Oil, It's Not | Unpublished
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Unpublished Opinions

Elizabeth May's picture
Ottawa, Ontario
About the author

Elizabeth May is an environmentalist, writer, activist, lawyer, and leader of the Green Party of Canada. Elizabeth became active in the environmental movement in the 1970s. She is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School and was admitted to the Bar in both Nova Scotia and Ontario. She held the position of Associate General Council for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre prior to becoming Senior Policy Advisor to the federal minister of the Environment from 1986 until 1988. Elizabeth became Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada in 1989, a position she held until March 2006, when she stepped down to run for leadership of the Green Party of Canada.

Elizabeth is the author of seven books, including her most recent Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy. She has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development and as Vice-Chair of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy and is currently a Commissioner of the Earth Charter International Council. Elizabeth became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005. In November, 2010, Newsweek magazine named her one of the worlds most influential women. In the 2011 Election, Elizabeth made history by being the first Green Party candidate to be elected to the House of Commons. She is the Member of Parliament for the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. In 2012, Elizabeth won Macleans Parliamentarian of the Year award, voted on by her fellow MPs.

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Oil, It's Not

November 20, 2013

Re A Pipeline To Somewhere (editorial, Nov. 16): I wish your editorial had been a tad more precise in its terminology.

While you assume the proposed pipelines will be shipping “oil,” I am not aware of any proposal involving oil.

All current proposals, Keystone, Enbridge, TransCanada, Kinder Morgan, whether east-west, north-south, west-east, involve “dilbit,” a sludge-like, pre-crude mess. Bitumen does not flow. Rather than upgrade bitumen in Alberta to a synthetic crude and then refine it, the Harper administration caters to the interests of the Koch brothers of Texas to ship “diluent” (a trade term without fixed chemical meaning, but typically a mix of naphta, benzene and butane) north to Alberta, to mix it with bitumen, and pipe it to Koch brothers refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.

A sensible conversation about pipelines starts with a discussion of what is in Canada’s economic interest, analyzing how the Koch brothers stand to make $100-billion on Keystone XL, and how Canada stands to lose.

Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands; Leader, Green Party of Canada