Oliver hurls insults at oilsands critics

OTTAWA — Just as Prime Minister Stephen Harper heads to the United States to win over hearts and minds on Canada’s pipeline plans, his natural resources minister is wrapping up a similar tour in Europe by lobbing insults at oilsands critics.

In a conference call Friday from London, Joe Oliver dismissed suggestions that the government’s transcontinental public- relations press on energy and the environment is a sign of desperation in Ottawa.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as desperate,” Oliver said of the recent barrage of federal emissaries travelling the globe to talk up Canada’s oilsands in the face of projects like the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Rather, he said, it’s oilsands opponents who are starting to sound panicky.

“It’s pretty clear that opponents are getting desperate, hence the shrillness of their arguments, the hyperbole and the exaggeration that we’re hearing from some sources.”

European decision- makers are still in the midst of determining how they should word their fuel quality directive, which would favour low- carbon fuels and penalize crude from the oilsands for being high in carbon.

And their counterparts in the U. S. are expected to decide in the next few months whether to green- light Keystone XL, which would carry oilsands bitumen from Alberta all the way to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

The Conservatives see both decisions as crucial for market access for Canada’s energy sector, and have ramped up their lobbying campaign accordingly.

Environment Minister Peter Kent will be following in Oliver’s footsteps to Europe next week, even as Harper addresses U. S. business leaders in New York City about the benefits of the oilsands and Canada’s environmental policy.

But environmentalists see the decisions on Keystone XL and the European fuel quality directive as pivotal in the fight against global warming.

A group of 150 major Democrat donors in the United States issued a letter Friday urging President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline in the name of fighting off climate change.