I think it's the same reason that B.C. sells their lumber, Saskatchewan sells their potash, etc. The almighty dollar. However, I think that this whole country is prostituting itself, selling all our natural resources and having them controlled mainly by other countries. And to heck with the detrimental environmental effects, as long as somebody exploits us. I believe there's enough "brains" in this country, and enough resources of all kinds, that health care, schools, universities, should all be awash in money, and that nobody here should go hungry. We should be taking care of ourselves first. We in this country seem to bow down to the wishes of anyone who wants to come here, use us, and then leave behind the mess. We don't seem to often stand up to anyone.

Yes the US definitely does strongarm resources out of us. Sometimes we resist (water from BC) but then sometimes they take it and don't even pay us for it (the softwood lumber fiasco).

I'm of the opinion that we should sell our oil. There is something like 300 billion barrels of extractable oil in the oil sands, enough to last well over a century at projected extraction rates. I don't believe the world will be fueled by oil in a century, we'll have shifted to fission, fusion or found some economical renewable fuel, or a combination. Those 300 billion barrels at $100 per barrel would bring in $30 trillion -- that goes a long way to keeping our trade balance in surplus, which keeps our interests rates low, which allows investment and economic growth in other parts of our economy. Not to mention the vast amount of money paid to the provincial and federal treasuries in the form of royalties, which keeps taxes relatively low and helps pay for things like medicare. The world is going to need oil for the next 50 years at least, they are going to buy it from someone, I see no reason to leave ours in the ground and let others share all the pie.

The resources played a big part in helping Canada dodge the worst of the depression. The arguement itself is silly, as the only remedy for extraction is you guessed, more extraction.

I made some comments to the Wild Rose Party chick which she found rather inflammatory. I told her Alberta's mixed economy wasn't as mixed as she thought it was. The economy has taken on the politics of a Middle East petro monarchy where everything is driven off oil extraction. If extraction slows so does the economy. She popped a blood vessel on me :)

The Keystone crosses the Ogallala aquifer which entails some level of risk. The project would bring jobs to the mid west while at the same time facilitate future development of the Bakken reserves with a short tie in both on the Saskatchewan side and the N.D. side.

The alternative was a to go west and cross the native reserves which are fighting tooth and nail against it. This is a politically difficult mountain to climb as the government is still doing damage control from Chuck Strahl's run as Indigenous Affairs minister. I doubt the PC's will have success foisting non-assertion clauses on the bands a second time.

People must come to terms that Canada has become a petro currency. The 08 depression has hollowed out our budget. The Harper government planned from the get-go to abandon all treaties like Kyoto because they wanted to increase production at a time when the public wanted a second look moratorium on all future oil sands development. Canadians must realize as Mexico turns into an importer of oil and Venezuela chooses to sell to China, the American desire to ramp up production will dominate Canadian politics.

The good news is that as natural gas declines in availability, the more difficult it will be to refine oil sands. The Wall government tried proposing a nuclear reactor to a very unreceptive public. It was to use buffalo pound water treatment plant drinking water and cut south Saskatchehwan's water availability down significantly while risking contamination of the province's drinking supply. Regina and Moose Jaw would be done if contamination occurred. As I understood the plant was to assist the refinery in Lloydminister and reduce some demand on natural gas.

This means the ability to ramp up production of oil sands is going to be a challenge. I won't say yes or no to development. Rather the risks entail resisting American interests. When Muammar Gaddaffi renegotiated his oil prices after loosing investments to Goldman Sachs, he had trouble. The Lockerbie scandal was just that, a peripheral issue. I expect something even more visceral to happen if Canada develops a backbone as our geography is considered 'near abroad'.

My opinion is that we should not ship the crude oil,but build refineries etc. to provide jobs for Canadians. And then sell the products of the refining to other nations.
Caroline

Nebraska didn't so no to the pipeline, they said no to TransCanada Pipeline's route right through the Sand Hills. Despite this, TCP boldly forged forward hoping their lobbying would work instead of utilizing one of their other route options. They lost that gamble so now they are going to plan B, avoiding the Sand Hills.
It's TransCanada Pipelines fault/arrogance, not the Nebraskans, that caused this mess. Did they learn nothing from the Kalamazoo river incident and that bad publicity?

Thank you for your take on this!
Nebraskan's are scared it could harm their high water table, allot of farmers are against this...rightfully so. On this side of the boarder nobody seems to talk about the environment...at least I haven't.
Sooner or later it will be build, I'm not saying we shouldn't sell, we sell enough as it is, it's just when this will be a go ahead, Alberta will be going into another boom and inflation will go through the roof, everything here seems overpriced already, seniors can hardly hold onto their homes, theyr'e the one's what have build up our province and now have to suffer.

I just learned that shifting massive amount of weight on earth can cause earthquakes...link.
Human has to be the worst animal on earth..raping everything it has to offer, we should not be concentrating as much on oil right now, at this fragile state of our polluted earth, we should be focusing on clean fuel and worldly population control, [reduction]..especially in Africa.
China has done a good job and started many years ago.

45th Contact, February 25, 1976:
Semjase (Meier's extraterrestrial female contactor) warned him that our extraction of petroleum and natural gas from the Earth, the damming of waters and construction of huge cities are major factors contributing to increased
earthquake/volcanic activity.

Hope we don't have to deal with that here in our oil reach Alberta.

Here is a link that might be useful: Scientists Link China's Dam to Earthquake

I like what NFLD did in sitting on their oil(I dont like ocean drilling) for years holding out for big $$ from the oil companies which they got!While I do believe we should be looking at other forms of energy and certainly dont want 3 headed grandkids the US blocking the pipeline while they pull oil out of the ocean floor is disgusting.The scar the oilsands creates is not even a blip on the radar compared to sea floor drilling.The silly thing is this is a basically US project being blocked by the US. We dont need them to need our oil.Personally I am against this because of landowners being railroaded for their land.

One thing that the pipeline companies should be required to do before approval is given for a pipeline is to show how they will clean up the spills. There will be spills and line breaks. I don't care how strong the pipe is or how many navigational aids are put in place, recent history has shown spills will occur.

The oil industry doesn't care about the environment. Just look at the tailing ponds for the tar sands. The requirement is they be reclaimed AFTER the project is completed -- that's after your grandchildren are dead. After the ducks hit the fan, it took less than a year to "find" technology to effectively treat tailings immediately.

Yes, tailing ponds hold such deadly toxic of many chemicals that they don't even know how to get rid of humanly, they were talking about to pump it down old oil sites.

I was watching a show about fracking, same here, it's polluting ground water to a massive scale!

This is from a write up in:
US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet
While official accounts put US military usage at 320,000 barrels of oil a day, that does not include fuel consumed by contractors, in leased or private facilities, or in the production of weapons. The US military is a major contributor of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that most scientists believe is to blame for climate change.

I was looking up to give me a picture in comparison to our oil sand production, it turns out they use as much a day as Suncor can produce.

We're in a vicious circle and needs to be broken if we want a clean planet for future generations.

World wide arms reduction and population control should be implemented now!

Here is a link that might be useful: Suncor oil production

1jpother -- it would be rather unfair to expect an oil company (or any company for that matter) to reclaim the land BEFORE the project is completed, wouldn't it? Frankly, that isn't even possible.
I worked on oilsands reclamation a couple decades ago, and yes it may be in its infancy, but almost none of the mining projects have been completed, so how could they possibly be reclaimed? Give the companies time to finish up mining an area, then give them a chance to reclaim it. That's only fair.

The Americans got cold feet when they heard of a possible pipeline going west to the Asian market, so now they want to push things ahead...sooner or later we might get rid of our oil ahead of schedule.

don555

The oil companies planned to keep adding to the tailing ponds and to letting them settle for 50-100 years. After the dead ducks, they suddenly found an effective alternative. When a project is going to last for generations it is unreasonable to delay the clean up until it is done. When it is done, there is no revenue to pay for the clean up and the cost is shifted to the public. Another instance of the Alberta Advantage -- Private Profit, Public Pay.