Firebrand conservative Ezra Levant's new book, Ethical Oil, is a defence of what many consider to be Canada's indefensible environmental black eye: the oilsands.
Though it may seem like the kind of battle no one would willingly choose to fight -- defending giant corporations for an oil industry that scars the land, kills migratory birds and pollutes rivers -- Levant says it was a no-brainer.
Yes our oil industry has its problems, says the founder of the Western Standard, but compared with the alternatives -- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and Nigeria to name a few -- Canada's oil is greener, more economical and more socially beneficial.
And by bashing the oilsands, he argues, groups like Greenpeace are actually driving business to dictatorships and countries with abysmal records on human rights and the environment.
"If I was arguing against a perfect alternative, obviously I would fail but that's not the real world. The real world is if Joe American in New York City doesn't fill his car with Canadian oil he will fill it with oil from somewhere else," Levant tells CTV.ca in an interview.
The book begins by outlining the arguments against Alberta's oilsands. The entire first chapter, in fact, reads like a manifesto against the industry, a laundry list of cons that has the reader double-checking the author's name on the front of the book.
Open pit mines, massive tailing ponds that will kill millions of birds, deformed fish and poisoned rivers that have eliminated an essential food source for the First Nations population -- all these are outlined in the opening chapter, painting a grim picture of a horrible industry.
Then Levant abruptly changes tack.
"Wow," he writes. "The oil sands are embarrassing. Not just for Albertans but for anyone in Canada who cares about the environment, or Aboriginal rights, or our international reputation.
"Except it's not true. Every single fact in the preceding pages is false. Every one of them."
In defense of the oil sands
From that point on, Levant works to dismantle all the arguments against the oilsands that he has just listed, while promoting his belief that Canada's oil is better for the environment, and for our collective conscience, than almost anything else out there.
"I think that the falsehoods about the oilsands have been repeated so often that people assume they are true. I have to tell you even I believed some of those lies because where would I hear otherwise?" Levant says.
"As I did actual research for the book I came upon facts that contradicted that official narrative and it made me realize that official story was actually fiction created by oilsands critics, some of whom have an agenda of their own."
Levant said his book isn't targeted at the hardcore environmentalists. Their minds won't likely be changed, he admits. Instead his target audience is "well meaning people who read the news and care about the world and probably come from a liberal point of view."
"I'm a conservative but I want to take liberals on at face value."
He does this by measuring the alternatives to Canadian oil by four yardsticks: Environmentalism, peace and terror, economic justice and treatment of minorities.
When compared using that criteria, the options are pretty bleak, he said. Of the 10 countries with the world's largest oil reserves, in fact, Canada is the only liberal democracy other than the fledgling and fragile Iraq.
There's Saudi Arabia, where women's rights are virtually nonexistent, homosexuals can be executed and the oil is harvested by foreign workers in near slave-like conditions.
Iran's record on women and worker's rights isn't much better, and they've got ambitions to be a nuclear superpower and a history of tension with the United Nations.
Then there's Sudan and Nigeria, where the environment isn't really a factor in decision-making when it comes to oil, schools and hospitals are a distant dream for many, and massacres and ethnic cleansing are often government-sponsored.
Russia and Venezuela have their own list of problems, Levant writes. Moscow uses most of its oil revenue to build its military arsenal. And in Venezuela under dictator Hugo Chavez, free speech is virtually non-existent and opposition to the oil industry and its environmental practices is essentially unheard of for fear of reprisals.
Easy target
The problem, Levant argues, is that Greenpeace doesn't have the will or the means to tackle the oil issues in most of these places. Their oil data isn't publicly available or doesn't exist, journalists are afraid to cover environmental or social abuses, and activists could be thrown into jail or worse. It's just too dangerous.
Canada, by comparison, is an easy target, with shareholder's meetings, public data, full disclosure when mistakes are made and a charter that enshrines freedom of speech. Quite simply, Greenpeace can protest here, so it does.
But what the activists don't realize, Levant says, is that by driving customers away from Canada's oil, they are forcing them to seek a much worse alternative.
In the book he uses the Example of Talisman Energy, a Canadian oil company working in Sudan, to make the point. Talisman was part owner in a Sudan oil operation along with China, Sudan and Malaysia in the late 90s and 2000s.
The Calgary-based company built hospitals, clinics, dug wells, subsidized farmland in Sudan and pressured Khartoum to improve its human rights record, all while the government was carrying out massive abuses of its people.
But just by being there, Talisman became such a target for Western activist groups and the Canadian and U.S. governments, that they eventually gave up and sold their stake in the lucrative project.
Levant writes: "The last, big, socially conscious Western company was hounded out of Sudan. And at precisely the same time, Sudan's ethnic cleansing of Darfur began in earnest."
Though it's a dramatic example, Levant uses it to illustrate the effect that massive protests against Canada's oilsands, could have.
Moving forward
He points out that great strides have been made in the oilsands and that surprisingly, only 2 per cent of the area -- which is admittedly the size of Florida -- comprises open pit mines.
"You don't see that in Greenpeace fundraisers because they go for what I call 鈥榦ilsands porn,' these big ugly shots of open mines and tailing ponds because that raises money," Levant said.
The majority of the area, he said, consists of "critters frolicking" and trees.
That might be an overly rosy picture of a massive industrial area, but Levant says the stats show Canada's oilsands are improving. For example, the amount of emissions required to produce one barrel of oil from the oilsands is now 38 per cent lower than it was 20 years ago.
And emissions from the oilsands now amount to 5 per cent of Canada's total -- admittedly a lot -- but less than the emissions from Canada's combined cattle and pig farms.
The bottom line, Levant said, is not that Canada's oil is perfect. Like any major industry there is pollution and there are side effects. But it's the best option for an oil-thirsty world with no better alternative.
"The number one thing we have to do is to stop pretending the alternative is dilithium crystals or some sci-fi fantasy. It's not, it's Saudi oil," Levant said.
"And so I would like my friends on the other side of the debate to spend a little bit of time acknowledging what the alternatives are."
