EDMONTON—An error in an ad campaign targeting Alberta’s oil sands was not simply an editing mistake, environment minister Jim Prentice has said.
The recently launched “Rethink Alberta” campaign, which has sparked outrage among industry officials and politicians in Alberta, compared the oil sands to an area twice the size of England.
Citing an “editing error,” U.S.-based Corporate Ethics International (CEI) has now changed that in their 90-second online video, saying the oil sands “are destroying an area” the size of England.
But that is still inaccurate, according to Prentice, who says the area covered by oil sands operations is closer to 600 square kilometres.
“This is not an editing error, when you go from claiming that it was twice the size of England, to an area once the size of England down to the facts, which are only 620 square kilometres,” Prentice told QMI Agency.
“I think it underscores just how there are misrepresentations and misleading claims being made about Alberta and about Canada that are unfair and they’re not responsible.”
According to the Alberta government, the oil sands measure in total around 140,200 square kilometres, roughly the size of Florida. About 602 square kilometres is devoted to oil sands surface mining activity.
The CEI campaign, which includes billboard ads in some U.S. cities and an online video posted on the campaign’s website, bashes Alberta’s multi-billion dollar oil sands industry for its environmental footprint.
The video interweaves images of oil-covered ducks and sludge pouring into tailings ponds with scenic images of Alberta’s tourist sites.
CEI has also paid for billboard ads in four U.S. cities that show images of oil-covered birds from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster and the 2008 Syncrude Canada tailings ponds incident resulting in the death of 1,600 ducks, calling Alberta “the other oil disaster.”
The ad is intended to discourage tourists from visiting Alberta.
“Tell Alberta’s Tourism Division that you will not visit Alberta until they stop the expansion of the tar sands and negotiate with environmental and First Nations groups to clean up and phase out existing operations,” reads a statement on CEI’s website.
The organization intends to broaden its campaign to the United Kingdom and purchase online ads on Google as well as major tourist websites.
“Our goal is to wake up the tourism industry in Alberta to the fact that tar sands are a threat to theirs and our future—both an environmental and a reputational threat,” CEI says.
The campaign has incensed Alberta’s premier Ed Stelmach who last week told reporters that the ads are both unfair and inaccurate.
“This, of course, does anger me, to a large degree because it’s an attack on about 100,000 Albertans whose lives depend on the tourism industry,” Stelmach said.
Alberta’s oil production in 2009 was approximately 1.9 million barrels per day of crude oil. About 1.5 million barrels per day were exported south of the border, accounting for 15 percent of crude oil imports in the U.S.
Meanwhile, environmental groups and some U.S. legislators are criticizing the Keystone XL Pipeline project proposed by TransCanada to carry crude from Alberta to refineries in the U.S.
Last month, 50 members of Congress signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voicing their opposition to the project.
The U.S. State Department has delayed the timeline for federal agencies to make a decision on the project by 90 days, giving them until the end of the year to decide if the project is in the nation’s interest.
The recently launched “Rethink Alberta” campaign, which has sparked outrage among industry officials and politicians in Alberta, compared the oil sands to an area twice the size of England.
Citing an “editing error,” U.S.-based Corporate Ethics International (CEI) has now changed that in their 90-second online video, saying the oil sands “are destroying an area” the size of England.
But that is still inaccurate, according to Prentice, who says the area covered by oil sands operations is closer to 600 square kilometres.
“This is not an editing error, when you go from claiming that it was twice the size of England, to an area once the size of England down to the facts, which are only 620 square kilometres,” Prentice told QMI Agency.
“I think it underscores just how there are misrepresentations and misleading claims being made about Alberta and about Canada that are unfair and they’re not responsible.”
According to the Alberta government, the oil sands measure in total around 140,200 square kilometres, roughly the size of Florida. About 602 square kilometres is devoted to oil sands surface mining activity.
The CEI campaign, which includes billboard ads in some U.S. cities and an online video posted on the campaign’s website, bashes Alberta’s multi-billion dollar oil sands industry for its environmental footprint.
The video interweaves images of oil-covered ducks and sludge pouring into tailings ponds with scenic images of Alberta’s tourist sites.
CEI has also paid for billboard ads in four U.S. cities that show images of oil-covered birds from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster and the 2008 Syncrude Canada tailings ponds incident resulting in the death of 1,600 ducks, calling Alberta “the other oil disaster.”
The ad is intended to discourage tourists from visiting Alberta.
“Tell Alberta’s Tourism Division that you will not visit Alberta until they stop the expansion of the tar sands and negotiate with environmental and First Nations groups to clean up and phase out existing operations,” reads a statement on CEI’s website.
The organization intends to broaden its campaign to the United Kingdom and purchase online ads on Google as well as major tourist websites.
“Our goal is to wake up the tourism industry in Alberta to the fact that tar sands are a threat to theirs and our future—both an environmental and a reputational threat,” CEI says.
The campaign has incensed Alberta’s premier Ed Stelmach who last week told reporters that the ads are both unfair and inaccurate.
“This, of course, does anger me, to a large degree because it’s an attack on about 100,000 Albertans whose lives depend on the tourism industry,” Stelmach said.
Alberta’s oil production in 2009 was approximately 1.9 million barrels per day of crude oil. About 1.5 million barrels per day were exported south of the border, accounting for 15 percent of crude oil imports in the U.S.
Meanwhile, environmental groups and some U.S. legislators are criticizing the Keystone XL Pipeline project proposed by TransCanada to carry crude from Alberta to refineries in the U.S.
Last month, 50 members of Congress signed a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voicing their opposition to the project.
The U.S. State Department has delayed the timeline for federal agencies to make a decision on the project by 90 days, giving them until the end of the year to decide if the project is in the nation’s interest.
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