How America's friendly northern neighbor became a rogue, reckless petrostate.

[n2doc]

BY ANDREW NIKIFORUK

For decades, the world has thought of Canada as America's friendly northern neighbor -- a responsible, earnest, if somewhat boring, land of hockey fans and single-payer health care. On the big issues, it has long played the global Boy Scout, reliably providing moral leadership on everything from ozone protection to land-mine eradication to gay rights. The late novelist Douglas Adams once quipped that if the United States often behaved like a belligerent teenage boy, Canada was an intelligent woman in her mid-30s. Basically, Canada has been the United States -- not as it is, but as it should be.

But a dark secret lurks in the northern forests. Over the last decade, Canada has not so quietly become an international mining center and a rogue petrostate. It's no longer America's better half, but a dystopian vision of the continent's energy-soaked future.

That's right: The good neighbor has banked its economy on the cursed elixir of political dysfunction -- oil. Flush with visions of becoming a global energy superpower, Canada's government has taken up with pipeline evangelists, petroleum bullies, and climate change skeptics. Turns out the Boy Scout's not just hooked on junk crude -- he's become a pusher. And that's not even the worst of it.

With oil and gas now accounting for approximately a quarter of its export revenue, Canada has lost its famous politeness. Since the Conservative Party won a majority in Parliament in 2011, the federal government has eviscerated conservationists, indigenous nations, European commissioners, and just about anyone opposing unfettered oil production as unpatriotic radicals. It has muzzled climate change scientists, killed funding for environmental science of every stripe, and in a recent pair of unprecedented omnibus bills, systematically dismantled the country's most significant long-cherished environmental laws.

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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/24/oh_canada

[PearliePoo2]

1. That is one well-written post. Now then....

Calgary is under water with the worst flooding in Alberta's history. Climate change? Nah...

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Change You Can Believe In!

(For better or WORSE..)

[modrepub]

3. Why is anyone surprised?

I've seen nearly first hand what energy/mining interests can do to an area. Central and western PA were literally dying just 10 years ago. Then fracking came along and the whole situation changed. Suddenly people with no livelihood or resources were sitting on mineral rights that could make them rich. People who could supply the water, chemicals and knowhow to extract the gas were in high demand. The State's balance of power shifted and suddenly the have nots passed legislation to make sure the rest of the state would get scraps on their new found bounty.

The money involved to pay the property owners for their mineral rights, the industry to ramp up production and the politicians to do the corporate "dirty work" is absolutely staggering. It just can't be stopped. In my state of PA this is just another wave of resource extraction; first lumber, then coal and oil and now natural gas. Unfortunately we're probably doomed to another boom/bust with social upheaval (think Molly Maguires), environmental degradation and broken promises.

[cprise]

4. K&R