Avatar(sands) has our vote

Watching the scenes in the movie Avatar depicting ‘unobtainium’ mining felt eerily like reliving my trip to the tar sands – the pristine forests being torn away to create ugly strip mines, the giant trucks, the obsessive drive for a dwindling resource. The only thing missing from the theatre were the toxic fumes so prevalent when flying over the tar sands.

Today, 55 environmental groups and First Nations from eight countries ran a full-page ad in Variety, the most influential Hollywood magazine, praising Canadian-born James Cameron for bringing to light in his movie the reality of Canada’s tar sands.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Produces shot back by claiming that the ad is blurring the line between fact and fiction, then went on to craft its own fantasy story about the ‘responsible oil’ flowing from the tar sands.

CAPP claimed that “oil sands development does not go ahead without direct and meaningful Aboriginal consultation about both environmental impacts and economic benefits.” Yet George Poitras from Mikisiew Cree First Nation downstream from the tar sands said in response:

“I would question CAPP's take on characterizing us as "their" neighbours. I am a member and former Chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, the largest First Nation in the Athabasca tarsands and today our First Nation has no "formal" relationship with Syncrude or Suncor, that after 40 years is not something I would characterize as good corporate responsibility. They actually have both recently been applying pressure to the First Nations in our community of Fort Chipewyan for speaking out publicly about environmental, health and other issues that we have observed with the unrelenting pace of tarsands development in the past few years.”

CAPP also claimed that “all lands disturbed by oil sands development must be fully reclaimed” yet after 40 years in operation, only 0.2% of the land has been reclaimed. And according to them, Canada “currently has GHG regulation in place.” Um, sorry, but last time we checked Canada was still hiding behind the US on that one. Canada has no regulations to reduce global warming pollution from big polluters like the tar sands.

So who’s really blurring the line between fact and fiction?