It always had to come down to the tar sands. That was where Harpo had his dream of Canada as an "energy superpower" and where he had to draw his line in the tar. Oh he could claim he had done a 180 and now embraced the global warming issue but it was at the Athabasca Tar Sands that Harpo would face his "put up or shut up" moment. Now its time for our Furious Leader to come clean.
A report in this morning's Globe claims the Harpo boys are going to allow substantially more greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands in the future. It shows the Reform Conservative government is going to stick with the discredited, intensity-based, Bush/Cheney approach to the tar sands, ignoring the fact that Canadian GHG emitters are already producing way too much of the stuff and need to be cut back, way back.
What it comes down to is money, or as Harpo likes to refer to it, "the almighty dollar." He doesn't care about the almighty dollar when it comes to trade with China but he very much cherishes the almighty dollar when it comes to the filthy business of producing artificial oil for American SUVs.
Nine out of Canada's top 15 GHG emitting companies are in Alberta. These nine are involved with the tar sands. In terms of trying to halt the onset of global warming, this is where the rubber meets the road.
The report referred to by the Globe came out just before Christmas. That means there could, just possibly could, be a different treatment of the tar sands in the policy Baird is to unveil before the end of next month.
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