New Report: Canada’s Government Has Removed Regulations That Protect Its Rivers And Lakes

by Samantha Page Posted on March 27, 2015 at 8:00 am Updated: March 27, 2015 at 9:38 am

Canada’s federal government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is systematically removing regulations and putting the country’s water at risk, according to a new report released this week by the Council of Canadians.

“Blue Betrayal,” written by Maude Barlow, a former UN adviser on water and national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, states that the Harper government has allowed mining companies to dump toxic waste into lakes, exempted oil and gas pipelines from environmental review, and allowed for-profit companies to sue for the right to use clean, potable water in fracking and other commercial applications.

The oil and gas industry in Canada is booming. Since 2008, when Harper took office, Canadian tar sands production has nearly doubled, according to an industry report. This has huge implications for water. Alberta’s tar sands alone could eventually use 20 million barrels of water each day, scientists estimate. Already, according to the report, nearly 3 million gallons of “toxic water” enters Canada’s watershed every day. Water used for oil and gas extraction is contaminated with a variety of toxic chemicals that are difficult, if not impossible, to remove.

“There is a clear and intimate link between energy policy and fresh water protection,” Emma Lui, a representative for the Council of Canadians, told ThinkProgress.

Environmentalists say the drastic reductions in regulatory oversight for Canada’s waterways are largely due to pressure from the oil and gas industry.

The Polaris Institute, a Canadian think tank, found that since 2008, two years after Harper took office, federal officials met with oil industry representatives more than four times as often as they met with environmentalists. Harper previously worked for the Exxon-owned Imperial Oil Limited.

In 2012, Canada’s federal omnibus bill modified the 120-year-old Navigable Waters Protection Act, a move that stripped environmental protections from 99 percent of Canada’s lakes and rivers. The reduced legislation is now called the Navigation Protection Act. The government also gutted the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, immediately causing 3,000 environmental reviews to be cancelled, including on some oil and gas projects. One of the changes made pipelines running under waterways exempt from environmental review, Lui said.

Canada has a two-pronged domestic energy extraction industry: shale oil and gas, and tar sands oil. Both are the subject of environmental concern as well as litigation.

A member of Ontario’s provincial parliament this week proposed a fracking ban for his province. Meanwhile, under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an American oil and gas company is challenging Quebec’s right to ban fracking.

But while provincial governments seek to curb fracking, Alberta’s tar sands oil industry pumps on.

Tar sands produce heavy, bitumen crude. Unlike most types of oil, bitumen sinks in water, which makes spills more difficult to clean up and more environmentally destructive. In 2010, a pipeline in Michigan ruptured, spilling 800,000 gallons of bitumen into the Kalamazoo River. It was the costliest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

Crude oil is primarily transferred via pipeline and rail, but in a move that could threaten water even more, some companies are proposing shipping the crude by boat in the Saint Lawrence River and across the Great Lakes. At the end of last year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources delayed approval of a crude oil transfer dock proposed on Lake Superior.

The Great Lakes supply drinking water for 40 million people and supports 250 different species of fish. A bitumen spill in the lakes could be disastrous.

“The U.S. Coast Guard will tell you they do not have the ability to respond to and clean up a spill of heavy crude oil in the Great Lakes,” Joel Brammeier, president and CEO of Alliance for the Great Lakes, a U.S.-based environmental group, told ThinkProgress. “Canadian energy policy could have a significant effect on the Great Lakes region.”

Canadians will have a chance to change those policies come October, when Harper is up for re-election. Thomas Mulcair, the New Democratic Party candidate, has called for increasing the review process for pipeline projects and criticized Harper’s “gutting” of the process. Justin Trudeau, the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, approves of the Keystone pipeline project but not of the Northern Gateway Pipeline.

Beyond North America, the election could have implications globally, as well. To date, Canada, under Harper, is the only country to have ratified and then withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol. Both of Harper’s main challengers believe Canada should be at the forefront of addressing climate change.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/03/27/3639318/canada-trades-oil-for-water/

Both of Harper’s main challengers believe Canada should be at the forefront of addressing climate change.

Kinda, sorta. I quit the Liberal Party over this and over Bill C-51.

This is awful ... but not surprising ~ ~ I didn't realize Harper is up for reelection this fall ~ any of our Canadian members willing to explain the likelihood of him winning another term?

Sooz

Hard to say. The Libs aren't revealing their policies and platform until the last minute.
The Harper CONs have a habit of stealing stuff and claiming it as their own.
If fund-raising is an indicator, the Libs are on the increase while the CONs are decreasing.

"In 2012, Canada’s federal omnibus bill modified the 120-year-old Navigable Waters Protection Act, a move that stripped environmental protections from 99 percent of Canada’s lakes and rivers."

This is the key. In late 2012, there were over three million lakes, rivers, streams and ponds protected by the act. After passage of what was called a "budget" omnibus bill, there are now only 96 such lakes, rivers, streams and ponds protected from human encroachment and degradation.

As for Harper's chances of reelection: while the CONservatives gained some ground in the polls and Harper specifically is in a statistical tie with Trudeau - they've stacked the deck so well in their favour don't be surprised if Harper claims victory with 80% support before the count is in.

Oskar: I know what you mean about the Liberals' stand on C51 but I can see the logic of doing what they're doing. Have patience... it's baseball. I will still support the Liberals in my riding because they are the best able to defeat the current CONservative MP. This was in The Rabble this weekend:

"No prime minister before -- not Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau, Lester Pearson, John Diefenbaker and beyond -- have ever assaulted the very principle of Parliament itself, ever attacked the chief justice of the Supreme Court, ever muzzled the scientists, neutered the parliamentary committee system, and so on. Dirty politics, corruption -- yes indeed. But Harperism is worse than all that. It is an ideological assault on the elements of the constitutional order. It hangs pictures of the Queen all over, but owes its loyalties to the same dark, anti-democratic, corporate and imperialist forces that drive the American right wing."

Stephen Harper and his CONservative Party are living proof that they're not "all the same". These guys are a special breed of evil.