More on Canada Tar Sands Understanding

13.12.19: More details on what tar sands are and impact on the environment.
David Olive's article in the Toronto Star on Dec 13th, 2013, provides a lot of detail on the fading appeal of shale oil.
1. Most costly oil to produce
2. Requires a high oil price to be viable
3. Alberta shale oil get approx $58 a barrel - well below conventional oil prices
4.Fracking, required to get the heavy oil out of shale, is very expensive and high environment impact
This Wikipedia site outlines how Athabasca oil (Alberta Tar Sands or Alberta Shale oil) is produced either by fracking the deep deposits or surface mining the smaller deposits near the surface.   

This site has important information about the very large tar sands deposits in Alberta.
The really important info at this site is the Reality Check. Take a look.
Three facts that stand out:
1. federal taxpayers subsidize oil industry 1.4B/year.
2. 71% of tar sands production is owned by foreign shareholders 
3. tar sands production emit 3 to 4 times the greenhouse gases of crude oil production

No wonder Harper is not supporting the environment!!!

We must do our best to replace him with someone who supports a much cleaner environment ... someone who the rest of the industrial world respects.
In fact, I am coming to the conclusion ANYONE will be better.

But, we must DEMAND more from our political leaders.
I really haven't been impressed with any significant party leader's environmental position to-date. 


As far as coal is concerned, it may be worse than oil but not as bad as tar sands. BTW, there is no such thing as "clean coal".

Maybe we will see environmental specifics when the next federal elections get into gear. If we don't, we need to make demands!

Bill C-13 - watch out for more on this

13.12.09: Stephen Harper is at it again ... continually trying to increase control over taxpayers.
It never ceases to amaze me what he will try to get away with.

This bill (C-13) was tabled last month by Peter MacKay and continues to get adverse attention.

It is labelled the cyberbullying law (to protect our young people on the Internet) and is in an omnibus format (containing many diverse and unrelated items).
The problem with an omnibus format is it limits apposition analysis ... and taxpayers ability to question the proposed legislation.

Globe & Mail Dec 6th
Ottawa Citizen Dec 6th


As Solomon Friedman points out (in the Ottawa Citizen article above), with this government there is always a 'but'.

Included in this bill are a couple of totally unrelated items that give police unprecedented power to impose on taxpayers at their discretion.
The second may not be a concern to Internet users who don't require confidentiality in their Web usage (including me).
The first item, however, is very scary and would certainly change EVERYTHING if it were allowed!.

I do find this "Myths and Facts" site, owned by MacKay's people, particularly offensive and demeaning to Canadians. 
Does he expect taxpayers will believe his convoluted and vague explanations!

As per Solomon:

1. Currently, for police to obtain search warrants or production orders, they must demonstrate to a judge that they have “reasonable grounds to believe” that an offence has been committed and that the search will reveal evidence of that offence.
This bill would allow "reasonable suspicion" to replace "reasonable grounds". In other words, revealing evident of an offence is no longer a required result.
Can you imagine how our gun shooting (and tazering) police will use this ... and how it would drop the word 'privacy' from our dictionaries? 

2. Internet Service Providers will voluntarily give customer information to police without any criminal or civil liability.
Canadians who sign contracts with ISPs expect that their personal data will be guarded and not shared without their consent
Bill C-13 will serve to break that trust and expose customers to government snooping, all without prber oper notice or judicial authorization.

It is important for taxpayers to voice support for those who object to these types of legislative proposals ... and be prepared for future exploitations of this nature ... and to remember these many bad decisions (and huge waste of taxpayer dollars) at election time.