Home » News » Stelmach says he hasn’t seen pictures of oil-covered ducks
News
Stelmach says he hasn’t seen pictures of oil-covered ducks
News Articles | Edmonton Journal | Trish Audette | March 08, 2010
Read the full article on the originating site
EDMONTON — Premier Ed Stelmach of Alberta said Monday he hasn’t seen pictures of oil-soaked ducks trapped in a Syncrude tailings pond — images that have been key evidence since the start of a court case last week that has gained international attention.
“I haven’t seen them,” Stelmach said. “The trial is proceeding, and it doesn’t matter if there’s 500 ducks, 1,500 ducks, 1,600, or five. There’s still ducks that landed in the pond, it’s unacceptable, not the way we do things in Alberta.”
Stelmach did not say why he hasn’t seen the images.
Syncrude faces federal and provincial charges in connection to the deaths of 1,600 ducks that landed in the oil giant’s Aurora tailings pond near Fort McMurray in April of 2008.
Video and photographs of ducks struggling to free themselves from the bitumen-coated pond were made public after they were shown in a St. Albert courtroom.
Since then, the images have been printed in newspapers and shown on TV and on numerous websites. The photos were published on the front pages of Alberta newspapers and the videos were featured in local television newscasts.
Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman said the premier’s admission illustrates his denial of an environmental issue that has focused renewed negative attention on Alberta’s multi-billion dollar oilsands industry.
“That is what the rest of the world is looking at, is the pictures of those ducks,” she said.
Syncrude has pleaded not guilty to charges under the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act.
NDP Leader Brian Mason said Stelmach must think if doesn’t look at the pictures he doesn’t have to talk about them.
“I don’t think that the government really cares about those ducks,” Mason said. “They’re much more interested in protecting the international reputation of the oilsands.”
In the last week, Alberta’s oilsands have been under renewed fire in the international press.
Days before the Academy Awards were handed out, 50 non-government organizations took out a full-page ad in the Hollywood trade magazine Variety, dubbing the oilsands “Canada’s Avatar Sands,” comparing Alberta’s bitumen production to the plunder of “unobtainium” in the movie Avatar.
The March-April issue of the American conservation magazine Audubon profiles the oilsands. The magazine’s readers are encouraged to contact their legislators to support alternative energy and discourage “tarsands development.”
While Mason charged Alberta is at risk of facing an “international boycott,” Stelmach pointed out the province has not lost its export market. Instead, demand for Alberta oil is rising, he said.
“We’re going to solve these issues in environment through technology,” Stelmach said. “The markets will demand energy.
“Nobody’s going to tell Asia, China, India, ‘Sorry, this is the end of energy supply, you will have to live without new sources of oil.’
“It just won’t happen.”
Tagged with: syncrude, ducks, tailings ponds, ed stelmach, vancouver sun
