The Old and Male makes a little too much of Ezra Levant's role in framing the "ethical oil" argument for the Harper government:
The “ethical oil” defence adopted by Mr. Harper and Mr. Kent echoes a notion advanced by conservative Calgary author Ezra Levant in his 2010 book, Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s oil sands. Mr. Levant once worked for Stockwell Day and has been hired by former Harper communications director Kory Teneycke to play a leading role in the right-leaning cable news network Sun TV News. Mr. Levant has helped popularize the argument that oil-sands petroleum is ethically superior to petroleum produced by countries such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and other regimes with dubious environmental and human-rights records. By comparison, he argues, Canada is environmentally responsible, peaceful, offers its workers fair wages and respects human rights.
Sweet Jesus! Stockwell Day knows the guy!?!?
One can't just give up on a handy boogieman without milking it for all its worth but even if Levant makes a somewhat acceptable argument for oil from Canada being better than oil from tyrants it is not the whole story. First, science and ethics are separate things. The oil sands either pollute or the do not. Polluting is bad and a democracy does not get bonus points for polluting. It is lessened by it. Second, remember how the current Conservative and conservative mindset appears to work - it stands for nothing. It stands for nothing because it defines itself by others it likes less and then says it is not like that. It does not actually say what it is. This is not good enough. Whether it is Iggy or the Saudi, it is not sufficient to say Canada stands for not as bad. We need to stand for good even if we can't achieve best every time. Third, if this argument of Mr. Levant's were true then the asbestos trade from Quebec into the third world would be cleansed by the fact that the trader in toxins is the Great White North. But it isn't. People become diseased. People die horrible deaths. And deaths that our internal ethical regulations protect us from. We are hypocrites and traders in death. And we are a peaceful, responsible democracy, too. We should be ashamed.
It is not enough to say we are better that someone else in regards to factor "X" if we are worse than them in regards to factor "Y" when factor "Y" is the factor in question. Our rural overlords do not seem to understand that. Unless they do and actually reject the principle. Which may be the case. Look, oil may not be asbestos but that does not make for the ethical high road. Maybe it's the best we can do - but I doubt it. It is, however, what we are stuck with until we develop a new better class of national leadership and national thinking to replace the current cast on all sides.
Culpability Update: while we are at it, conservatives seem to be having a hard time understanding wickedness and criminal responsibility today. All of a sudden, the criminal is sick. I thought this was a progressive misconception.
Comments
Kev - January 8, 2011 12:48 PM
"It stands for nothing because it defines itself by others it likes less and then says it is not like that. It does not actually say what it is."
Simply the best description of the Conservative movement as it stands in this country today.
You make a compelling argument regarding the poor quality of leadership in this country, however I feel that you give short shrift to Levant's connections to the PMO through his employer Quebecor. While he is not advising policy, he most certainly is playing the role of a shill.
Ben (The Tiger) - January 8, 2011 1:39 PM
Re "ethical oil" -- it's an argument meant to sway the same US Congress that winks at "clean coal".
That's all.
Re domestic critics -- we sell asbestos to the Third World, we drill offshore and no-one's going to tell Danny Williams he can't.
Canadian domestic critics won't shut down the oil sands.
Alan - January 8, 2011 6:29 PM
The suggestion that it is an "argument" avoids the question of whether it is policy. It is insufficient to say we drill off shore (largely safely) and that we sell asbestos (largely unsafely). Things are not solely relative. Again, what does this tell us about conservatives stand for? It has to be more than money and votes. The sad thing is that I think most grass roots conservatives do actually have values and principles that I may not share but that are within the ball park but their own leaders either can't or don't dare enunciate.
Jay Currie - January 9, 2011 3:48 AM
The oil sands kill the occasional flock of ducks. They emit the noted plant sustaining gas, CO2. Once in a while they have an industrial accident. They contribute billions to the Canadian economy. They do not finance terror.
Compared to Saudi or Iran or Russia - pretty darned ethical. Better to buy our oil than much of the other oil on offer.
Oddly, the oil from the tar sands does not - any more than any other oil - cause cancer.
We should certainly stop mining and selling asbestos which does. But conflating the issues is kinda pathetic.
Alan - January 9, 2011 11:55 AM
So, you agree with me. We have to judge the science for itself and can't pretend that conflating politics with implications of mineral resources is pathetic.
Oh, you didn't. How silly of you. Disagreeing with the connecting of the democratic state to the mining processes is only as pathetic as agreeing with it. They are either part of a discourse or not. Saying only one side of the discussion is rationally connected is just weird.
Alan - January 9, 2011 11:52 PM
Not exactly the mentally ill person some are describing. Unless being at the fringe is now a medical condition.
Pok - January 10, 2011 11:11 AM
At a more fundamental level, when did it become the job of the federal government to build a CSR portfolio for tar sands oil? And more specifically, when did it become the job of the federal environment minister to declare the whole affair as the victim of bad PR with out even a nod to the environmental monitoring review process that his department just embarked on and which has not even come close to publishing a conclusion. Minister Kent could not have crafted a better statement to annouce his intentions to feign objectivity and ignore the fundamental role of a minister of the environment.