Two things today

#1

UN chastises Canada for human rights record
by Lisa Schlein

A United Nations watchdog group has harshly criticized Canada for its failure to live up to its commitments under an international treaty that protects people's economic, social and cultural rights.

In a tough assessment, one of the committee's 18 independent experts noted that "some situations (in Canada) had actually got worse" since Canada's record was last scrutinized in 1998.
Canada is one of five countries being examined by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on its compliance with the international covenant dealing with those rights. The committee's session will also examine Monaco, Liechtenstein, Morocco and Mexico. Each of the 153 states that is party to the treaty, effective from 1976, has to submit a periodic report to the committee.

The committee grilled Canada for two days, last Friday and again Monday, about its record on poverty, homelessness, indigenous and migrant rights, health and education. It found the government wanting in all areas.

"Many of the issues our committee raised in 1993 and 1998 are unfortunately still live issues today," said Ariranga Govindasamy Pillay, an expert from Mauritius. "Years later, the situation appears to be unchanged, and in some respects worse."

"There is continuing homelessness and reliance on food banks, security of tenure is still not enjoyed by tenants, child tax benefits are still clawed back."

"The situation of Aboriginal peoples, migrants and people with disabilities doesn't seem to be improving," Mr. Pillay said.

In presenting Canada's report, Alan Kessel, a legal adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, said Canada is "proud of its record of achievement in the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights."

Canada is at the forefront of promoting human rights internationally and domestically, and "its efforts had paid dividends," Mr. Kessel said.

He noted the Canadian government provides income support for low-income families with children through the National Child Benefit Supplement. He said Canadians are among the best-housed people in the world and that most "have access to housing of acceptable size and quality at affordable prices."

Among the federal government's priorities, he said, are improved childcare, lower taxes, health care and crime reduction.

But the committee challenged the Canadian delegation on a wide range of issues, including Aboriginal rights. It specifically asked about the government's failure to settle outstanding land claims brought forward by the Six Nations and the Lubicon River Indians.

The experts also asked why young Aboriginal women are disproportionately exposed to sexual assault and murder. They expressed concern regarding discrimination against women under the Indian Act.

The Canadian delegation countered the criticisms by saying "it recognized and affirmed land and treaty rights." It said it recognized "the inherent right of Aboriginals to self-government."
Several committee members said they were disturbed by the lack of investment in social programs and by continuing high poverty rates of the most marginalized - including women, Aboriginal peoples, people of colour and immigrants.

A group of about 20 non-governmental organizations representing a range of human rights, Aboriginal, anti-poverty and women's groups attended the hearings and provided the committee with studies that painted a bleak picture of life in Canada for underprivileged people.
Vince Calderhead is with the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues, a Canadian social advocacy group.

He said "social assistance levels are lower now than they have been in 25 or 30 years even though the government is trumpeting an improved economy."

The Canadian delegation said Canada is making progress on poverty alleviation and believes that this is due to "Canada's support for self-reliance for families and self-sufficiency" for those with disabilities, Aboriginals, and the homeless.

It said "there had been a consistent downward trend in low incomes since 1996, and governmental programming was benefiting all Canadians."

The committee will formally issue its conclusions and recommendations on May 19 when its session concludes

#2

Turning sludge into black gold
by Russell Gold

In February, engineers from French oil giant Total fired up colossal drum boilers to generate steam that will be pumped to a depth of 300 feet under the frozen ground here. If all goes well, by May, the steam will marinate a tar-like mix of oil and sand until the crude begins to flow.

Nearby, Total will go after the oil-soaked sands closer to the surface, scraping away an ancient forest of spruce and poplars and shoveling the black soil into two-story dump trucks. Fully loaded, the trucks weigh as much as a Boeing 747. Total will then use industrial versions of giant washing machines to remove the oil, generating enough liquid waste to create vast toxic lakes.

Heavy-duty oil-extraction projects like these are turning Fort McMurray into the first great oil boom town of the 21st century. A Florida-size section of sandy soil beneath the boreal forest in this sparsely populated area of northern Canada is loaded with bottom-of-the-barrel petroleum.

These deposits were once dismissed as ''unconventional'' oil that couldn't be recovered economically. But now, thanks to rising global oil prices and improved technology, most oil-industry experts count oil sands as recoverable reserves. That recalculation has vaulted Venezuela and Canada to first and third in global reserves rankings, although Venezuela's holdings in extra-heavy crude are a rough guess. Saudi Arabia is No. 2.

Not including the oil sands, Canada would fall to No. 22. Led by Total, nearly every major Western oil company as well as their Chinese and Indian brethren are gearing up to go after the deposits here. In all, they plan to spend more than $70 billion in the next decade unlocking the oil from the sand.

SWEET CRUDE CRUNCH
The surging interest in Canadian oil sands is stark evidence that the world isn't about to run out of oil. Instead, it is running low on readily accessible light, sweet crude -- oil that flows like water, has few impurities and can be easily turned into gasoline. As the good stuff gets scarce, Big Oil is turning its attention and pouring money into extra-heavy crude, such as the giant deposits near Fort McMurray and another similar one in Venezuela.

But heavy oil has big economic and environmental drawbacks. It costs more to produce and takes more energy to turn into gasoline than traditional light oil. Recovering and processing Fort McMurray's heavy crude releases up to three times as much greenhouse gas as producing conventional crude. And upgrading it into refined products, such as gasoline or diesel, will require a gigantic investment to retool global refineries.

''The light crude undiscovered today is getting scarcer and scarcer,'' says Jean-Luc Guiziou, president of Total's Canadian operations. "We have to accept the reality of geoscience, which is that the next generation of oil resources will be heavier.''

Total is making the biggest bet on heavy crude of any of the half-dozen international Western oil giants. Nearly one-fifth of its commercial reserves are in heavy-oil belts, a larger portion than any of its Western rivals, according to oil consultant Wood Mackenzie. Its stockpile of heavy-oil reserves is second only to that of ExxonMobil, a company that is more than twice as large. Total has spent years developing the complex technology needed to extract oil from tar sands in the frigid environment of northern Canada. So much heat is required to separate the oil from the tar that Total briefly floated the idea of building a nuclear- power plant there.

INCREASED EMISSIONS
The rush into the oil sands also has turned a long-standing belief about fossil fuels and the environment on its head. For years, environmentalists have argued that higher gasoline prices would be good for the Earth because paying more at the pump would promote conservation. Instead, higher energy prices have unleashed a bevy of heavy-oil projects that will increase emissions of carbon dioxide, suspected of causing global warming.

''As oil prices have gone up, you get this increased desire to get out onto the new frontiers of oil,'' says Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Calgary-based Pembina Institute, an energy and environment think tank. ''We're now getting into the dirtiest sources of oil anywhere.'' To be sure, rising energy prices have spawned more interest in renewable fuel sources, but those investments pale in comparison to what's going on here.

Canada, which exports more oil to the United States than any other country, already is having trouble meeting its pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions largely because of its mushrooming heavy-oil production. By 2015, Canada's Fort McMurray region, population 61,000, is expected to emit more greenhouse gases than Denmark, a country of 5.4 million people.

LARGE SUPPLIES
Canada's northern forest contains at least 174 billion barrels of recoverable heavy oil, equivalent to five years' supply for the planet, according to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. Venezuela has perhaps even more in the Orinoco River delta. By comparison, Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of more traditional crude, or 8 ½ years' global supply, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the federal Department of Energy. Heavy oil also is being produced in the Middle East, the Caspian Sea, Brazil and even in California's San Joaquin Valley.

CHANGING LANDSCAPE
In northern Alberta, the oil-sands boom is remaking the landscape. The mining operations have clear-cut thousands of acres of trees and dug 200-foot-deep pits. The region is dotted with large man-made lakes filled with leftover waste from the mining operations. To chase off migratory birds, propane cannons go off at random intervals and scarecrows stand guard on floating barrels.

Alberta's energy minister, Greg Melchin, says oil-sands development creates a minimal environmental disturbance that is outweighed by the opportunities and jobs created. ''It's worth it. There is a cost to it, but the benefits are substantially greater,'' he said.

Environmental groups are increasingly critical of the government's reluctance to regulate the oil sands. ''The pace of development is outstripping our ability to manage the environmental issue,'' says Raynolds of the Pembina Institute. "Our unwritten energy policy is dig it up and sell it as fast as possible.''

The remarkable properties of Fort McMurray's oil sands have been known for centuries. Native tribes mixed the tar-like substance with tree sap to waterproof their canoes. In the 1960s, companies now known as Suncor Energy and Syncrude Canada, a consortium of oil companies, opened oil-sands mines in the area. Both operations stumbled through periods of low oil prices but are now rapidly expanding.

When oil was trading at $12 a barrel in the late 1990s, Big Oil had little interest in oil sands. But surging energy prices have made heavy-oil investments significantly more attractive. It costs about $25 a barrel to produce crude from Canada's oil sands, an acceptable cost when oil is trading for more than $70 a barrel. By comparison, it can cost as little as about $5 a barrel to produce crude in the Middle East and $15 in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

TOTAL'S STRENGTH
For Paris-based Total, the world's fifth-largest publicly traded energy company by market capitalization, the oil sands play to its strengths. Total had its roots as a refiner rather than an exploration and production company. Oil sands were easy to find but hard to process.

Total's first foray into heavy oil was in Venezuela's Orinoco belt. In 1997, the company's giant $4.2 billion Sincor project there began producing market-grade crude. Sincor, which Total owns with Norway's Statoil and Petróleos de Venezuela, now produces 180,000 barrels of oil a day.

The same year, Total opened an office in Calgary to determine if a similar investment was warranted near Fort McMurray. It was soon clear to Total engineers brought in from Sincor that Canadian oil sands were more technically difficult than Venezuela's heavy-oil belt.

The key difference: The heavy oil in Venezuela was quite warm and flowed easily, albeit slowly, while in Canada the oil-sand mixture had the look and consistency of tar-like Play-Doh. But Canada was attractive because it offered a haven from politically unstable oil hot spots.