TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver on Monday struck out at what he called “environmental and other radical groups” threatening to “hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda”, delaying projects that cost the country jobs and economic growth.

In an open letter decrying what he dubbed a broken regulatory system, Oliver said that these groups wanted to stop any major project, no matter what the cost.

“We believe reviews for major projects can be accomplished in a quicker and more streamlined fashion,” he wrote.

“We do not want projects that are safe, generate thousands of new jobs and open up new export markets, to die in the approval phase due to unnecessary delays.”

US President Barrack Obama last year delayed a decision on a pipeline to carry Canadian oil sands fuel to refineries in Texas probably until after the federal elections in November, after a slew of environmental opposition, including from actors such as Robert Redford.

Canada is now debating a new pipeline that will carry oil sands crude west from Alberta to British Columbia’s coast, where it can be shipped to Eastern markets such as China.

In his letter, addressed to nobody in particular, Oliver argued that Canada needed to streamline its regulatory process to allow it to further diversify its energy markets.

“For our government, the choice is clear: we need to diversify our markets in order to create jobs and economic growth for Canadians across this country. We must expand our trade with the fast-growing Asian economies,” he said.
 

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