Canadian government overhauling environmental rules to aid oil extraction

DAN RIEDLHUBER/REUTERS - New Democratic Party leader Thomas 
Mulcair, right, speaks at the Alberta Legislative Building in Edmonton
 on Thursday after an aerial tour of the Alberta oil sands.

The Washington Post takes notice of Bill C-38, the Fisheries Act and tomorrow's Black Out Speak Out demonstration. 

Canadian government overhauling environmental rules to aid oil extraction

By Juliet Eilperin,

The Washington Post

Sunday, June 3, 2012

For years, Canada has been seen as an environmental leader on the world stage, pushing other nations to tackle acid rain, save the ozone layer and sign global treaties to protect biodiversity.

Those were the old days.

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is rewriting the nation’s environmental laws to speed the extraction and export of oil, minerals and other materials to a global market clamoring for Canada’s natural resources.

“The government is saying, politically, we want to hitch our wagon to an economic development strategy in which natural resource extraction plays a very large part,” said Brian Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a public policy think tank in Ottawa.

The government has added provisions to an omnibus budget bill that would revamp the way the government reviews the environmental impact of major projects, regulates threats to fisheries and scrutinizes the political activities of nonprofit groups.

Economic and political factors account for the controversial gambit. High prices for oil and minerals, along with demand from Asia, have given Canada new incentive to tap into its resources, and new technology has made extraction easier. And while Harper has been prime minister for six years, his Conservative Party won an outright majority just one year ago.

The strategy has won plaudits from energy industry officials and some economists, while sparking an outcry from environmentalists and their allies in Parliament.

“The idea is simple and straightforward: to make Canada the most attractive country in the world for resource investment and development, and to enhance our world-class protection of the environment today for future generations of Canadians,” said Christopher Plunkett, spokesman for the Canadian government in the United States.

Rick Smith, executive director of the advocacy group Environmental Defence Canada, calls it “a war on nature and democracy.” At least 500 Canadian organizations, along with several hundred in the United States, will darken their Web sites or publish notices Monday to protest the changes as part of a “Black Out, Speak Out” demonstration.

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