Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Social Impacts

Social Impacts. Overnight injections of migrant workers will not build healthy communities and can have severely adverse impacts on existing communities, especially those of indigenous nations on their traditional lands. Such development brings vices and long term displacement too often. Drugs, alcohol and associated violence spreads. Hunting becomes difficult when the land is threatened, leading to a further loss of culture and tradition. In towns like Fort McMurray there is no planning for the future, but merely consumption in the present. However transient the individuals may be, the populations will not leave, as “development” takes on a logic all its own. All levels of run away development are subordinate to that development, not social need.

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India eyes $2.5 bln investment in Canada tar sands

Thu Jul 3, 2008 7:38am EDT

MADRID (Reuters) - Indian firms could invest $2-$2.5 billion for stakes in
Canadian tar sands projects, a top official said on Thursday, as part of
efforts to secure overseas energy assets to fuel the country's fast-growing
economy.

Oil Secretary M.S. Srinivasan said at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid
the companies were looking to pick up holdings rather than buy foreign
firms.

Earlier this year, the head of state-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp (

Kinder Morgan ramping up pipeline plans (to north BC)

Kinder Morgan ramping up pipeline plans
Dormant northern leg being revived
Jon Harding
Canwest News Service
Wednesday, July 02, 2008

CALGARY -- A second large shipper of oil from Canada to the United States has confirmed interest is heating up between Canadian producers and refining customers in Asia and along the United States' West Coast.

Keystone Hearings in Saskatchewan

Information flows at pipeline gathering
The Shaunavon Standard (Saskatchewan)
July 2, 2008

Local landowners and the general public had an opportunity to get a first hand look at a proposed new $7 billion pipeline project that will pass through Southwest Saskatchewan. Local landowners and the general public had an opportunity to get a first hand look at a proposed new $7 billion pipeline project that will pass through Southwest Saskatchewan.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is a crude oil project originating in Alberta and extending south to serve markets on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Come to Canada! But only if you've got a job

Stories of Canada looking to poach British citizens are wildly exaggerated. We're only interested in professionals who can help us dig up oil.

Heather Mallick
guardian.co.uk, // Wednesday July 2, 2008

Pissed-off workers of Britain, Alberta wants YOU.

I beg your pardon? Alberta. It's a western province of Canada. The Rockies? Edmonton? Calgary, had the Olympics in 1988? A variety of scenic spots named after various homely minor Royals of the Victorian era?

Calgary: Rental crisis fund hits $43.5M

Rental crisis fund hits $43.5M
Province pays 10,000 claims a month
Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, July 01, 2008

A provincial emergency fund designed to help renters in dire straits has ballooned to more than six times its original size -- going to $43.5 million from the $7 million announced by the Stelmach government.

More than 62,000 requests for emergency cash were granted in less than a year following the spring 2007 unveiling of the Homeless and Eviction Prevention Fund.

Foreign workers deserve protection-- Calgary Herald Editorial

Foreign workers deserve protection
Calgary Herald
Published: Sunday, June 29, 2008

The measurement of success for all employment programs, in particular one aimed at easing Alberta's labour crisis, is whether it's a win-win -- for the employer and the employees.

With that in mind, judging from the numerous reports of abuse -- including the latest revelations of exploitation of 120 Chinese workers paid a fraction of what they were owed for building tanks at a northern Alberta oilsands site -- it seems the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is failing miserably.

Keystone Pipeline II?

West River Oil Pipeline Plans

In a few weeks, TransCanada will begin construction on its Keystone pipeline in eastern South Dakota.

But Monday the Candadian company was busy talking with South Dakotans on the western side of the state about a second proposed crude oil pipeline called the Keystone XL. TransCanada says the second line is in response to the high demand for oil in the United States.

"Will Canada last?"

Will Canada last?
by Murray Dobbin
June 30, 2008

What will it take persuade Canadians that if they do not act soon to reverse the course of their nation, there will be nothing left to save? I am talking, of course, about so-called "deep integration" and its official expression, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

Truth and consequences in the last days of cheap oil

By Michael Klare
Truth and consequences in the last days of cheap oil

At the hastily convened global oil summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on June 28, top officials of producing and consuming nations from around the world attempted to find a combination of solutions that would somehow extricate us from the current crisis over sky-high energy prices. These proposals ranged from increased output by major producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to restrictions on the activities of international oil speculators.

Tar-sands stocks will sink if oil price slides

Tar-sands stocks will sink if oil price slides
Jun 27, 2008 04:30 AM
Bill Carrigan

Proponents prefer the cleaner "oil-sands" tag and opponents prefer the dirtier "tar-sands" tag. Of course, investors older than 50 tend to use the original term, tar sands.

Lately it's difficult not to notice the growing controversy over the runaway development of Canada's tar sands and its contribution to global warming. Migratory bird deaths at a Syncrude tailings pond in April delivered another public-relations blow to tar-sands companies.