America's Dirty Oil Mayors

History has shown an unfortunate flaw of the Canadian mindset that says that when the oil-rich, good-ol’-boy Western Canadian province of Alberta enjoys a lucrative economic boom, the rest of Canada spends its time and energy devising different methods to get their grubby hands on the cash, the province’s economy be damned.

Ottawa’s attempts at our wealth aren’t new, and Albertans have long memories. Pierre Trudeau effectively killed Alberta’s economy for more than a decade with his memorable attempt, sold as ‘necessary to stabilize prices’.

The resulting economic collapse still stings in the memory of our citizens. One mention of the National Energy Program (N.E.P.) is as offensive to some patriotic Albertans as the term Nazi is to some older generation Germans.

The latest attack on Alberta’s current wave of prosperity is something of an old nemesis dressed in a new costume. The environment has long been the excuse for attacks against Alberta’s oil industry, specifically the lucrative oilsands of the Northern part of the province.

The concept is still relatively unknown to most people outside of the province. Using cutting edge thinking and current technology oil is separated from sand dug out of the ground. The oilsands have always been here, but it has only been in the last while that the technology existed that would allow this kind of process.

The enviroNazi movement in the Great White North, led by Canada’s national Nature Boy and our answer to Al Gore, David (if they pollute, lock them up!) Suzuki, has long had it’s crosshairs on Alberta’s Progressive Conservative government and what is perceived as their lack of environmental concern and pro-business bias.

Now, the latest attack on Alberta’s oil industry has come from outside our borders. The simmering of negative press in the United States has been blown up into a full fire with a recent resolution passed by group of U.S. mayors, laughably calling for an import ban on our province’s oil.

Using the Greenpeace-friendly term ‘dirty oil’ in reference to crude drawn from the sand, the leaders of some American cities took lines that sounded right out of Treehugging For Dummies, stopping just short of equating Alberta’s oil industry with the Final Event of Revelations.

Since these American mayors are obviously expert enough on the subject of oilsands production and its subsequent environmental impact, I’d like to pose a few questions.

Hands up: how many of you mayors have visited Fort McMurray and toured a site? How many of you can tell me the basics of oil-from-sand extraction? How many of you got your information from watching An Inconvenient Truth and marching in a peace rally? How many are late for your therapy session? Can any of you – anyone at all – find Alberta on a map?

Among the many important pieces of information suspiciously lacking from the mayor’s skewed release was the failure to mention the fact that the Alberta government is set to announce a new strategy called ‘carbon capture’, which would see the greenhouse gasses emitted in the oilsands buried deep underground, where it will be harmless to the environment and would be naturally absorbed back into nature. Safe and natural. You’d think that would appease the granola crowd.

With a far-left liberal poised to take the White House, America could end up making a huge mistake if the fabricated negative image of Alberta’s oilsands is allowed to influence policy.

We stand as a longtime friend and ally of the United States, and proclaim more ex-patriot American residence than any other Canadian province. We are, for lack of a more sophisticated term, the most ‘American’ province. Hell, we were the only part of Canada who supported George Bush. Twice!

There is no Islamic regime to deal with here. There is no terrorism, no overwhelming cultural barriers, no religious restrictions. Alberta is, compared to all other oil-producing parts of the world, America’s most secure oil source outside of its own borders.

If the leftwing, anti-oilsands agenda is successful, America will lose more than just a valuable source of black gold. Without American business, Alberta would have to look elsewhere – even China – for customers.