Excavating the Oil Sands with Public Justice: Serviceable Method or Past its ‘Best-Before’ Date?

“So what do you think the oil sands development boom is all about?” a CPJ supporter recently asked me. I’ve been working on this topic non-stop during my current sabbatical research, and I’m still not sure what to say. So, let’s begin to answer this by looking at how some prominent Canadians see the oil sands and government’s role.

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper examines the oil sands developments, he sees “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s Great Wall. Only bigger.” In the same speech and thereafter, his government promotes Canada as an emerging “energy superpower.”

When world-famous University of Alberta water scientist Dr. David Schindler studies Alberta’s tar sands, he sees “the world’s most unsustainable development.” He wants government “to put on the brakes and say: ‘Come back when you can get your water consumption down to half, when you can get your green house gas emissions down to half, when you can reclaim these landscapes and then we’ll hear about more oil sands plants.’ But, our government’s not doing that. It’s absolutely out of control up there, you’ll see.”

When Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach examines the oil sands developments, he sees Alberta has “become Canada's engine of economic growth.” He wants government “to provide the necessary services for the province and industry to flourish…and the market will eventually control itself.” “There's no such thing as touching the brake,” he said. “The economy, growth – that will sort itself out. We just want to make sure that we're globally competitive.”

When Melody Lepine, Director of Industrial Relations for the Mikisew Cree Nation near Fort McMurray, sees the massive oil sands operations, she concludes: “We haven’t even come to terms with trying to understand what it [oil sands development] is doing on a national or even on a global scale yet. It’s just really too much, it’s too overwhelming to understand.”

Approaches to analysis and government

So what do you see when you examine the oil sands developments? What ought Christians to see? And what does our picture of the oil sands mean for what we think government ought to be doing about these developments? What policies should be enacted?

These are quintessential questions of analysis and approach. How do we understand a series of economic, social, political and environmental developments that are so large, so influential, and so filled with risks and implications, that, as Melody Lepine says, it’s almost “too overwhelming to understand”?

And if we were to assess who or which agencies and institutions were responsible for each element of these developments—whether positive or negative—how would we do this? How would we untangle the complex web of responsible agents, organizations, institutions and relationships that have, over time, produced the current oil sands development boom? How would we know which agency ought to have been doing what type of function(s)?

How should we identify and frame the policy problems? Furthermore, how would we come to clarity on what government(s) ought to have been doing historically in this development, and what government(s) ought to be doing today?

These questions are all about approach. What system of inquiry should a Christian public policy group, such as CPJ, use to make sense of the developments occurring in our culture and times?

Past its ‘Best-Before’ Date?

Over the past decades, CPJ has often engaged Canadian public life with a public justice approach, raising critical policy questions on problems such as the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, poverty, Aboriginal rights, pluralism, and refugee policy.

But is this approach still serviceable with the advent of explosive global issues such as climate change, the war on terror, or the massive problems growing from the oil sands boom? Can a ‘public justice approach’ still provide insight and direction, for government and other actors, on what ought to be done about these emerging issues and problems? Or has this approach passed its ‘best-before’ date? Is it time to explore new approaches?

The answer, in my humble opinion, is both yes and no.

Yes, we should explore new approaches because Christians should always have their eyes wide open for new possibilities, approaches and tools for analysis. Most approaches are onto something in God’s good creation, and if appropriated with spiritual discernment and wisdom, can teach us new insights.

But no, we shouldn’t dump the public justice approach just yet. If used in a wise and dynamic manner, it has a number of insights and features which have the unique capacity to perform significant qualitative and holistic analyses of complex realities.

I return to the CPJ supporter’s question: “So what do you think the oil sands development boom is all about?” I can’t answer this in a short article. But at CPJ’s Annual General Meeting on June 9 in Ottawa, I will explore how we can use a public justice approach to make sense of this development. Join me for this discussion – if you can’t make it, look for the full text of the speech on www.cpj.ca after the AGM.

Homework assignment

In the meantime, spend some quality time thinking about the following oil sands quotes. What understanding of the oil sands boom does each one reflect? What approach should we use to best make sense of what is going on in each quotation? Clearly, there are deep differences in how we perceive the oil sands. What does each quote say about the dispersed responsibilities of various actors, and more directly, the distinct task of the state? What exactly is public justice?

Quotable Quotes on the Oil sands

“For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use enough natural gas to heat a family’s home for four days. And they have to rear up four tons of landscape, all for one barrel of oil. It is truly nuts. But you know, junkies find veins in their toes. It seems reasonable, to them, because they have lost sight of the rest of their lives.”
Al Gore, commenting on Canada’s tar sands.

“There’s a myth out there that oil sands production comes at too high an environmental cost. There are ongoing attempts in some quarters of this country [USA], and of course in ours [Canada], to slow down or even stop oil sands production. These attempts don’t really reflect reality. Even worse, they could serve to jeopardize this country’s [USA] energy security, at a time when Asian markets are clamouring for oil.”
Premier Ed Stelmach, March 2008, in Washington, D.C.

“Harper sees himself as the leader of a 'global energy powerhouse' and is committing Canada to a fossil-fuel economy.”
Editorial in Nature, a leading science journal.

“Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology…”
President Bush, State of the Union Address, 2006.

“Most of the oil to be taken from the tar sands will go to the United States. In effect, the Athabasca deposits will be the centrepiece of a new continental energy grid. Its main purpose will be to provide a secure supply of fuel for the American industrial and military machines.”
Hugh McCullum, Fuelling Fortress America.

Former CPJ policy analyst John Hiemstra is a professor of political science at The King’s University College in Edmonton. He spoke about the oil sands and public justice at CPJ’s AGM on June 9, 2008 in Ottawa.

The Catalyst, Vol. 31, No. 2