By Deborah Gyapong
Canadian Catholic News

OTTAWA -- A delegation of church and aboriginal leaders is urging Canada to develop a transition plan to sustainable energy, following a seven-day tour of the Alberta oil sands development.

"We agreed that we're driving this train," said Kairos: Ecumenical Justice Initiatives executive director Mary Corkery. "We fuel the demand for oil and we have to be part of the solution."

"We need to keep asking hard questions and we need to involve people in our church communities in doing that, not to go out feeding answers but to get people involved in democratic participation in one of the most important issues that we face," she said.

Kairos brought together 10 church leaders, including Bruce Adema, the new president of the Canadian Council of Churches, and Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB). Three aboriginal leaders and Southern partners and three Kairos staff also participated in the May 21 - 27 tour that took them to Edmonton, Fort McMurray, various indigenous communities and Fort Chipewyan.

Weisgerber said he was "surprised by the magnitude of the whole business," describing the "footprint on the environment," such as the use of water and the creation of waste products, as "huge."

"What we were all very conscious about is this is not what's going on in Fort McMurray," the archbishop said. "This is about us. There is such a desire and demand for oil and the demand is created by us."

"We all have to take steps to reduce our consumption drastically if we want to leave behind a habitable planet for our grandchildren and for the people of Nigeria and Ecuador," said Dana Bush, a vegetation ecologist who represented the Quakers on the tour. A Calgary-based biologist, Bush works for environmental consulting companies that work with the oil companies.

"People up there are talking about possible technical solutions," she said. "There are a lot of very creative people."

"All of the people that we talked to are aware of the costs and benefits of the development," she said. "It wasn't nearly as polarized as I worried it might be."

"We did hear a fair amount of saying that it's the other guy's fault," she said. Government was blamed for not raising the bar on standards; tail pipe emissions not the oils sands are to blame for C02 levels; and the problem is China not Canada, were some of the arguments she said she heard.

The tour, which took about a year and a half to organize, included meetings with the whole range of oil sands stakeholders: from aboriginal communities worried about adverse health effects, and aboriginal communities benefiting from contracts and employment, to labor representatives, community leaders in Fort McMurray and Fort Chipewyan, and oil company executives.

"Nobody is denying that there's a problem," said Weisgerber, noting a concern that "some voices in the discussion have more weight than other voices."

"There is pressure to proceed before the problems will be solved," he said. "We don't know whether ultimately they will be solved."

He also expressed sympathy for the people of Fort McMurray. "They feel they have been maligned mercilessly in the press."

Because of the importance of the oil sands for the economy, "the industry seems to get more of an ear than anyone else," he said.

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Corkery said she was pleased to see that the oil companies seem to know the problems and understand the risks. "They feel they are doing everything that can be done and that science will come up with solutions," she said.

"I don't believe that's the case, partly because of the tremendous pressure for expansion," she added.

The growth of development has put tremendous pressure on local infrastructure such as hospitals, roads and housing, she said.

When the recession hit, the oil companies chopped 17,000 jobs, she said, but now that the oil price is rising, development is gearing up again.

"We need jobs," she said. "We need good sustainable jobs, but plans for job creation are not necessarily best left to oil companies."

Oil companies are about "making a profit," she said, not about creating energy or jobs.

"It's not a job creation plan," she said. "It does not have built in sustainability with finite resources."

She said she would like to see wind, sun and thermal energy developed, but she admitted Canada could not suddenly switch to these alternative sources.

"We reject the false choice between the environment and jobs," she said. "There are no jobs on a dead planet.

"We are not calling for stopping this kind of development," she added. "We are saying that Canada needs a plan."

Governments have a vested interest in taxes and royalties, she said, adding that both governments and individuals are "addicted to oil."

Oilwatch South America partner Fabricio Guaman said oil companies have been operating for 50 years in Ecuador. Regular oil production is reaching its end, and only heavy oil is left, he said. He was glad to see the Alberta oil sands, he said, because it gave him an idea of what Ecuador faces in oil sands development.

-- Courtesy of Canadian Catholic News. Please do not reprint without permission.

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June 4/2009