Every day industry and government advertisements bombard Canadian citizens with the sort of overt propaganda one might expect to hear in Saudi Arabia or Nigeria. The advertisements repeat, ad nauseam, a particular Orwellian phrase, ‘responsible resource development’ or RRD. The acronym has become the official tag line for the carbon-intensive tar sands: the world’s largest mining and energy project. And it is a messy earth-destroying project by any calculation. By 2022 the project will produce enough toxic waste every month to transform an area the size of New York City’s Central Park into a toxic reservoir 3.4 metres deep.
Yet the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers tells Canadians that such endeavours are not only sustainable but actually represent the Canadian ‘spirit’. The lobby group also pumps out an annual ‘Responsible Canadian Energy Progress’ report. The document admits that goals on emissions and land reclamation are not being honoured, but in a responsible way.
