Demarchy

Yes, really.

I’ve written before about Ethical Oil and their magical campaign against logic.

Now, with Alykhan Velshi departed for a cushy job in the Prime Minister’s office and new-kid-on-the-block Kathryn Marshall has taken the reigns.

Marshall, according to her LinkedIn, has also worked for the Conservative government from time-to-time. She’s also worked for the right-wing Fraser institute, which receives funding from large oil and gas companies.

And now, she’s taking on bananas.

Yes, because Chiquita has chosen to not use tarsands oil in the shipment of their fruit, leading EthicalOil to proclaim “Unethical Chiquita supports blood oil!”

This makes me miss the days when they’d just dress up in niqabs outside the American embassy.

This is all, of course, ludicrous. Like I’ve written, this is a false choice. If Chiquita chooses not to use Albertan oil, they could use oil from Newfoundland, England, Norway, America - or virtually anywhere else.

The problem is that this boycott is bad for big oil.

It’s not bad for Alberta. It’s not bad for Canada. It’s bad for those oil companies operating in Alberta.

Okay, here’s an idea

Listen, I’m a tarsands pragmatist. We could shut it down, but it would be painfully costly. We could open it up for even more investment, and destroy the environment.

Or, we could be smart. 

There’s been no lack of discussion about raising royalties, decreasing foreign ownership of the tarsands and so on. 

What EthicalOil is trying to do is inspire patriotic pride in American enterprise that’s extracting resources and revenue from our land. That’s insane. So are their campaigns.

But what if the corporations working in the tarsands really were Canadian? What if we were able to enact all the environmental change we want?

Yes, the Canadian government should be running the tarsands.

Whether that means creating a crown corporation, taking a stake in one or two the existing corporations or taking federal control over Albertan lands, we have got to change the way things are happening in Alberta, and we need to make sure it’s benefiting the entire country.

Merely yammering on about the Newfoundlanders who found jobs in Fort Mac doesn’t cut it. That’s not economic development, that’s forced migration.

If Canadian oil was really ethical, and not just branded as such, we could actually occupy on the moral high-ground.

Two more stories. The final part to my feature on Ethical Oil (now under new leadership) and another OpenFile column about the untimely death of the Thomas Mulcair campaign.

Rumors of Thomas Mulcair’s Demise Have Been Greatly Understated. (Original title.)

The great New Democrat succession competition is now two months old. The field is crowded. All the candidates have announced their intentions (Pat Martin’s pussyfooting aside) – so why is Thomas Mulcair’s campaign already dead in the water?

Since the member for Outremont took to the stage with 33 fellow MPs in Côte-des-Neiges last month, hardly hide nor hair has been heard from the man who was, at one time, ‘the chosen one.’

Mulcair has spent November crossing the country. Headlines of small, local papers were made. And he doesn’t appear to have any upcoming events scheduled. Ever.

But, as conventional wisdom tells us, Mulcair is in charge of Quebec. New membership numbers show that La Belle Province has more than doubled its membership to over 5,500.

Read the rest over at OpenFile.

Ethical Oil: Party 3, NAFTA.

Trying to make sense of Canadian energy policy is not for the faint of the heart, so I called Gordon Laxer. The University of Alberta professor has spent the past 29 years in Alberta, having followed Canadian energy policy through the 60s to the first real emergence of a national plan in the 70s, followed by the wholesale auctioning of Canadian energy sovereignty in the 80s.

“We are basically an energy satellite or an energy colony of the United States,” he says.

“That’s the definition of a colony; when the people of a country don’t have first access to their own resources,” he says, laughing. “That’s what a colony is about.”

Check out the whole snarky business on ForgetTheBox.