Some really good points to consider even for those against oil: if you want the highest environmental, regulatory, and human rights standards, who do you support?
Canada – 4th largest oil exporter in the world
upholding the highest standards for energy development includes our pipeline system, which is the safest in the world. When measured relative to production, pipeline incidents in Canada are about one-tenth that of the United States’.
We also have an enviable marine safety record: There are about 20,000 tanker movements a year, with 85% taking place on the east coast, and there have been no significant oil-tanker spills.
New oil sands projects are generating GHG emissions that are on par with – or less than – the average barrel refined in the United States.
Where is the moral justification to allow other oil suppliers – with little to no environmental or regulatory oversight, an indifferent commitment to the climate-change fight and, in some cases, a record of human-rights abuses, poor labour standards and troubled governance – to capture markets that we can supply, with our world-class standards and high ethical approach?
full article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadas-energy-policy-and-its-increasingly-fact-free-discourse