Thanks for the invitation to be here.
One day we might discover a fuel source with no environmental side effects that's affordable and practical; but until that day comes, we need oil. It's not just for us, but for the United States, to whom we sell 1.4 million barrels of oil sands oil every day.
Last year, for the first time, more cars were sold in China than in the U.S., and they all want to be two-car families too. The same goes for India and the rest of the developing world.
So the choice isn't oil sands oil versus some fantasy fuel of the future. It's oil sands oil versus the oil that comes from other places, mainly OPEC countries. I don't know what God was thinking when he was handing out oil, but he gave it to all the world's bastards—Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria. Out of the top ten countries ranked by oil reserves, Canada is the only western liberal democracy on the list.
That doesn't matter if all you care about is driving your car; it all burns the same. But what about the ethics of oil? In my book Ethical Oil—which I'd be happy to give everyone a copy of afterwards, courtesy of my publisher—I suggest four liberal values by which we should judge the morality of a barrel of oil: respect for the environment; peace; fair wages for workers; and human rights. I compare oil sands oil with OPEC oil using these four measures. I come to the conclusion that oil sands oil is the fair trade coffee of the world's oil industry.
Take the environment. Greenpeace propaganda pictures make the oil sands look like something out of the Land of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. But in only 2% of the area, where there is 20% of the resource, is the oil close enough to the surface for it to be mined that way. The rest of it has to be obtained underground, or in situ, with methods that don't tear up the surface. They don't use any river water, and even the 2% that's mined has to be reclaimed afterwards. Already more than 60 square kilometres have been. Compare that with the 2,000 unremediated toxic oil spills in Nigeria that will never be cleaned up.
Then there's carbon dioxide. Using the Obama administration's well-to-wheels analysis, oil from the oil sands has the same carbon footprint as oil from Nigeria or Iraq, because the latter waste so much natural gas. But we have a lower carbon footprint than U.S. imports from Venezuela, and much less carbon than oil from Nancy Pelosi's own state, which is actually called “California heavy” for a reason.
So if you're concerned about carbon emissions, shouldn't we replace higher carbon oil from Venezuela and California with our lower carbon oil from the oil sands? Since 1990, the carbon footprint of the average barrel of oil from the oil sands has fallen by 38%. I can hardly wait to see where it's going to be ten years from now.
But the environment is not the only measure of ethics. What about peace?
Canada invented peacekeeping. Saudi Arabia invented 9/11. Iran is using its oil profits to build a nuclear bomb. Sudan uses its oil profits to buy weapons to prosecute the genocide in Darfur. If you multiply 300,000 murders in Darfur by 185 ounces of blood per human body, and you divide it into the number of barrels of oil exported by Sudan over the same period of time, it works out to 6.5 millilitres of blood in every damn barrel. That would fill a lipstick tube.
What about fair wages, though? Fort McMurray is Canada's wealthiest city—and the most generous, according to the United Way. The working poor there, the lowest quartile, have 77% more purchasing power than in other cities, like Edmonton. Compare that to Saudi Arabia, which uses poorly paid migrant labourers who have no civil rights; or Nigeria, where over $300 billion has been stolen by dictators from bureaucrats, leaving the country one of the poorest on earth.
Then there are human rights. The mayor of Fort McMurray is a young woman named Melissa Blake. How many women mayors are there in Saudi Arabia? There are none. It's against the law. In Iran, women are stoned to death if they're accused of adultery. Ahmadinejad says there are no gays in Iran, and you know, he's not lying, because when he finds them he kills them.
Then there's the fact that the oil sands are Canada's largest employer of aboriginal people, not only providing 2,000 direct jobs but also billions of dollars to aboriginal-owned businesses.
If you don't care about morality, then buy oil from Iran or Sudan. It's just as good as Canadian oil. But if you believe in making the world a better place, then the moral imperative is to replace unethical OPEC oil with Canadian green oil, conflict-free oil, fair wage oil, human rights oil.
The leader of the opposition says it's important to increase trade with China and India. I agree. Right now those countries are forced to buy terrorist oil, dictatorship oil, Darfur oil, because we only let Americans buy our oil right now. I love our American neighbours, but it's dangerous to have just one customer for our product. We're at the mercy of protectionism and taxes, and sometimes we're taken for granted. That's why the pipeline to the west coast makes so much strategic sense. It makes us an independent country with options.
I find it very irritating that so many of the anti-oil-sands activists are taking their funding from U.S. lobby groups like the Tides Foundation. Of course it's in America's interests that no other customers are able to buy our Canadian oil, but it's in Canada's interests that we are able to sell it to whomever we choose, and if you care about industrial ethics, it's in the world's interests too.
A lot of people are watching how Canada is handling the oil sands—not just Canadians, the American ambassador is watching too. He hopes the pipelines shut down so he can have the oil all to himself. The Saudi ambassador is watching too. Maybe they're watching together, I don't know. He also hopes the pipeline is killed, so he doesn't lose any market share in Asia, the way he's lost in the United States. But for those who love Canada, expanding the oil sands is the right thing for our country and for those who think globally and act locally, because every barrel of oil sands oil we can sell to Asia or the United States is one less barrel sold by the world's terrorists and dictators.
Thank you.