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Joe Oliver is Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources. These remarks, from a speech titled Canada: A global energy superpower, were made Monday at the Hart House Alumni Committee Dinner Series in Toronto.
Today, the oil sands account for one-10th of 1% — that is one, one-thousandth — of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Studies have shown that life-cycle GHG emissions from the oil sands — the well-to-wheels calculation — are similar to, and in some cases lower than, several of the heavy crude oils produced elsewhere in the world, including California.
Close to 90% of the water used in the oil sands is recycled.
Scientists with my department are working with a consortium of oil sands companies to develop new technologies to deal with tailings. Rather than sitting in open ponds, we may soon see the day where tailings are reduced and compressed into dry, stackable blocks.
Yes, it takes time to reclaim land that has been used for oil sands mining, but it is being done. I walked through a forest in northern Alberta last summer. You would never know it had once been part of an oil sands project.
The key point is that all land must be reclaimed. It’s the law.
These are megaprojects, but the maximum total mineable oil sands area would impact just one-10th of 1% of Canada’s boreal forest. That is about 4,800 square kilometres altogether — we’re protecting nearly 10 times that much land in Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park alone.
These are facts that we need to communicate — to Canadians and to the world — to dispel myths that opponents are propagating. Our government will not sit back and have Canada’s international reputation sullied by people who cannot or will not acknowledge the facts.
The oil sands are just too important to Canada and the world to do otherwise — uninformed criticism and, on occasion, ideologically motivated opposition is putting the timely development of this globally strategic asset at risk.
As a result we must also develop a regulatory system that balances efficiency with effectiveness; one that positions our economy for jobs and growth in a social and environmentally responsible manner.
The existing regulatory regime was developed and expanded over the course of many years, and in numerous jurisdictions with little consultation among them. As a result, it is complex. There are numerous instances of duplication and overlap. We often see both federal and provincial environmental assessments for one project, and these processes can be out of sync.
For the rest of this column, please go to the National Post/Financial Post website: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/01/16/canda-a-global-energy-superpower/