CSIS

Fri, 2012-06-15 12:56Carol Linnitt
Carol Linnitt's picture

Terror is in the Eye of the Beholder: Alberta’s Counterterrorism Unit to Protect Oil and Gas Industry

In January, during the week before Canada’s federal hearing on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Harper government and Ethical Oil Institute launched an unprecedented attack on environmental organizations opposed to the pipeline and accelerated expansion of the tar sands. Resurrecting Cold War-style ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, conservative politicians like Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver referred to prominent environmental organizations as “radical groups” threatening “to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda” while using “funding from foreign special interests groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”

The government and Ethical Oil singled out environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, ForestEthics, and the Pembina Institute, in an orchestrated effort to undermine the credibility of pipeline opponents and to cast doubt on their intentions for the Enbridge Pipeline hearings. 
 
The rhetorical campaign against these alleged ‘environmental extremists’ moved from propaganda to policy last week when the RCMP announced the creation of a new counterterrorism unit in Alberta, designed to protect Canada’s energy infrastructure from so-called ‘security threats.’
Read more: Terror is in the Eye of the Beholder: Alberta’s Counterterrorism Unit to Protect Oil and Gas Industry
Wed, 2008-12-03 13:57Richard Littlemore
Richard Littlemore's picture

James Jones: New National Security Advisor is a Climate Change Risk Factor

Gen. James Jones looks like a good soldier, but President-elect Barack Obama's choice as a National Security Advisor just spent two years making energy policy with one of the most influential climate-policy footdraggers in the country - the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Far from being a force for good, if Jones pursues the policies that the Chamber has been pushing, he will undermine the security of the United States - and the habitability of the whole planet.

That said, there are reasons to be optimistic.

Read more: James Jones: New National Security Advisor is a Climate Change Risk Factor
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