Five Things You Need to Know About Harper and The Environment

ONE:
Parliament ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2002, committing Canada to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2012. The former Liberal government's failure to implement such reductions is expected to leave Canada 44% above its permitted Kyoto amounts by 2010, but at least the Liberals maintained their verbal support for Kyoto. The Harper government has reneged on the protocol altogether, announcing in April 2006 that it had no intention of meeting its Kyoto targets. A month later, it cut all the environmental funding designed to meet the Kyoto standards.

TWO:
The tar sands in Alberta are by far the largest contributor and fastest growing source of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions that intensify global warming. No matter the cost, the Harper government has been relentless in its push for the rapid, unchecked development of the tar sands. It favours a five-fold increase in production — from one million barrels a day today to five million barrels a day by 2030. Not a single application for tar sands development has ever been denied. Production is planned to double by 2012 and triple by 2018. By that time, annual emissions from the tar sands will triple from 25 million tonnes to 75 million tonnes.

THREE:
The tar sands help fuel the American military machine. Canada exports 750,000 barrels of oil daily to the United States, much of it to meet that country's military demand. The Harper government plans to have three more major pipelines built to the U.S. to keep that country's energy needs well supplied – although there is still no east-west pipeline to transport Alberta petroleum to Eastern Canada, which is forced to import 40% of its oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries. The three new pipelines are expected to convey over one million more barrels of fuel a day to the U.S.

FOUR:
The tar sands are a voracious consumer of natural gas and water. Each tar sands barrel requires up to 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas, and, given planned expansion, it is projected that tar sands plants will be using four times as much natural gas by 2018. Burning so much comparatively clean and valuable gas to create dirty tar sands oil — especially when our proven reserves of natural gas are near depletion-- has been compared to using gold to make lead. Tar sands production also requires massive and unsustainable quantities of water—now up to 4.5 barrels of water for every barrel of bitumen—which ends up in huge toxic tailing ponds, some so big they can be seen from space. The Athabasca River, from which the water is extracted, is not expected by water experts to be able to maintain sufficient flows to meet the tar sands' growing thirst.

FIVE:
Since tar sands production started to increase, the people of Fort Chipewayan and other communities downstream have been plagued by high rates of abnormal cancers, such as those of the liver, blood, and bile duct, as well as other diseases and an ever-increasing death rate. Dangerous levels of mercury and arsenic have been found in nearby streams, and the fish and animals on which the Cree rely for food have been contaminated. Although the federal government has a legal responsibility for First Nations health care under the Indian Act and numerous treaties, the health crisis near the tar sands has been ignored by the Harper government. The health of the First Nations people evidently ranks far behind promotion of tar sands development in its list of priorities.

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-MB
309-323 Portage Ave Winnipeg, MB R3B 2C1
ph: (204) 927-3200 // fax: (204) 927-3201 // www.policyalternatives.ca
CAW Local 567