Oilsands: Burning Energy To Produce It

This image of the oilsands in northern Alberta links to an interesting video on oilsands development.


I wrote the following letter as a submission for the oilsands consultations that are taking place around Alberta. If you wish to make your voice heard, now's the time. Contact oilsandsconsultations@gov.ab.ca or call 1-877-644-4695 or go to http://www.oilsandsconsultations.gov.ab.ca/ for more info.

I want to add that in the 2006 Green Party platform it stated that the GPC would create thousands of new "Green collar jobs" by encouraging the development of low-emission industries in areas most affected by the shift away from natural resource sectors. Yes, my friends who work in the patch can vote Green knowing that they won't be out of work under a Green government.

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To whom it may concern,

My name is Cameron Wigmore and I am writing this letter to you as a concerned Canadian. If it's possible, I would like to request for this to be read aloud by someone during the consultations please. I would be pleased to know that you have a system in place that allows people to be easily and readily heard.

It is my opinion that we are doing too much too quickly. What's the rush? If I were to ask the oil companies this question I imagine their answer would be profit related. It would be nice to see companies in the oilpatch taking the social and environmental implications of their business into consideration, but since the government says they don't need to do so, the companies don't worry about it. Why would they? To be fair, I realize that doing so would cut into their profits, and as a small business owner myself I can understand why a company would want the regulating bodies to stay out of their business so they can do what they want as quickly as they see fit. Sustainability doesn't fit in their equations. But it is in our best interests to regulate this industry properly. In this case it is my opinion that we can strengthen our economy by conserving our ecology.

This brings me back to my question. What's the rush? If I asked the city councillors in Fort McMurray or other negatively affected communities I'm sure I'd get an earful about how the government has been irresponsible in allowing, even promoting, such development and damage. I'd hear that many other people agree that we're doing too much too quickly. I remind everyone that recently the Regional Council for the Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, voted unanimously to apply for intervener status on any and all new oil sands projects coming before Alberta’s Energy Utility Board. Their infrastructure, police and social services are overstrained and woefully inadequate in the wake of this boom. They can't keep up with the pace set by the provincial government and this is a case where a municipality has taken matters into their own hands.

So let's ask the provincial and federal governments. What's the rush? Why are we doing so much so fast? Why are we moving forward with inadequate environmental impact studies being done? Why are vast areas of boreal forest being eliminated with no indication that we can ever restore this land? Yes, we can reclaim it, but I urge everyone to research what qualifies as land reclamation. Why are we allowing this extremely financially profitable activity to occur while we reduce royalties and taxes on oilsands development? Why should I believe that the companies, the government or even the organizations charged with ensuring public safety and proper activity regarding the oilsands share my concerns and wishes? To be clear, my wish is for no further leases to be issued and for current development to be properly examined for environmental impact.

To paraphrase James Howard Kunstler in his book entitled The Long Emergency, "The profits of a generation of speculators will be converted into costs passed along to future generations in the form of lost jobs, squandered equity, and reduced living standards. This is a convoluted liquidation sale of the wealth of the Earth for the benefit of a few people, with the average family sentenced to a race to the bottom as the economic & environmental assets are dismantled and sold off and livelihoods are closed down." Think about this. This is happening.

The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. In other words, ecology isn't a subset of the economy; it's the other way around. We need to transform our economy so that it respects ecology and gives us a healthy country with healthy Canadians. If we continue business as usual without accounting for and charging for the irreparable ecological damage that is occurring then we are practicing bad government and bad business.

I'll close this letter with a few quotes. My favourite and probably the most relevant is last.

"What many now call 'growth' will soon be seen as accelerated decay."

Dan Fiscus

"Anyone who thinks that an economy can be expanded forever, within the confines of a finite planet, is either a madman or an economist"
Economist Kenneth Boulding

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all."
Economist John Maynard Keynes

"Environmental injury is deficit spending. It’s a way of loading the cost of our generation’s prosperity on to the backs of our children."

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"To waste and destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them."

Theodore Roosevelt

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
Proverbs 29:18

Sincerely,

Cameron Wigmore

Drumheller, AB

Alberta Representative, Federal Council

CEO, Crowfoot EDA

Green Party of Canada

403-770-2962

Green Party Supports Safe Injection Site

The poster to the left is a mockup I did for the Badlands Drug Coalition, a local addiction awareness group on which I sit as a member. I had fun making this poster. We didn't go with it though because the photo is not free for public use.

There is a media release regarding the insite program that I helped write just before the convention. I'm bringing it up now because there have been a bunch of new stories on this program in the news lately. Click on the title of this post for the media release and see links below for recent news stories.

Here are a few links:
Mom of drug addict calls on Prime Minister to keep safe-injection site open
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/060830/x083035.html
Ottawa ethically obligated to treat addicts at safe-injection site: ethicist

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/060828/x082816.html
RCMP responds to media reports concerning safe-injection site reviews

http://tinyurl.com/ruyhx
RCMP oppose expanded injection sites

http://tinyurl.com/ql3cd

If you feel so inclined, you can send a letter asking to continue the program to Tony Clement, Minister of Health. His contact information is:
Clement.T@parl.gc.ca
1 866 375 8669
Tony Clement MP
202 Main Street West
Huntsville, Ontario
P1H 1X9

Also, the website, http://www.communityinsite.ca/ has a letter to Stephen
Harper that you can send from their webpage. It's at:
http://www.communityinsite.ca/support.html

The following link is to a site that has some great ideas on how to make
your voice heard on this subject and more:
http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0334.html

"We can't incarcerate the problem of addiction away."

We've Been Elected!

No, not elected to parliament ...not yet anyway... ;-)

This picture of Elizabeth & myself was taken at the afterparty at her beautiful and funky heritage house. She had a Celtic band performing, organic nachos to munch on and many, many friends and suporters there to celebrate her being elected as the new leader of the Green Party.

I have been elected to federal council as the Alberta Provincial Representative. The full council is as follows:

Melanie Ransom, Party Chair; Andrea Caufield, Administration Chair; Kathryn Holloway, Chief Agent; Christopher Ian Bennet, Communications Chair; Amélie Gingras, Francophone Secretary; Angela Reid, Fundraising Chair; Silvaine Zimmerman, International Secretary; Steve Kisby, Membership Chair; Doug Anderson, Organizing Chair; Becky Smit, Party Secretary; Jean Francois Pinel, Treasurer.

Provincial /Territorial Reps: Cameron Wigmore, Alberta; Ben West, British Columbia; Kate Storey, Manitoba; Erik Millett, New Brunswick; Fiona Roe, Newfoundland and Labrador; Thomas Trappenberg, Nova Scotia; William Gawor, Nunavut; Alexa Pitoulis, NWT; Lori Gadzala, Ontario; Jeremy Stiles, Prince Edward Island; Almaz Aladas, Quebec; Amber Jones, Saskatchewan; Gregory Heming, Yukon.

The new constitution was also voted in, and council will now be organizing according to it. Many policy resolutions were workshopped and will be mailed out to the membership across Canada for final vote. The conference was very well organized and fully covered by all of the major media.

More info on council & leadership candidates

I've provided for you some links to the many sites I am aware of that have further information about the Green Party leadership and council candidates. During the last federal election we urged Canadians to make an informed vote, and I believe this applies to Green Party members voting for candidates during internal elections as well. I strongly recommend visiting all of the sites listed below. I will not offer any suggestions on who to vote for as we all should be able to come to a descision through our own research.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

For information on the leadership race and candidates go to:

http://web.greenparty.ca/leadershiprace

For information on council contestants go to:

http://web.greenparty.ca/contestants

As Green Party members we can sign up for an account on the members site where there is currently a wealth of information on what's happening in the Green Party right now. Call the national office at: 1-866-868-3447 or email webadmin - at - greenparty.ca to request a user name/account on this site.

Answers to a survey for council members are at the link below. There are some informative answers from candidates regarding the proposed constitution we're voting on. This is a very important vote. I gave my answers to all questions a lot of thought and I'd love to hear some feedback on them.
http://greenlibrarian.atspace.com/

A number of council candidates:

http://councilfreshstart.ca/

More council candidates:

http://www.council2006.ca/

Some candidate websites and weblogs, most of whom have links to these also on their bios at the Green Party website.

http://www.messagemedium.blogspot.com/

http://ancienthippy.blogspot.com/

http://kevinsgreenpartyblog.blogharbor.com/

http://www3.sympatico.ca/newideas/GP/GP.htm

http://catjo.blogspot.com/

http://myspace.com/greenkateholloway

http://jeanfrancoispinel.blogspot.com/

Lastly, a forum where discussion with & about candidates is taking place:
http://www.greenerpolitics.com/

Provincial Leader's Endorsement for Cameron Wigmore

I'm proud to say that I have the support of Alberta's Provincial Leader!
Below is his letter of endorsement.


Cameron Wigmore for Alberta provincial Rep

I do not know how many of you are taking an active look at the Green Party of Canada federal council race but I beleive that Cameron Wigmore would be a really great Federal Council Rep for Alberta.

In the short while that Cameron has been with the Green Party he has run as a federal candidate. He has organized in his local community. In my recent tour through the province the second largest showing of people after Edmonton was organized by Cameron in Drumheller. I believe that if a person can build support outside an election they have the makings of a great organizer.

I have heard from people as far away as Victoria that Cameron has been one of the voices of reason on the federal list serves and that he has worked diligently to improve the party. We need people who can handle e-mail and list serves well if they are going to be on Federal Council. The fact that Cameron is already known for being a voice of reason on the list serves is a strong endorsement to me.

Cameron lives in Drumheller with his wife. He only works part time so he has alot of time to devote to the Green Party. He is living outside of the two major centers of Calgary and Edmonton and I beleive that if we are going to expand the Green Party in Alberta we have to start including people for other areas.

I hope that you will be willing to support Cameron in the vote for Alberta Council representative coming up.

Thank you

George Read
Leader, Green Party of Alberta
Campaign Manager Green Party of Canada