During December and January of 2002, the revolutionary government of Hugo Chavez and the workers who ran the various oil refineries in the territory of Venezuela were temporarily unable to continue production, until (backed by their government) the workers from the various plants seized and evicted the corrupt managers of the oil fields who, for decades since the establishment of PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela-- the state run, publicly owned energy company) simply lined their own pockets with the weath of Venezuela. Though technically in public hands prior, it was the spectacular failure of this managers and technicians lock-out that began the era of true public ownership of the vast oil and energy wealth contained within the territory of Venezuela. These corrupt people who had plundered the public treasury for themselves and their friends for three decades needed to go somewhere that would want their operational expertise in the field. They found such a place, in territories claimed by Canada-- in northern Alberta-- unceded by indigenous nations still held as possessions by Ottawa.
Today, in Fort MacMurray, Alberta the tar-sands extraction process is just starting to gain the needed technologies to operate at a level that allows an output with a profit. In a cruel opposite of the results for the Venezuelan population, the rising prices of gas, petrol and other energies are seeing the acceleration of drilling, fusions and over-all output. Also in contrast to the Bolivarian Republic, the advance of prices is seeing higher and higher levels of production targets, with more and more schemes implemented to remove “with facts on the ground” the land from the traditional inhabitants. While the tar-sands are touted globally by Canada (accurately) as the largest non-Saudi oil fields left in the world, they come at a price that everyone can understand: massive greenhouse gas emissions. The cruellest distinction between what happens in Canada’s north as opposed to what happens to Venezuelans is that the people of nations colonized by Canada will see their own lands decimated, the environment polluted and the profits going to giant oil and energy companies and not to infrastructure development--such as schools, hospitals and social housing. In other words, when oil is pumped and refined in Venezuela, it raises standards of living, whereas in Canada, it does the precise opposite for the original inhabitants.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=102&ItemID=9415
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on January 2, 2006]
Note: http://www.zmag.org/con...
Canada, The US, And The Tar Sands
Posted on Sunday, January 01 at 12:44 by AnonymousContributed By
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The Tar Sands need Nuclear Reactors, not more natural gas.
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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
OTTAWA - Vic Fedeli, the mayor of North Bay, wasn't pleased when Alberta health officials showed up in his depressed Northern Ontario mining community, rented a room in the Best Western and invited local doctors and nurses to interview for higher-paying jobs in their oil-rich home province.
"Barbarians at the gate," he called them.
Much of Canada is having a similar reaction. With the increase in world energy prices, Alberta's growing capacity to attract professionals and investors, and to shape Canada's economic agenda. is stirring resentment elsewhere in the nation, sparking a fight that could do more to shake national unity than 40 years of separatist strife in French-speaking Quebec.
Alberta's oil riches, and what to do about them, have become a campaign issue in Canada's Jan. 23 national election. The province's oil sands contain reserves estimated at 175 billion barrels, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia. The oil will generate $543 billion (U.S.) in additional income over the next 20 years, three times its gross domestic product, according to a report by the Canadian Energy Research Institute.
Two of the four parties in the federal election, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party - neither of which has any seats in the province - are calling for new oil taxes in part to share the bounty. The other two parties, Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals and the Conservative Party, suggest that oil could be used as a leverage to win trade disputes with the United States.
Alberta's ascendance marks a profound shift in Canada's balance of power. For most of this century, Ontario - the most populous province, with the biggest economy - has been the biggest contributor to the Canadian federal system that forces wealthy provinces to pass money to poorer regions.
Now, Alberta is the lone region with no debt and expects a budget surplus of $5.1 billion (U.S.) this fiscal year, quadruple the original estimate.
Alberta also is attracting professionals such as doctors at a rate that is making the other Canadian provinces uneasy. Its population is growing at the fastest pace of all 10 provinces, more than twice the national average. It added 11,000 workers from other provinces in the year up to June 2004, while Ontario lost almost 8,400 workers in same period.
A Dec. 19 Ipsos-Reid poll found that 55 percent of Canadians - more than 60 percent of those living in Ontario and Quebec - want greater sharing of Alberta's surpluses. One-third of Canadians, and almost half of Quebeckers, believe Alberta's wealth threatens the federal system. One in two Canadians wants the government to nationalize the oil industry - reviving Albertans' anger over similar efforts three decades ago - and to impose price ceilings, according to a September poll by Leger Marketing.
"There's always tension in terms of people who would like to see some of the wealth that's created in the West transferred to the East," Industry Minister David Emerson told reporters last month. "I see it everywhere."
Oil has fueled those tensions by helping to lift the Canadian dollar to a 14-year high of 87.45 U.S. cents Dec. 14, making competition in global markets more difficult. (It dropped to 86.07 cents as of Friday.)
Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, has called for export taxes on Canadian oil. And the Bloc Quebecois is calling for a surtax on oil company profits, claiming the rest of the country must foot the bill for cleaning up the industry's pollution.
Martin, reluctant to start a constitutional debate in the run-up to the vote, and Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, a Calgary native, have sided with Alberta, saying the prosperity will trickle down to other areas.
Ralph Klein, Alberta's prime minister, visited Ottawa in November to send the message that Alberta, which expects to send nearly $175 billion (U.S.) in higher oil and gas royalties to the federal government over the next 20 years, will fight attempts to increase its payments to the rest of Canada or interfere with its natural-resources policies.