Bitumen: Boon or Blight?

There are few subjects as divisive in this country as the tar sands. For some they are an economic miracle, generating billions of dollars of tax revenue and thousands of jobs. For others they are an environmental disaster, a blight on the physical and political landscape. But nearly all agree that the tar sands are the most important development project in the country. Love them or loathe them, the tar sands will define Canada like nothing else.

Two recently released books, Andrew Nikiforuk’s Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent and Tony Clarke’s Tar Sands Showdown: Canada and the New Politics of Oil in an Age of Climate Change, take aim at the tar sands. (1) But only one hits its mark. Nikiforuk’s book is a tightly focused condemnation of the tar sands industry and the governments that have supported its unsustainable growth. On one level it is a cogent and clearly argued critique; on another level it is a sustained howl of rage...