Reading posts on the Athabaska Tar Sands Project and the Keystone XL pipeline, I am stung by commentary naming this a Canadian ecocide. "Why don't Canadians refine their own dirty oil" etc. After being an environmentalist all my adult life, this hurts, so I just want you to know that many Canadians are against this project
83% of Canadians strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that: “The Canadian government should invest in green jobs and have transition programmes for workers and communities negatively affected by a shift away from reliance on fossil fuels.”
Canadian groups to Ambassador Doer: Stop lobbying for Keystone XL pipeline
This entire massive project the Tar Sands themselves and the two major pipelines going east-west and north-south is a multinational project. There are Chinese, US and other investors financing this and waiting for the product to bring in their return. The information below shows just how huge, far reaching and international it is.
List of companies involved in the tar sands with links to sources.
Athabasca Oil Sands Corp
Baytex Energy Trust
Bonavista Energy Trust
BP plc
Bronco Energy Ltd
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd
Canadian Oil Sands Trust
CanWest Petroleum Corp
Cenovus Energy Inc
Chevron Corp
China National Petroleum Corp
Connacher Oil & Gas Ltd
ConocoPhillips
Devon Energy Corp
Enbridge Inc
EnCana Corp
Enerplus Resources Fund
Exxon Mobil Corp
Harvest Energy Trust
Husky Energy Inc
Imperial Oil Ltd
Inter Pipeline Fund
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP
Koch Resources LLC
Korea National Oil Corp
Marathon Oil Corp
MEG Energy Corp
Mocal Energy Ltd
Murphy Oil Corp
Nexen Inc
Nippon Oil Corp
Occidental Petroleum Corp
Oilsands Quest Inc
OPTI Canada Inc
Paramount Resources Ltd
Pembina Pipeline Income Fund
Pengrowth Energy Trust
Penn West Energy Trust
Petrobank Energy & Resources Ltd
Petro-Canada
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Sinopec Group
StatoilHydro ASA
Suncor Energy Inc
Syncrude Canada Ltd
Total SA
TransCanada Corp
UTS Energy Corp
UPDATE: Nexen sold to China December 2012 with approval of PM Stephen Harper. It is now CNOOC, China National Offshore Oil Corporation. When the deal is finalized by US approval it will give the Chinese a strong foothold in the Gulf of Mexico as well.
The XL Tar Sands Pipeline owned by Trans Canada has three Americans on its 12 member Board of Directors:
E.L. Draper, Texas
Paul Joskow, New York
W.T. Stephens, Colorado
The Northern Gateway Pipeline owned by Enbridge that is proposed to cross Western Canada
This pipeline company Enbridge has six Americans on its 12 member Board of Directors
D. A. Ariedge, Chair, Florida
J. J. Blanchard, Michigan
Herb England, Florida
Maureen Darkes, Florida
George Petty, California
Dan Tutcher, Texas
Just as I would not blame the people of Nigeria for what Royal Dutch Shell has done to their country, I do not blame the Canadian people for what Syncrude and all the above international companies have done to Canada.