In this article in the Toronto Star <https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/as-environment-minister-i-believed-the-oil-sands-sector-would-help-us-save-the-planet/article_7ec413be-b260-11ef-bbed-2fa94b59f4f3.html> our former environment minister, Catherine McKenna, says she was wrong to believe the oil sands would help us save the planet. These are important lessons for all of us that may now surpass the Paris aspiration goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me that our industry partners were working against us from the inside. After all, oil is their business, their bottom line. It was only after I left politics that I came to understand the truth: The oil sands sector and the politicians they sponsor aren’t just greenwashing a product. They are working to brainwash Canadians into buying a version of reality that no longer exists. One where oil will forever be the hero of the Canadian economy rather than an impediment to Canada’s future prosperity in a low carbon, climate-safe world.”
What are the lessons learned? The oil and gas sector, for better or for worse, have mostly chosen business as usual, returning the vast majority of their historic profits to shareholders largely outside of Canada, rewarding their CEOs with bonuses of $10 million dollars or more, and ramping up production while increasing their emissions.
One of our more progressive environmental ministers, Catherine McKenna, began to have serious doubts about our conciliatory approach to the oil sands. She explains in the article that the epic fight by the Conservatives to kill carbon pricing was supported and significantly underwritten by oil and gas companies. This opposition is pure ideology.
It is amazing to me that in the sophisticated IT communications ecosystem we have, that the vested interests still have so much power to influence political leaders to stay the course, to continue in the exploitist natural resource economy that we had at the beginning of the industrial revolution—hewers of wood and drawers of water.
