Dion's biggest test: Alberta's oil sands

Many people are waxing poetically about Stéphane Dion's environmental credentials. The new Liberal leader was praised for his progressive yet untimely legislation as environment minister, which was killed in late 2005 before it could be debated.

As a Liberal leadership contender in 2006, it was Dion who first made the environment a prominent issue within his personal policy platform. Alongside the economy and social justice, the environment was a major part of Dion's "three pillars" strategy - which is similar to the Green Party's "triple-bottom-line accounting" - stressing that all three policy areas need to be part of a pragmatic balance, and that a zero-sum approach that stresses one or even two of these three areas can never lead to a balanced policy agenda. Iggy and others quickly followed suit regarding Dion's environmental lead, helping it to become a major policy area of the Liberal leadership campaign. Several candidates, such as former Tory Scott Brison, gave the environment particular prominence in their platforms.

Add to that the "green attire" gimmick (and I don't mean any negative connotation with that word) of Dion's campaign, and it seems that Stéphane is going to be a major champion for the environment in Canadian politics, and especially within the Liberal Party.

Lovely. But how will all of this translate into official Liberal policy stance in practice? With a pro-business and neo-conservative government in power, one which extends particular deference to the oil-rich province of Alberta, what will a Dion leadership mean for Canadian politics?

National opinion polls show that the environment has become of major importance to most Canadians, with some polls even putting it above health care (which has led most polls for the past 15 years without hiccup). This has come as a great surprise and tremendous irritant for Harper's Tories, who hoped to quickly deal with the issue and move on to more economically-minded matters. But Canadians have shown their scorn for the current government's passing interest, and all four opposition parties have been quick to heap criticism at the Tories accordingly.

All of this combines to an expectation, for many observers, that the environment is about to become the political issue of the 21st century here in Canada - as some pundits have already argued. But even if this is the case, surely there will be a limit to the extent that Dion can put the environment at the forefront of the new Liberal agenda. And the question is - will Dion get that balance right? Will he be progressive and daring enough to please environmentalists? But if so, will he still be able to keep this country's entrepreneurs on side? And most importantly, and will be bring enough "average" Canadian voters alongside?

While the Chrétien and Martin Liberals did have their heart in the right place in terms of Kyoto and environmental legislation, greenhouse gas emission increased considerably under their reign. Part of this had to do with how the Liberals were so found of using the economy as a singular measure of Canada's success - particularly Martin. Turning deficits into surpluses was obviously the correct thing to do, in terms of improving Canada's economy and ensuring that we remained internationally competitive - but the extent of the economic focus led to the neglect of the environment file.

And now we're seeing the exact same thing, but to an even worse extent, under the Harper Tories.

Arguably the greatest challenge facing Dion in his quest to balance the environment with the economy will be how he and the new Liberals handle the Albertan oil patch - which ominously parallels the career of former Liberal prime minister Trudeau. Love him of loathe him, Pierre Elliott Trudeau had a lot of fortitude when he implemented the National Energy Program in 1980 - and he received tremendous scorn for it from Alberta.

Today, the Albertan oil sands (or tar sands, as many Greens refer to them) continue to be a massive economic benefit to Alberta (and indirectly to all of Canada). Yet, the profits of the oil sands are causing an economic overheating, leading to some Albertan communities being unable to cope with the infrastructural demand of a massive influx of workers. Real estate prices in Calgary, Edmonton, and other Albertan communities are reaching unaffordable levels, and could lead to a dangerous "bubble" scenario. The cost of living overall has greatly increased, causing Alberta's homeless population to swell.

And arguably most important of all, the oil sands are causing huge environmental degradation. The process of extracting the oil from the sands is itself a highly inefficient process, requiring tremendous amounts of water. And half of our oil heads south to the US, the world's most notably non-signatory of the Kyoto Protocol.

So just how does Dion and his new Liberal Party propose to strike a compromise with the Albertan oil sands? This issue could define his career, much as the NEP defined Trudeau's in the eyes of many Albertans.