For The Birds

The irony is of epic proportions. The Jewish National Fund plans to put Stephen Harper's name on  a bird sanctuary. It shall be called The Stephen J. Harper Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary Visitor and Education Centre. Michael Harris writes that naming a bird sanctuary after Stephen Harper is like naming a kids' summer camp after Rob Ford. Consider what is happening in Northern Alberta:

Bloomberg Businessweek [reports] that by 2020 wastewater from the Canadian tar sands will cover 62,000 acres of Northern Alberta and possibly spread through the boreal forest ecosystem.

Big players like Syncrude are planning what are being described as “end-pit lakes”, thirty of them in total. If they are allowed to go ahead with their plans, Canada will have a new lake district.

The district will be full of what the oil industry calls "replica lakes:"

A replica lake starts as a dump of toxic slurry covered by freshwater to a depth of sixteen feet — the amount of water allegedly required to keep the bad stuff on the bottom.

Eventually, these poison lakes will “replicate” living lakes, complete with fish, frogs and mosquitoes. The exact number and location of eyes, fins and legs remains unknown. But life will return, or so Syncrude scientists say. Turns out there are naturally occurring microbes in that sludge that suck the poison right out of those pollutants. That’s right, the poison lakes will heal themselves.

Canada’s greatest living freshwater scientist, David Schindler, isn’t so sure. He told Bloomberg, “Nothing is going to grow in that soup of toxic elements except perhaps a few hydrosulfide bacteria.  All of the unforeseen consequences are being downplayed.” And, so, in Israel, at least, Stephen Harper is feted as a friend of the environment.

We now have proof positive that the man who was going to make government accountable, the man who was going to reform the Senate, the man who was going to bring moral clarity to government  is -- for the birds.