Gregor Robertson opposes the expansion of a Kinder Morgan pipeline and makes this a central promise of his bid for re-election as Vancouver’s mayor. Robertson says that more oil tankers are too risky. It’s true that pipelines and tankers do pose environmental risks but there’s more to this issue.
Without pipelines and oil tankers, Alberta oil is landlocked within North America and Canadian oil producers are forced to sell into the U.S. market at prices that are far below what can be fetched overseas, forfeiting as much as $20 billion per year simply because Alberta oil had no place to go except south of the border.
For Canada, there is no single economic issue that is more important than getting Alberta oil to global markets.
According to my extensive analysis published in The Financial Post, nearly every environmental and First Nations group that opposes pipelines is funded as part of the Tar Sands Campaign, an international effort started in 2008 by the Rockefeller Brothers and the San Francisco-based, Tides Foundation.
Since 2009, Tides has paid out $20 million to at least 70 aboriginal and green groups that oppose pipelines, including the proposed Kinder Morgan expansion. Meanwhile, oil production in Texas has almost doubled and there’s no multi-million-dollar campaign against that.
Joel Solomon, Gregor Robertson’s longtime backer, has been with Tides since 1997. He’s a former board chairman. Born in Nashville, Tenn., Solomon has made Vancouver his home and became a Canadian citizen in 2008.
more about this playa
Vivian Krause: A vote for Vision is a vote for U.S. interests | The Province
Without pipelines and oil tankers, Alberta oil is landlocked within North America and Canadian oil producers are forced to sell into the U.S. market at prices that are far below what can be fetched overseas, forfeiting as much as $20 billion per year simply because Alberta oil had no place to go except south of the border.
For Canada, there is no single economic issue that is more important than getting Alberta oil to global markets.
According to my extensive analysis published in The Financial Post, nearly every environmental and First Nations group that opposes pipelines is funded as part of the Tar Sands Campaign, an international effort started in 2008 by the Rockefeller Brothers and the San Francisco-based, Tides Foundation.
Since 2009, Tides has paid out $20 million to at least 70 aboriginal and green groups that oppose pipelines, including the proposed Kinder Morgan expansion. Meanwhile, oil production in Texas has almost doubled and there’s no multi-million-dollar campaign against that.
Joel Solomon, Gregor Robertson’s longtime backer, has been with Tides since 1997. He’s a former board chairman. Born in Nashville, Tenn., Solomon has made Vancouver his home and became a Canadian citizen in 2008.
more about this playa
Vivian Krause: A vote for Vision is a vote for U.S. interests | The Province