ForestEthics Advocacy released a game-changing research brief today documenting the massive foreign control of Alberta’s tar sands oil industry. Publicly traded oil companies with active tar sands operations have a very high level of foreign ownership – 71 per cent.

Some supposedly “Canadian” oil companies including Suncor, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Imperial Oil and Husky are predominantly owned by foreign interests. More than half of Canada’s oil and gas revenue goes to companies under foreign control.

This revelation stands in stark contrast to the talking points of the Harper administration and its media echo chamber, which insist that there is too much foreign influence over Canada’s resource decisions from environmental groups. In fact, the evidence shows overwhelmingly that foreign interests are influencing tar sands and other resource decisions – chiefly Chinese and other foreign oil companies. 

Cue Ezra Levant’s outrage at this foreign influence in Canadian interests! Where’s Vivian Krause when you need her? Surely the Ethical Oil Institute will agree that this level of foreign intervention is a dangerous threat to Canada’s future? 

Recall that when the Ethical Oil Institute launched its allegedly “100% Canadian” OurDecision.ca website, this was the statement by spokesperson Kathryn Marshall:  “We’ll never take foreign money to undermine our country’s national interests.” 

The group admits that it receives funding from companies active in the tar sands. Now that it’s been revealed that all these companies are predominently foreign-owned, the group’s claims to be 100% Canadian are highly misleading. We await their statement correcting the record.

Anticipating that someone, perhaps from the ‘ethical oil’ team, will quickly attempt to do damage control by claiming that this is just some ginned up report by ForestEthics, let’s be crystal clear that the data underlying the report are all from independent sources including Bloomberg Professional and industry journals. 

The ForestEthics Advocacy brief concludes:

“The Conservative Harper government is increasingly ruling in favour of foreign-oil companies instead of Canadians. We need foreign investment and shareholders in this country, but it does not need to be at the cost of democracy, our environment, and future generations.”

Read the full Forest Ethics Advocacy brief [PDF]: Who Benefits? An Investigation of Foreign Investment in The Tar Sands
 

Update: Rick Mercer’s takedown of this “foreign-owned” nationalism talking point is increasingly accurate with every passing day. (H/T AnOilMan).