Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Canada is fast becoming a place that I no longer recognize. In the last year, federal policy has aimed to remove any obstacles to tar sands expansion using repressive tactics that undermine our longstanding democratic traditions. There seems to be no higher federal priority than doing whatever multinational oil companies demand and we – you and I – are being systematically denied any role in Canada’s natural resource future.

The Canada I know takes pride in its abundant natural resources – its vast and magnificent forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife. Sadly, this legacy that defines us as a nation is now servant to the appetites of oilmen. Our federal government is too willful and too blind to see that in exploiting every last drop of tar sands crude they impoverish our country, its democratic freedoms and its future prosperity.

Look no further than the current controversy over the “muzzling” of scientists in seven federal agencies, including the Departments of Environment, Fisheries and Oceans, and Natural Resources. Or the $8-million fund that was established in June of last year to crack down on the advocacy work of charities – in particular, environmental charities opposed to the government’s tar sands agenda.

Speak to a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and you will learn that the recent Suncor tailings spill reflects yet another breach of treaty rights. That the blue water in which they once fished is now brown, that traditional hunting grounds have been destroyed, that elders and children are suffering from a number of illnesses, including leukemia, lupus and other autoimmune diseases.

Dismantling key environmental laws that protect our health and safety, as the federal government did in two 2012 omnibus budget bills, is wrong. Brokering a trade treaty that gives Chinese state-controlled companies the right to sue Canadians for lost profits arising out of measures enacted to protect workers’ rights or to improve our economy is also wrong.

Whose interests is the Harper government serving? Not yours and not mine.

Want to ask the National Energy Board to better protect the environment from leaky tar sands pipelines? You can’t. Not until you fill out an eight-page questionnaire asking the Board to approve your application to then submit a letter on your views. This is what Prime Minister Harper wants: silence.

I serve as Board Chair for an organization called ForestEthics Advocacy. Last year, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver all but branded this group an “enemy of the state” for standing up on behalf of our democracy and environment and championing the rights of Canadians and First Nations. If “enemy of the state” has now come to mean reviving the Canada I know and love, a Canada that is free from the tyranny of the tar sands, then I embrace it. What about you?

Clayton C. Ruby, C.M. is a Canadian lawyer specializing in civil rights and constitutional law. He became chair of ForestEthics Advocacy's board in April 2012.

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