Is Canada's oil more ethical than Saudi Arabia's?

[The Straight Story]

Is Canada's oil more ethical than Saudi Arabia's?

Canada's government and oil industry want Americans to stop thinking of heavy Alberta crude as "dirty oil" and start thinking of it as "ethical oil."

Canadian diplomats have been making the rounds with US policymakers while a lobby group for the industry recently put out a television commercial comparing Canada's record on women's rights with that of Saudi Arabia with the tag line: "Ethical oil from Canada's oil sands. A choice we have to make."

It's an intriguing idea that oil can be ethical depending on where it's extracted. The effort to rebrand the Alberta oil sands comes against the backdrop of increasing opposition from US and Canadian environmentalists and others to the Keystone XL pipeline. The $13 billion project will carry the viscous crude from northeastern Alberta, across several Midwestern states, to refineries in Texas and the Gulf Coast. That is, if the Obama administration approves the transborder development.

"We're not being holier-than-thou about it, but we point out that Canada is a democracy with all the associated rights and privileges ... the human rights benefits that flow from that," says Gary Doer, Canada's ambassador to the United States, in a telephone interview. "President Obama, when he was a candidate, promised to wean the US off Middle Eastern oil and we are just pointing out the obvious."

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2011/1031/Is-Canada-s-oil-more-ethical-than-Saudi-Arabia-s