Canadian government overhauling environmental rules to aid oil extraction

For years, Canada has been seen as an environmental leader on the world stage, pushing other nations to tackle acid rain, save the ozone layer and sign global treaties to protect biodiversity.

Those were the old days.

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is rewriting the nation’s environmental laws to speed the extraction and export of oil, minerals and other materials to a global market clamoring for Canada’s natural resources.

“The government is saying, politically, we want to hitch our wagon to an economic development strategy in which natural resource extraction plays a very large part,” said Brian Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a public policy think tank in Ottawa.

The government has added provisions to an omnibus budget bill that would revamp the way the government reviews the environmental impact of major projects, regulates threats to fisheries and scrutinizes the political activities of nonprofit groups.

Economic and political factors account for the controversial gambit. High prices for oil and minerals, along with demand from Asia, have given Canada new incentive to tap into its resources, and new technology has made extraction easier. And while Harper has been prime minister for six years, his Conservative Party won an outright majority just one year ago.

The strategy has won plaudits from energy industry officials and some economists, while sparking an outcry from environmentalists and their allies in Parliament.

“The idea is simple and straightforward: to make Canada the most attractive country in the world for resource investment and development, and to enhance our world-class protection of the environment today for future generations of Canadians,” said Christopher Plunkett, spokesman for the Canadian government in the United States.

Rick Smith, executive director of the advocacy group Environmental Defence Canada, calls it “a war on nature and democracy.”

At least 500 Canadian organizations, along with several hundred in the United States, either darkened their Web sites or published notices Monday to protest the changes as part of a “Black Out, Speak Out” demonstration. In the U.S, the Natural Resources Defense Council had a pop-up black box on its homepage urging supporters to “Take action in solidarity with Canadian environmentalists,” while the Sierra Club’s site showed black oil dripping over the Canadian flag with the words, “Tar sands oil is destroying Canada’s environment and poisoning its politics,” after which the words flashed, “Rethink tar sands. Speak out now.”

The Canadian government launched a public relations counteroffensive Monday, sending 10 of its ministers out across the country to tout the benefits of overhauling the nation’s resource development laws.

“This is the most anti-environmental legislation we’ve seen in decades,” Smith said. “Very clearly, a lot of these changes are designed to expedite inappropriate pipeline proposals. It’s essentially a big gift to Big Oil.”