Keystone pipeline protest on Parliament Hill

Debate and protest continue over a proposed oil sand pipeline from Alberta to Texas. A peaceful protest came to Parliament Hill yesterday. Approximately 400-500 people participated. 117 were arrested for trespassing and then released.

Demonstrators came from across Canada and many were determined to be arrested to make their point. The degree of civility, though, reinforces a Canadian reputation for being nice, as detailed in this Globe and Mail report:

As they crawled over the barrier, uniformed officers warned the protesters that there would be legal consequences to their actions and suggested that they reconsider. If they persisted, the police helped them use step stools so they could cross the fence without getting hurt.

If this is about the environment in te U.S., in Canada it’s also about economics.  In an overview by the Globe and Mail, Andrew Pocock, British High Commissioner to Ottawa, put it this way:

“You have … a huge sovereign resource, the second or third-largest in the world, on the border of the largest consumer of oil on the planet. That resource is going to be exploited. Name me a country on earth that wouldn’t do it,” he said.

Alberta, Canada’s major producer of oil sands, has gone so far as to market their resource as “ethical oil”. Saudi Arabia was not amused by the suggestion that the oil they sell is the opposite kind. (The Saudi embassy here raised objections to “ethical oil” ads that ran on some Canadian TV outlets, which lead to a sub-quarrel about foreign interference and free speech.)

The issue has dueling endorsements, from what could be called celebrity environmentalists. A co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, defends Alberta’s oil sands industry as necessary – accusing some opponents and fellow-environmentalists of fear-mongering and distorting the science behind the issues.

Meanwhile, U.S. environmental activist and author Bill McKibben has taken a stand, citing NASA scientist James Hansen’s position that major consumption of those oil sands would be “game over for the climate.”

With both sides so rich in supporting justification, this one is far from settled.

Tags: canada, ethical oil, Keystone pipeline, oil sand protest on Parliament Hill