NDP threatens to "shut down tar sands"
OTTAWA – Jack Layton needs to clarify the statement made by his "star" candidate Michael Byers yesterday that the NDP plans to “shut down the tar sands,” one of the largest drivers of economic activity in Canada.
Speaking at an all-candidates debate in Vancouver Centre, Mr. Byers said:
“We have to do something to address the climate change crisis; we need to do so now. We need to go after the big polluters; we need to shut the tar sands down.” (CBC The National, September 25, 2008)
Instead of retracting his statement, Mr. Byers stood firm that the NDP has its eyes on shutting down the oil sands stating, “I believe that the tar sands would phase themselves out if we actually reduced the massive government subventions of those processes.” (CBC The National, September 25, 2008).
Approximately 145,000 Canadians are employed in the mining and oil and gas extraction industry in Alberta. Thousands more work in the services sector that supports energy exploration and production. This kind of naive rhetoric that underpins the desire to put this industry out of work is just another example of disastrous NDP economic policy.
Ironically, it was Mr. Byers, who less than a year ago, chastised Prime Minister Stephen Harper as being the real “small man of humanity” for his resistance to implementing a carbon tax—a lesson that that somehow Jack Layton failed to learn:
“At the same time, Harper argues that a carbon tax and other market-based measures for curbing emissions would somehow damage the Canadian economy. But Norway, a major oil and gas exporter, introduced a carbon tax in 1991 and has seen its economy grow faster than Canada's ever since.” (Toronto Star, December 3, 2007)
On one hand, Canadians have Mr. Harper advocating for an unrestricted and rapid development of the oil sands, and on the other hand, Mr. Layton’s plan is to put hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of work as a result of this unrealistic ideology.
The Liberal Party is striking the right balance with our policy on the oil sands. We will immediately end the special tax treatment for oil sands development which can no longer be justified in an era where the development technology is now proven, oil is worth over $100 a barrel and the profits in the sector measure into the billions. Instead, we will provide the necessary tax incentives to oil companies to invest in technologies that reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and make them more energy efficient.
We will also introduce a price on carbon that will mobilize companies to move to low-carbon, less polluting practices in order to develop sustainably and drive competitiveness.
