David Suzuki

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The ongoing pipeline debates have become mired in conspiracy theories, distractions and misinformation. Is there nothing we can all agree on?
   
Obviously, our most basic human needs are clean air and water, productive soils and a diversity of species. It isn’t controversial to argue we must protect these necessities of life.
   
We also need energy — from a mix of sources. Oil will be in that mix for the foreseeable future. But surely we can all agree that burning fossil fuels is not healthy for humans and the environment. Rational people also agree that doing so is driving dangerous climate change that threatens human existence.
   
Where does that leave us? Canada has tremendous natural wealth, especially energy resources, but we have no plan to guide the way we extract and use them. Indeed, one rarely reads of a national energy plan without seeing a reference to the "hated" National Energy Program brought in by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government in 1980 and killed after Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government won the 1984 election. That plan was a response to the 1970s energy crisis, when oil prices skyrocketed. Its aims were to promote energy self-sufficiency and Canadian ownership, maintain supply, keep prices in check, promote oil exploration and alternative energy sources, and increase government revenues. But it ticked people off in Alberta. They saw it as federal meddling in provincial affairs.
   
History shouldn’t prevent us from getting a new energy strategy in place. To that end, the David Suzuki Foundation is formulating a long-range plan, working with the Canadian Academy of Engineering on the Trottier Energy Futures Project. It’s where I find common ground with people ranging from industry and union leaders to Alberta’s new conservative premier, Alison Redford. Redford calls her idea a "Canadian Energy Strategy" to avoid the dreaded NEP association.
   
With so many bright people involved, surely we can find a way to resolve some of the serious problems we’ve created.
   
Should we send more of our raw bitumen to refineries in the U.S. or China via new pipelines? Keep in mind that the Keystone pipeline, now on hold in light of President Barack Obama’s decision to reject the current proposal, is not for supplying the U.S. with oil, but to take the bitumen to Texas for refining and eventual export.
   
I agree with former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed, one of the NEP’s staunchest opponents, on this one. He argues that shipping all our bitumen to the U.S. or China for refining means sending jobs to those countries instead of keeping them here. He also argues that we should behave like owners of the oil sands.
   
I couldn’t agree more. We Canadians have to remember that oil corporations — regardless of where they’re from — are tenants on our land, not landlords. We should be calling the shots, and deriving the benefits.
   
It’s time to get beyond conspiracy theories about U.S. funding for environmental groups, insults about "radicals," and cheap marketing slogans like "ethical oil". (The David Suzuki Foundation gets less than 10% of its funding from foreign sources, very little of which is used for climate and energy work.)
   
We shouldn’t sell any more of our raw materials or resource industry, expand oil sands production or build new pipelines until we have a plan in place to ensure that Canadians benefit first — from the energy, the jobs, and the wealth. And we should  make damn sure that whatever we do, we do it in a way that minimizes the impact on the environment.
   
Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.