The tar sands has changed Canada in the same way the fur trade has changed Canada.

Bitumen, the new national staple, is redefining the character and destiny of Canada. Rapid development of the tar sands has created a foreign policy that favours the export of bitumen to the United States and lax immigration standards that champion the import of global bitumen workers.

The destructiveness of the tar sands is not inevitable. But Canadians and Albertans have become too tolerant of the politicians who compromise the nation's energy security as well as the next generation's future.

If you gave oil companies a choice between the tar sands in Canada or oil in Saudi Arabia, which do you think they'd choose?

There are two perspectives on the oil sands. You have companies that want to make it the next Saudi Arabia. The other is that it's a transitional resource to a low-carbon economy, and to regard it as anything else is to drain the continent's financial resources.

If Canada could simply apply the basic principles of sustainable development, such as the internalization of costs and 'polluters pay,' it would have long-term beneficial effects, both environmental and economic.