and can at the very least tie the project up in court for many years. He also won't say that his bullying is backfiring, or that British Columbia simply doesn't want the pipeline and could very well elect a government that won't let it happen.
Overall, Canadians will be happy to see panda bears, but they want even more to protect their very own spirit bears from oil spills and that means no tar sands pipeline to China.
More importantly, they want a government that doesn't sell out Canadian values -- going from supporting victims like the Dalai Lama to bullying its own people -- all to promote a dirty product that is stealing the future from our children.
David Suzuki: Rally to Restore Sanity in Canada's Oil Industry
Harper in China: Juggling oil sales and core principles - thestar.com
7 big topics for Harper's China trip (including pandas) - World - CBC ...
BBC News - Oil spurs Canada PM Stephen Harper visit to China
Harper Builds Oil Link With China After Obama Keystone 'Slap ...
Harper's oil pitch to China faces big hurdles | Energy | News ...
As Syrians are dying, crying out for the UN and the world to help them..
Harper, hat in hand, will be bowing to Chinese buyers for his tar sands oil. His
belief that the market is god as Caterpillar decamps with our intellectual property, tax credit dollars,
and destroyed jobs - surely he must be feeling a little stupid ... Look, the emperor has no clothes on.
Harper and China: BC First Nations Send Letter to Chinese President on Eve of Visit
http://yinkadene.ca/index.php/media/harper_china_visit
From now on, I won't be able to picture Stephen Harper without huge elephant ears!
This is the usual nonsense promoted by environmentalists. Canada is not going to be held hostage by the bean sprouters and the NIMBY crowd.
No sane oil producer would limit his market to a single buyer, and the US will learn a valuable lesson from attempting to shut down development of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
So, I wish the Prime Minister every success , in China.
The billions of barrels of oil Alberta will be exploited - objections of environmentalists, native groups and spirit bears notwithstanding.
It is essential that the very best practises be used to minimize damage, whether environmental or cultural. To this end, the resistance of the various groups opposed my have a good result.
But there is absolutey no chance at all that this resource will not be exploited; in a world soon to run short of oil, there is just no possibility that this stuff will be left in the ground. If Canada were to make a decision to shut the whole project down, how long would it take for the Americans to "convince" us to reopen it?
I wonder what would happen if we were to cultivate this resource over a longer timeline, maybe a much longer timeline. Would it allow for less environmental damage (at least on a yearly basis)? Better efficiency in both how we retrieve it and how we use it? And what about the possibility of using it for the other things we use petro-chemicals for, rather than burning it as fuel. We could even use it to boost up our manufacturing sector.
None of these questions seemed to be getting asked.