Media reports about the environmental effects of oil sands development have engendered public scrutiny of environmental enforcement in the Alberta oil sands. In an article captioned “The Canadian Oil Boom: Scraping Bottom”,1 the National Geographic featured a horrific but vivid image of the environmental risks associated with the oil sands. Environmentalists say there is growing scientific evidence that oil sands extraction produces more carbon dioxide than traditional oil extractions produce.2 Last February, a group of Nobel laureates urged European leaders to support European Union’s proposal to categorize fuel from
oil sands as “highly polluting”.3 In their words, “[t]ar sand development is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, and threatens the health of the planet.”4 In a letter to Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the laureates demanded that as the Prime Minister has called climate change one of mankind’s biggest problems, he should translate his words into deeds by halting further expansion of the oil sands.5 One observer has noted that even “oil-obsessed” United States deferred its plans for the Keystone XL pipeline that would have increased the amount of oil sands produced by Canada for onward transportation to the US.6 Although the EU’s vote ended in a deadlock, due in large part to intense lobbying by Canada with threats of a trade war with the EU,7 objections to the oil sands remain nevertheless. The purpose of this article is to review the environmental enforcement culture in Alberta with a view to ascertaining what mechanisms are in place in Alberta for responding to the commission of environmental offences, especially in the context of the oil sands, and the extent to which those mechanisms are being used.