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OP-ED: Oilsands not above law
Opinion | Calgary Sun | Janet Keeping | May 17, 2010
Read the full article on the originating site
Alberta’s primary oil and gas regulator recently announced that Syncrude, the largest oilsands mining company, does not have to meet the tailings ponds cleanup standards established by the regulator last winter.
Although officials with the Energy Resources Conservation Board earlier pronounced those standards “firm, final and non-negotiable,” it turns out they are no such thing.
The government’s disdain for the rule of law, especially in connection with oilsands developments, is nevertheless disturbing.
Oilsands pro-jects pose myriad threats. Many, such as pollution of ground water and consumption of relatively clean natural gas to produce much dirtier synthetic crude, are well-known.
But less attention is paid to the erosion of the rule of law caused by failure to properly regulate the projects — not just in Alberta, but also at the national level.
Ottawa has authority over several matters central to oilsands controversies — amongst them, Aboriginal peoples and their lands, fish habitat, and interprovincial effects of the projects.
There is little action on any of these mandates.
Since the 13th century, when the Magna Carta was added to English statute books, the rule of law has afforded protection from arbitrary government.
Canada is one of the few lucky countries to have the rule of law constitutionally guaranteed. Citizens have to obey speeding laws, or get a ticket, and pay taxes, or risk a fine, or worse.
The more powerful also have to obey the law.
That’s a major reason we as a society buy into our system of governance — it’s fair because everyone is subject to it.
When ordinary citizens notice the more rich and powerful aren’t suffering consequences for breaking the law, their trust in the system starts to falter. Why should I tell the truth on my tax return when others don’t? Or why obey laws against drinking-and-driving when I see former MPs don’t have to?
Our governments must also hold resource development companies to account. Failing to do so undermines our belief that we should obey the law because our system treats everyone equally. Why should we hold such belief, when the rich and powerful — i.e. shareholders of delinquent companies — do not have to conform to our laws ?
We should care about such things because people are much better off in a country with the rule of law than in one without it.
All laws are vulnerable without the primacy of law and independent judges and honest police to enforce the rules. Without rule of law, rampant corruption is a sure thing. Think Russia or Nigeria.
We tolerate erosion of the rule of law at our collective peril. As we have seen with the financial sector, if we turn a blind eye to illegality — perhaps because a company or an industry is thought “too big to fail” — we may pay far more for abandonment of the rule of law than if the problem been dealt with in the first place, as in the case of tailings from oilsands developments.
Rules must be imposed fairly, even against companies as powerful as Syncrude.
The end — development of the oil sands — even if otherwise defensible, does not justify the means. Governments which permit the rule of law to erode fail to protect one of the institutions necessary to a fair and decent society.
Some call this casual disregard for the rule of law in oil and gas based economies “petro-politics.”
Whatever the label, it must stop.
Keeping is a lawyer and president of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership.
Tagged with: syncrude, tailings ponds, energy resource conservation board, cleanup, calgary sun
