Syncrude: Destroying Boreal forest "worth it"
``The oil industry is planning to industrialize and dig up an area of northern Alberta more than 3,000 square kilometres in size over the next 10 to 15 years as part of extracting the second-largest deposit of oil in the world.'' [..] ``But Bruce Friesen, manager of reclamation for Syncrude, says the benefits from the oilsands projects are worth the environmental price. "Yes, there is a cost in that there is a period of time that there is no forest here, [but] we think that for the economic benefit from the oilsands mining taxes, royalties and employment that is a reasonable trade off," he said.''
Nobody has asked Albertans or Canadians, though. My answer: no. Just for the record or whatever. Besides, just what percentage of the profits from the oilsands are going outside Canada and Alberta? A lot of the so-called "royalties" are given back to the oil companies as tax-breaks already, for example, and none of the major oil companies involved are Albertan (or even Canadian for that matter).