Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands
By Ezra Levant
McClelland & Stewart
All Canadians, in and out of the Oil Industry in Alberta, should read this book.
Alberta has had oil since Leduc blew in, and the development at Fort McMurray offers an enormous economic boom, but the media is making us out to be the black hats; the bad guys. We should hang our heads in shame.
Ezra Levant has done a dangerous thing in the writing of this book. The first chapter is called: The Shocking Truth About the Oil Sands. This is followed in the first few pages, by all the “bad” news and propaganda we’ve all heard. Then in the last paragraph, he says,
“Wow. The oil sands are embarrassing. Not just for Albertans but for anyone in Canada who cares about the environment, or Aboriginal rights, or our international reputation.
Except, it’s not true. Every single fact in the preceding pages is false. Every one of them.”
One by one, he takes the “facts” we’ve been sold by lobbyists like Green Peace and The Pembina Institute, and he blows them out of the water.
Albertans and Canadians, he says, should be proud of the oilsands and the way Canadians do business in the “Patch”. He’s quite ready to admit that environmentally we can do better and we are, and we will.
But consider the other oil producing countries of the world. Saudi Arabia is the biggest producer and supplier to the U.S. market. Saudi is a fascist theocracy with no human rights and little regard for human life or the environment. Mexico, nominally a democracy, is riven with crime and corruption. Then there is Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq, Angola, and Algeria, all corrupt, undemocratic countries, whose poor see no benefit from their oil. China is a huge producer, their pollution problems are legendary, and when they have a spill, (and they have), the world doesn’t hear about it. Greenpeace does not bully such countries, because they would be shot. Canada is a great place to protest, we don’t shoot people here.
We do not want to be good by comparison, so this author tells you all about Fort McMurray; the town, with it’s lady mayor, and its work force of Canadians including aboriginals, men and women. He talks about water testing by provincial law, and reclamation projects. The ordinary people profit hugely from this development, which cannot be said of many oil producing countries There is no “blood” in the oil produced in Canada and the lowliest employee is very well paid. The reader will wonder, “OK, who are the real people behind the hatchet job, who wants the Tar Sands development stopped?” As the saying goes, “follow the money.” This author says, the Saudi’s lost big bucks when American began buying more oil from Canada. Could they be behind the lobby in the US to boycott our Oil?
Read this, it’s an important book for Albertans and all Canadians.
Peggy Freeman is a freelance writer living in Red Deer.