To the Last Drop
The Canadian wilderness sits on what many believe to be the largest oil deposit in the world. A sea of sand soaked in bitumen – tar sands. The tar sands now provide the United States with more oil than any other foreign source. A century of secure energy. Since 9/11, Canada has become a major foreign oil supplier to the United States. Canada cannot afford to lose this market. Even during a recession, tar sands generate $20 billion a year for the Canadian economy.
At that level, you have about 450,000 people who work in Canada dependent on the oil sands. Tar sands are key to Canada’s economy. Canadian authorities believe that Alberta has the closest partnership with the United States. The oil sands expansion base has made Alberta one of the world’s leading oil producers. You’ve only scratched the surface of oil sands development. After the Dirty Oil attack, Prime Minister Ed Styrmage switched gears and flew to Washington, where he launched a $25 million PR campaign and addressed Congress. Washington insider Paul Michael Wihbey is paving the way for US policymakers.
The world’s largest proven reserves are in Alberta; eight times the size of existing reserves in Saudi Arabia. As OPEC declines, Alberta in western Canada rises. There is an unusual upsurge in western Canada, and US politicians are beginning to wake up to it. Americans are either dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada. Of course, the US is also partly responsible for the whole thing. They are addicts who buy drugs sold in Canada.
Tar Sands cannot be ignored. Pressure is mounting to build a huge new pipeline from Alberta to refineries in Texas. It would cement Canada’s dirty oil in the U.S. market for a generation. Alberta’s tar sands lie beneath the boreal forest, drained by the Athabasca River as it flows north. At the confluence of rivers and lakes, one of the largest freshwater delta ecosystems in the world is formed.
The Crees own this part of Alberta under Canadian law and the laws of the British Empire. The most important promise in the treaty was that the Cree Indians would have the right to hunt and fish. Except now, if you look at northern Alberta, especially northern Alberta, where there’s tar sands development on such a scale and landscape damage that it’s now fair to say that treaty rights themselves are not Possible exercise makes more sense as animal habitats are being destroyed before our eyes.
Part 2: https://youtu.be/qTMZRsQclhs
Part 3: https://youtu.be/zH-FvuPM5Dg
