Aboriginal leaders allege `coverup' in Alberta tarsands project

Mike De Souza , February 16, 2008, Canwest News Service -- Federal and provincial health officials in Alberta are trying to cover up ``the most destructive project on Earth,'' aboriginal leaders said Friday during the release of a report on the oilsands sector.

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation accused the federal and provincial health departments of harassing a local physician who has sounded alarm bells about rare cancers striking the community downriver from the oilsands. The departments have both filed complaints in an attempt to get Dr. John O'Connor's licence revoked because they believe he was raising undue alarm, but the locals believe the physician was doing his job.

``I think it seems like one organization drops the issue and another one picks it up to carry on to take his practice away from him,'' Adam told a news conference earlier Friday. ``If that's the case of how they do their business, in that sense, we feel that there is a coverup on health issues, and on environmental impacts in our region.''

The report, called Canada's Toxic Tarsands: The Most Destructive Project on Earth and released by the Environmental Defence organization, accused the federal government of being ``missing in action'' by failing to enforce federal laws to clean up oil extraction from tarsands in Alberta.

It estimates that Environment Minister John Baird's new proposal to regulate pollution from industrial facilities would allow greenhouse gas emissions to double to about 80 million tonnes per year by 2020 because of soft targets that only require industry to reduce emissions per unit of production instead of hard caps.

Matt Price, program manager with Environmental Defence, said that, as a result, growing emissions from the oilsands sector would wipe out gains from industries in other provinces, such as B.C. or Ontario.

``Politically speaking, the reason we have weak federal standards on climate change is to let the tarsands grow,'' said Price. ``There's a tailor-made loophole for the tarsands. Otherwise, we would have hard caps on industry all across Canada. So this is why the impacts of the tarsands extend well beyond the borders of Alberta.''

The report also notes that federal targets on air pollution would allow volatile organic compound emissions to grow by 60 per cent over the next seven years.

An industry spokesperson acknowledged that petroleum producers need to adopt greener practices, but suggested that they shared some common ground with environmental groups.

``While I don't see there's a lot new that's raised in here, it certainly does highlight the shared concern that the public has, the government has, the environmental group on the environmental issues around the oilsands,'' said Greg Stringham, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in a phone interview.

``Carbon capture and sequestration is the biggest kind of technology that we have right now to address the issue and we are getting on with it, but we need to get on with it quicker.''

Stringham added that the industry was committed to reduce all of the environmental impacts of its activities.

``The industry knows very clearly that on the environmental front, the only way that we're going to be able to operate on a sustainable basis is to be able to do this in an environmentally acceptable manner,'' he said.

Baird said his government has taken the first ever federal steps to regulate pollution from industry, but is open to studying the recommendations in the report.

``Environmental Defence is a pretty credible group,'' said Baird. ``I think I'll do them the courtesy and the favour of reading it and reflecting on what it has to say.''

The Harper government's plan calls for annual emissions to be slashed by 150 million tonnes by 2020, putting Canada nearly 20 years behind its legally binding international Kyoto Protocol commitments.