A tar sands CEO - Marcel Coutu of Oil Sands Trust (Syncrude) - finally had the audacity to say out load what we have known for months his industry is thinking: make the rest of Canada pay for the massive increases in pollution the industry wants to inflict upon our deteriorating atmosphere.
We've documented this very issue in the Report "Divided We Fall" that shows the tar sands industry quickly taking up all the space underneath a hard cap on emissions should the federal government give it special treatment under a coming national cap and trade system. Who pays for this special treatment? Mainly the manufacturing sector in Ontario and Quebec.
We also polled on this very issue in August and found coast-to-coast opposition to giving the tar sands industry weaker pollution controls than the rest of the country in order to let it expand.
Even though we knew it to be true, it's still shocking, though, to have someone say out load that somehow his pollution is more special than the next person's, that his industry should be allowed to inflict even greater damage on our kids so that it can be allowed to expand.
The ball is very clearly in the court of federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice on this issue. He's denied that his behind-closed-doors design of a national cap and trade system is going to give special treatment to the tar sands, but has refused to provide any specifics in this regard beyond vague platitudes.
We've got about 40 days until UN climate negotiations open in Copenhagen and Canada is absolutely nowhere in terms of being able to show up with any kind of national consensus on how we should be cutting carbon and transitioning to the clean energy economy. The fact that Mr. Coutu can still stand up with a straight face and say "make others pay" is a tesitment to the lack of leadership on this file from the Harper government.
Matt Price
Program Manager
Climate and Energy
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