Layton targets tar sands
GLORIA GALLOWAY
Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press
September 8, 2008
FORT SMITH, NWT — The plane carrying New Democrat Leader Jack Layton and his NDP entourage swooped over the Alberta tar sands Monday to show vast expanses of northern wilderness despoiled by development.
Ponds filled with tar and the chemicals that remain from oil extraction, forest that have criss-crossed with strips that have been cleared of trees, mines that rise out of nowhere.
Linda Duncan, the environmental advocate who is running for the New Democrats in Edmonton Strathcona, offered a running description of the devastation below. Wildlife has been displaced, she said, ground water has been drained and the local aboriginal community has been warned that each person should eat no more than one fish per month from the polluted Lake Athabaska.
“I came here when I began to learn what was going on here from Albertans who were desperately concerned about what was taking place in the great north of Alberta,” Mr. Layton told reporters during a scrum at the back of his airplane.
“We just passed over those huge toxic ponds and there is absolutely no plan to deal with the massive quantities of toxic water there.”
The oil sands are the largest single contributor to greenhouse gases in Canada. They also provide the livelihood for thousands upon thousands of Canadians who have flocked to places like Fort McMurray, Alta. to take advantage of the energy boom.
But Mr. Layton said the destruction of the Canadian north will haunt future generations and it is time to end the $1.4-billion in federal tax subsidies that go to the oil and gas companies that are exploiting the tar sands.
In addition, there is this mythology that the new approach to taking out the tar sands,
“You can see here is that it's far from benign. It looks like a suburban subdivision,” he said of the hectares and hectares of developed territory than passed beneath the wings of the plane.
“Massive amounts of energy are being used to draw out these fossil fuels, we spend twice as much energy sometimes three times as much energy as we produce just to get the energy out,” he said.
That's why “an increasing number of Albertans, an increasing number of Canadians and people around the world,” said Mr. Layton, are speaking about how the development has got to be brought under control.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper paid a recent visit to the north to talk about what his government would do to ensure Canada's arctic sovereignty. He has also spoken about the importance of the region to the country and to him personally.
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has made the environment a prime plank in his election campaign with his proposal to introduce a carbon tax offset by income-tax cuts. But Mr. Layton is aiming to position his party as the foremost defender of the same issue – one that ranks high on the list of Canadian concerns.
“The first nations who have lived here for thousands of years already can no longer really eat the fish,” he said. “Fish are being discovered will all kinds of toxic aberrations as a result of the poisons that are being put in. Is no one going to say this is going to stop?”
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