Who knew …

Only those of us who live in tents and don’t drive vehicles can righteously criticize the Alberta oilsands.

… Oops. Actually I own a vehicle now. Therefore I support the oilsands.

Garth linked to an article in the Montreal Gazette criticizing their own Premier and other politicians for disingenuous grandstanding:

Oil patch reeling from unfair attacks

Alberta is being slagged by anti-oilsands ads and criticized by eastern premiers and politicians

… the oilsands, ominously labelled the tarsands, is compared to the worst environmental disaster in American history, which has for three months been spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, posing a major threat to the economy and environment of five states from Texas to Florida. And the companies extracting oil out of bitumen in Fort McMurray are compared to BP.

Everyone likes ducks. But more of them apparently die from flying into wind power turbines than from being soaked in tailing ponds in the oilsands.

Enough already, say Albertans. They are still shaking their heads at the performance of Quebec Premier Jean Charest, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, and Toronto Mayor David Miller, trashing the oilsands on the world stage at the Copenhagen conference on climate change last December.

Since then, Albertans have started pointing out that Ontario and Quebec are beneficiary provinces of equalization, paid for by four donor provinces led by Alberta. Cheap tuition at universities, private high schools half-funded by Quebec, $7-a-day child care and now, in-vitro fertilization treatments in public health care, are all partly supported by Alberta tax dollars. This is what happens when politicians play a short game for easy headlines, rather than the long game that serves everyone’s interests.

And it wasn’t a good day for Michael Ignatieff when the Liberal leader said he wouldn’t permit trans-Pacific shipment of oil on tankers from the coast of northern British Columbia. The next time Iggy goes to China, they’ll want to talk to him about that, because they’ll buy as much product from the oilsands as Alberta is not shipping to the United States. In the oilpatch and pipeline industry, they’re simply gob-smacked by the stupidity of Ignatieff being in favour of the oilsands on the one hand, but against building a northern pipeline and shipping it overseas on the other. …

Read more …

If you don’t drive a motor vehicle, climb on your high horse and criticize the Petro-toxin industry. I’ll applaud you.

Otherwise, don’t you feel a bit sheepish gassing up your vehicle with that “Alberta has the dirtiest oil in the world” bumper sticker.