Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing criticism after misrepresenting the history of Alberta’s oil sands while promoting a new pipeline agreement with the Alberta government.Speaking last Friday during an announcement on energy co-operation with the province, Carney described himself as a “proud Albertan” and suggested the oil sands were little more than an unrealized idea when he was born in 1965.“When I was born just north of the Alberta border in Fort Smith, the oil sands were just a concept, a curiosity to most, and a dream to but a few builders,” Carney said. “By the time I was in junior high in Edmonton, the oil sands had been transformed into one of Canada’s largest industries.”Historical records show Alberta’s oil sands industry had already been under development for decades before Carney’s birth.Research into the Athabasca deposits dates back to at least 1920 through work conducted by the University of Alberta and the Alberta Research Council near Fort McMurray. According to the 12-volume history Alberta In The 20th Century, researchers spent years operating pilot plants and conducting field work throughout the 1920s.“The sands had been known for centuries,” the publication stated. “Cree Indians used their tar to caulk their canoes long before Europeans arrived.”.The province also completed a government-owned processing plant at Fort McMurray in 1949 at a reported cost of $500,000, equivalent to roughly $6.7 million today.By 1952, records showed at least 10 oil companies had leased approximately 250,000 acres in the region, then described as “the world’s largest untapped oil source.” Companies involved included Calvan Consolidated, Pacific Petroleum Ltd. and Redwater Utilities.Federal records also reveal Ottawa once considered using nuclear detonations to accelerate oil sands extraction.In 1959, the House of Commons natural resources committee reviewed an Alberta government proposal to detonate a 10-kiloton underground nuclear device near Fort McMurray as part of “Project Oilsand.”According to Alberta In The 20th Century, oil companies including Richfield Oil, Imperial Oil and Cities Services collaborated on the proposal, believing radiation risks could be managed.“One writer noted cheerily that ‘it was pretty much guaranteed that no one would fill his gas tank with radioactive fuel,’” the book recounted.The plan was ultimately abandoned amid escalating Cold War tensions and growing concern over nuclear testing.Commercial oil sands production officially began in 1964, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia — one year before Carney was born.
