The North American tar sands - a recent short history

CanWest, June 2008 : "Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America's addiction to "dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive" oil if he is elected U.S. president - and one of his first targets might well be Canada's oilsands."

Fin Post, Sept. 2008 : Stephen Harper on Friday promised that if elected in October, the Conservatives will prohibit oil sands companies from shipping bitumen from Canada's oil sands to countries that do not have equivalent emission reduction targets.
[Translation : All oil sands bitumen will go to US]

G&M, Nov. 6, 2008 : Environment Minister Jim Prentice :
"When you're talking about the environment, you're also talking about energy, and when you're talking about energy, you're also talking about the economy."

Star, Nov. 9, 2008: "Harper ready to harmonize with U.S. on climate change

Canada would provide a secure oil supply in exchange for common standards on emissions."

CBC : Nov. 10, 2008 : Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach :
"I believe Alberta's oilsands are the key to energy security for North America— likely to be a major goal of the new U.S. administration."

Groundwork on Harper's position, courtesy of :
The Fraser Institute :
"If the new Administration and Congress launch a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions, Canada should lobby for a single Canadian-American approach, rather than separate Canadian and American policies. Such an accord must give special protection for the oil sands industry"


with cheerleading from :
G&M Harper spokescolumnist John Ibbitson :
"Canada should propose a harmonized, universal, continental market, coupled with massive joint investment aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the oil sands, in exchange for guarantees that the U.S. gets all the oil."

Push-polling deep integration for General Dynamics

A mere four days after foisting John Ibbitson's paeon to deep integration on us, the Globe and Mail is at it again, this time reporting on a poll which purports to show that "Canadians want Prime Minister Stephen Harper to work more closely with a new U.S. administration" and "Canadians expect their government to work closely with the U.S. on international problems".
According to this poll, 62% of Canadians would even "adopt American regulatory standards if it would ease restrictions at the border".

As Ibbitson also proclaimed, the reason why this will all be ok is : "Canadians are excited about the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency". Obama, a fine orator whose speeches move me to tears but whose voting record is thus far still somewhere to the right of Stephen Harper's, is apparently the new deep integration selling point to Canadians.

The G&M refers to the institute which commissioned the poll, the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, merely as a "Calgary-based institute".
Rather more useful would have been the information that CDFAI is a lobby group funded by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and "defence contractor" General Dynamics, beneficiary of millions of dollars in arms contracts due to Canadian participation in the U.S War on Terra.

The article also quotes "Colin Robertson, senior fellow with the institute", but fails to mention "he was a member of the team that negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with the United States", information freely available on his CDFAI bio, or that currently Mr. Robertson has been seconded by DFAIT to Carleton University to direct the Canada-US Project, along with fellow continentalist Derek Burney :

Blueprint for Canada-US Engagement under a New Administration
Purpose: To develop a blueprint for a joint Canada-US agenda focused on bilateral and global prosperity and security issues.

Included among its listed "themes" are :

• Canada-US defense cooperation (Note US spelling of defence)
• The North American energy-environment nexus
• Cross-border regulatory cooperation
• Scope and issue areas for greater bilateral cooperation in the Americas

Unsurprisingly, these are the same issues addressed in the CDFAI poll and happily reported in the G&M as Canadians, despite their "healthy skepticism of the Americans", enthusiastically supporting greater ties.

Thanks, G&M. Can hardly wait for your next one. And as CDFAI is holding a one-day conference in Ottawa today - What Does it Mean to Be Good Neighbours? - including Robert Pastor, Vice Chair of the 2005 Task Force on the Future of North America and author of Toward a North American Community, I expect we'll be hearing more of the same from you again quite soon.

"Stephen Harper's Big Thing"

John Ibbitson at the G&M has a "New Big Idea", which he also proposes to call "Stephen Harper's Big Thing" :

"a revolutionary new agreement that would transform both Canada and the U.S., truly launching the continent into the 21st century."

Good for you for finally coming out, John.
After years of pissing about, defending the very jelly bean-ness of the Security and Prosperity Partnership - It's not about deep integration; it's just about efficiency! It's not scary! Oh noes, it's dead now because of those whiny nationalists - you finally get down to it :

"This is the perfect time to do something big. This is the time for a North American environmental, security and economic accord."

And what a great name you have chosen for it - The Big Idea.
The "Big Idea" was also the name coined by the C.D. Howe Institute in 2002 for their Shaping the Future of the North American Economic Space: A Framework for Action, but I'm sure they'll be happy to hear you want to revive it. As I recall, that report suggested that Canada could woo the US into deeper integration with us by joining the war on terra and offering them free access to our water and oil.

Oh, that is what you mean :

"Canada should propose a harmonized, universal, continental market, coupled with massive joint investment aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the oil sands, in exchange for guarantees that the U.S. gets all the oil."

All the oil?

"Let's not stop there. Let's propose a joint security agreement to prescreen goods and people coming into the continent. Let's set a joint tariff. Let's remove national protections on cultural and financial services."

Because I ask you what could be better for Canada right now than hitching our wagon to US security agreements and US finances? But let's not stop there, John. How about US medicare too?

Congratulations, John. As the only journalist invited to the SPP leaders' meet-ups, you have finally proven your worth to them. And a big idea shout-out to the G&M too, for having the guts to go public with this. We always knew you had it in you.

SPP : Is it pining for the fjords?

After months of fretting over the delicate health of his apparently moribund and sadly misunderstood patient, John Ibbitson has finally declared : The Security and Prosperity Partnership is dead.

Oh ye of little faith, John.

Sure, the NACC and various bizness leaders bitched and moaned at the slow pace of implementing their anti-democratic corporate agenda, going so far as to threaten to call Montebello off if they didn't get their way. Sure half of them declined to attend.

But you have to look at the big picture, John.
The SPP is only the latest incarnation in a long line of attempts to open up Mexican labour and Canadian resources to US corporations while gathering all of North America under its nuclear empire umbrella.
Here...take some heart from this newly released White Paper from the Hudson Institute : Negotiating North America : The Security and Prosperity Partnership :

"The SPP process is the vehicle for the discussion of future arrangements for economic integration to create a single market for goods and services in North America."
"The most important feature of the SPP design is that it is neither intended to produce a treaty nor an executive agreement like the NAFTA that would require congressional ratification or the passage of implementing legislation in the United States. The SPP was designed to function within existing administrative authority of the executive branch."

And just in case you didn't get that the first time, they repeat it :

"The SPP's design places negotiation fully within the authority of the executive branch in the United States."

Now to be fair, the report sees the possible demise of the SPP in this lack of transparency and congressional oversight and suggests this be corrected in future. But, ya know, it's lonely at the top, power corrupts, and rulers make bad lovers :

"The US has tried to overcome the defensive instincts of its neighbours by structuring negotiations in such a way that the US advantages are minimized, treating negotiators for Canada and Mexico as equals and partners."

Equals and partners - just like you always wanted, John.
But wait, here's the bit to gladden your heart.
After noting, like yourself, that opposition to the SPP is coming from both "excluded Congress" and "a fractious group of critics on both the left and right", plus "exploitation by groups such as al Qaeda that have been remarkably sophisticated in capitalizing on divisions among Americans", the report notes :

"There are signs that debates over future North American arrangements are overflowing the limits of the SPP"

and ends by suggesting :

"It may ultimately be necessary to redesign and re-launch a new process to take up the work of the SPP under a new acronym."

Gosh, I can hardly wait. A redesign and a new acronym.

SPP : Streamlining Pipeline Projects

Yesterday Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn (Con - Oilslick) met with his US and Mexican counterparts in Victoria to discuss strategy "to ensure speedy regulatory review of the major pipeline projects needed to carry growing volumes of oil sands crude to U.S. markets" in advance of the Three Amigos SPP meetup in Quebec next month.

From the Globe and Mail Business Page :

"We need to look at the regulatory approval process to make sure it is done as quickly and efficiently as possible," Mr. Lunn said.

Lunn was a good deal more proactive than that as reported in Oilweek Magazine earlier this month :

"Ottawa is creating a centralized process for project approvals to increase investor confidence," Lunn said from Calgary.“Our goal is to cut approval time in half."

Because nothing says labour standards and enviromental oversight like a government whose aim is to cut regulations in half.

G&M : ConocoPhillips Co. chairman Jim Mulva said last week the company is eyeing an expansion of the planned pipeline network down to the Gulf Coast, and a refurbishment of its refineries there so they can process oil sands bitumen.

Oilweek : “The prize is that there are a lot of refineries on the Gulf Coast, and they can increase their capacity to turn bitumen into refined products more cheaply than anywhere else,‘‘ said analyst Steven Paget, with First Energy Capital Corp.
"The existing refineries also have the capacity to grow bigger over time without major expansions, so don‘t expect any new Canadian refineries to be announced any time soon," he added.

G&M : "But industry officials worry that regulatory process, which involves the U.S. State Department and several individual states as well as Canadian governments, could prove to be a serious logjam."

After a nod to Council of Canadians and Parklands Institute's opposition to SPP's "deepening continental integration and robbing Canada of control over its resources", G&M concludes :

"But on the energy front, Canada committed to a continental market long ago - in the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement, and the North American free-trade deal.
Now, governments are essentially dealing with plumbing, looking to clear regulatory blockages."

Yes, not much left for government to do anymore but give the country Drano enemas to flush away all that unsightly regulatory shit.
Someone wake up John Ibbitson so he can pen another column about how all this is just "a conspiracy theory" in the editorial pages of the very same newspaper that published the business page above.