Under Kyoto, a legally binding agreement, Canada needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
If Canada is not meeting its reductions targets now, what is it going to do if new pipelines are built like the Keystone XL project and the oil sands are expanded by roughly 30 per cent to generate enough crude oil to fill these pipelines at an increase of 500,000 barrels a day?
Jobs, which are extremely important to the Canadian economy, will be created in the Alberta Oil Sands and construction of new oil pipelines will generate even more “temporary” jobs.
Canada is receiving the short end of the stick with temporary jobs linked to the construction of new pipelines, while refining jobs down in Texas could remain in operation indefinitely while our oil is flowing south.
In fact, this is one reason as to why the United States government changed its tune about Canada’s “Dirty Oil,” the potential for long-term jobs.
Why not try different energy-generating technologies like they have in Germany, where by end of 2008, it had more than one million solar thermal systems installed on rooftops, generating close to 20,000 long-term jobs and producing 7,300 megawatts of electricity.
If new energy industries are invested in properly, they can create permanent jobs, a cleaner energy grid, less energy dependence, and a healthier way of life for all Canadians.
If Canada gave Canadian renewable energy companies, such as Mondial Energy, a fraction of the money given for the subsidization of oil-sands development (roughly $1 billion annually), operating budgets of Canadian renewable energy companies would grow exponentially and new possibilities and technologies could emerge while creating long-term jobs ranging from research and development, engineering, and general labour for all Canadians.
Canada and its resources are clearly for sale, but at what price?
Sinopec, a Chinese energy giant, has recently placed a bid for Canadian Daylight Energy at a listed $2.2 billion.
The push by Canada, provincially and federally, to open up the Asia-Pacific Gateway is a risk that needs to be slowed, but this pill won’t be easy to swallow for those crooning at the promise of large-scale investment and monumental job creation during these slim economic times.
However, why take a huge risk like cross continent pipelines with the threat of environmental disaster looming?
Why risk foreign investment so large its interests could stand to be immune from federal and provincial law, which are there to protect us?
As you read this, Canadian trade minister Ed Fast is negotiating with China on foreign investment and protection agreements based on bilateral investment. Mr. Fast claims, “Canada is anxious to build a deeper investment and trade relationship with China.”
We should all be anxious. The Canadian government needs to invest in Canada, not China, in economies that stand to truly benefit Canadians for the long run, in so many more ways than just one.
Let’s put money in new renewable technologies and we will have a thriving, diversified energy system and an economy full of new industries leading Canada into a bright and innovative future.
Christopher Summers is a former 100 Mile House resident and the current President of the Delta-South Constituency Association for the BC Conservative Party.
