The oil sands have a new defender: freshly minted Environment Minister Peter Kent, who calls Canada’s tarry resource an “ethical” source of energy that should take priority in the U.S over foreign producers with poor democratic track records.
He balked at naming rival overseas suppliers that should take a back seat to Canadian oil-sands petroleum, saying he didn’t want to upset diplomatic relations.
But the minister’s characterization of the oil sands as “ethical” embraces a notion advanced by Calgary author Ezra Levant. Mr. Levant, a onetime aide to Stockwell Day, has helped popularize the argument that oil-sands petroleum is ethically superior to petroleum produced by countries such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iran – all nations that also sell crude to the U.S. market or Asian markets. It’s an attempt to beat back efforts by U.S. politicians and activists who want a boycott of Canada’s oil sands owing to its greenhouse-gas-heavy extraction methods and ensuing environmental damage.
Mr. Kent’s staunch support for the oil sands represents an even more unapologetic stand by the Harper government as it works to comply with the international fight against climate change and ensure U.S. legislators don’t end up stymieing Canadian exports or investment in the sector.
The former TV anchor and foreign correspondent was promoted this week in the Harper cabinet to the hot-button Environment portfolio vacated when Jim Prentice quit politics in late 2010. John Baird filled the role briefly.
An environmental activist-led campaign against Canada’s oil sands has somewhat blackened this country’s reputation in the United States. Mr. Kent said he believes Canada needs to reassure the U.S. government and Americans that oil-sands oil is not the global-warming menace and environmental scourge that critics claim.
“It is a regulated product in an energy superpower democracy,” the minister said in an interview Thursday. “The profits from this oil are not used in undemocratic or unethical ways. The proceeds are used to better society in the great Canadian democracy. The wealth generated is shared with Canadians, with investors.”
Building on this theme later Thursday, Mr. Kent told CBC’s Power & Politics the Obama administration needs to be reminded that, unlike the energy it buys from other foreign suppliers, oil-sands petroleum “is the product of a natural resource whose revenues don’t go to fund terrorism.”
His “ethical oil” marketing strategy is similar to the argument advanced by “fair trade” food companies that market their goods as meeting higher environmental or social standards, such as more generous wages for farmers.
Mr. Kent said he sees part of his new job as setting the record straight on the oil sands – a sector he says has gotten a “bad rap.”
“[It’s] communicating, trying to encourage any discussion with skeptics, if not cynics, that let’s deal with facts,” he said of his new post.
“Oil-sands production accounts, I think, for 5 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse-gas emissions. It’s less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and barely 1 per cent of the equivalent greenhouse-gas emissions by American coal-fired power generators,” he said. “When you look at relevant measurements, it is not nearly the product that has been demonized.”
Mr. Kent said his work history has prepared him for the tension between oil-industry development and environmental protection, noting he was briefly employed in the Calgary oil patch in the 1960s as a purchasing agent for an oil and gas supply company, Travis Mud & Chemical.
As a journalist in the 1970s, he travelled up and down the Northwest Territories’ Mackenzie Valley with Justice Tom Berger, who led an inquiry into whether to build a massive natural-gas pipeline through the region. Mr. Berger’s report recommended a 10-year moratorium on development.
“It’s a few decades old, but I have a feel for the sensibilities of the people, of the environment,” Mr. Kent said.
