Economics

The social impacts of massive, out of control development in Fort McMurray is costing dearly on the issues of health, particularly for new parents and children, with both inadequate housing and a society with few community driven aspects but a severe amount of alcohol and drug abuse, combined with attendant violence. Even the desperate tone of the situation described in this glossy government pamphlet from Food for Two shows the dire situation for services and basic life conditions. It is set to escalate in a manner absolutely out of control, literally.

from

FAKE PEE BIG ITEM IN OILSANDS CAMPS

For the first few weeks, the products only dribbled out the door. But as word filtered through town and out to the work camps, success of the phony pee business suddenly became surreal. From a land where the rush is on for synthetic oil comes a push for a processed product of a different kind: synthetic urine. Just three months after selling his first bag of fake pee from Herbal Essentials, store owner Kelly Hermansen is moving between 35 and 50 units a week, along with other drugmasking products.

The only thing that is not understood for public consumption is that Enbridge and Trans Canada are not really in competition. These pipe plans, when taken into account along side the recent US nudge to the Federal Government of Canada to heighten production by five times, are not competing but rather complementary with the other pipelines being proposed to move heavy bitumen. This is an indicator of the sheer size of these plans, the scope of the tarsands and what we must do to really effect stopping them.

Sex, Drugs and Alcohol Stalk the Streets of Fort McMurray
Calgary Herald October 22, 2005
Deborah Tetley; With files by Paul Haavardsrud

It's just after 7 p.m. on payday Thursday and downtown Fort McMurray is a gong show.

Inside the storied Diggers bar, dozens of oilsands workers are poised like bingo dobbers over beers, waiting for their name to be bellowed over the PA system so they can cash their paycheques.

At a going rate of $2 on every hundred, it's the best deal in town, outside of $3.50 highballs.

March 9 / 11, 2007
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Crude Alliance

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Counterpunch

Soon after John Kerry had sewed up the delegates needed to seize the Democratic nomination for president in the spring of 2004, he huddled for two hours with James Hoffa, Jr., the noxious boss of the Teamsters union. The topic was oil. The Teamsters wanted more of it at cheaper prices. They had suspicions about Kerry. After all, the senator had already won the backing of the Sierra Club, who touted him as the most environmentally enlightened member of the US senate.

Ottawa to phase out tax break for tarsands producers

SHAWN MCCARTHY

Globe and Mail Update

OTTAWA — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty moved Monday to end a much-criticized tax break for oil sands producers, but softened the blow to the industry by providing a long lead time for the changes.

In his budget speech, the Finance Minister announced the government will phase out the accelerated capital cost allowance which allows oil sands producers to quickly write off the cost of their investment for income tax purposes.

A few quick points.

With the recent holes in all of the so-called "action plans" on climate
change so big you could drive one of the tarsand trucks carrying 400
tonnes of earth through it, the updating of projected costs here is a
giant challenge-- a gauntlet drop, if you will-- at the feet of the
Federal government.

The MGP is now well known to be, despite being the largest industrial
project in settler Canada's history at the time it was first conceived,
just a mere inflow into the vast energy needs of the tarsands. As

These plans are happening in the wake of the document-- only leaked, not for the public-- calling on the Federal government of Canada to quintuple tarsands development. Allowing the continuation of the tarsands process means allowing this infrastructure construction, as well. After all, if the water and the land is destroyed to feed a market, the oil must get to that market. Stopping these pipelines is part of stopping the tarsands.

A moratorium is not enough.

Enbridge Plans Expansion of Pipelines
http://www.dogwoodinitiative.org/newsstories/enbridgeplansexpansion
Feb 06, 2007

Scouring Scum and Tar from the Bottom of the Pit
Petr Cizek

Canadian Dimension Magazine, July/August 2006 Issue
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2006/07/07/557/

N.W.T. natural gas destined for Alberta's oilsands, groups charge

Last Updated: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 | 11:01 AM CT
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/02/27/jrp-edmonton.html
CBC News

A coalition of national environmental groups is concerned that natural gas from the Northwest Territories will be used to fuel oilsands extraction in northern Alberta.