MARGARET ATWOOD
Can Canadian oil green-clean itself?
Canadian oil has a problem; or rather, it has several problems. Those problems are: 1. The low price of oil; 2. The dirty image of oil-sands oil; 3. Inept political leadership; 4. The new forms of energy coming on stream.
Because Canadian oil has problems, Canada has problems too. We’ve been joined at the hip: If it’s in a mess, Canada’s in a mess. Or something of a mess. What should we do?
The first problem – the low price of oil – is beyond our control, but the extent of our investment in it is not. Unfortunately for us, the Harper government overinvested in oil. This once seemed like a plausible gamble, which must be why we didn’t flinch while Stephen Harper backed oil with sack-loads of subsidies: $34-billion a year according to the International Monetary Fund that covers the societal costs of the industry in Canada. Jobs and prosperity would both abound, we were assured. Anyone who breathed a negative word against the subsidy flow was viewed as unpatriotic and treated as next door to a terrorist.
Thanks Ivan
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