"If something has happened of this sort, then we feel that the company is obligated to report to the minister of the environment," Stelmach said. "It's a condition of the licence."

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Earlier in the article, he is described as being "visibly angered" while making this report.  One wonders what that tells us about the relationship between the provincial government and the petroleum companies.

The species of the dead ducks is not identified in the AP article.  Possibly the Canadian press has that important detail; I shall look into it.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

As long as the financial return is good on that oil, it's going to be extracted. There are a lot of people involved in the oil industry, not just the oil sands, and they're making good money. So I don't know how easy it would realistically be for the government to turn too hard against it by imposing more regulations and taxes, especially considering it only recently became profitable to extract this low quality source of oil. In Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, I'd hazard a guess that most people know somebody working in the oil industry or in jobs dependent on it. I know plenty, many of whom didn't even need to finish High School to be making better pay than many university graduates make.

Also, this tough little article suggests that in ongoing negotiations on royalties between the province and the company, the duck misfortune actually strengthens Stelmach's hand:

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2008/04/30/542726 ...

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

The thing that's truly disgusting is that it could have been prevented if the company had lived up to its most basic obligations on the environmental front. Never mind the huge environmental impact of the sands and how deficient obligations and monitoring tend to be in that area on projects like this. They're allowed to have open, surface toxic ponds sitting around as long as they just use the crudest of tools to keep wildlife away, and they can't even make sure they've done that. But, considering stories I've heard of oil riggers out on ocean rigs hunting sharks (no doubt illegally, considering their status) just for trophies, a lot of people in this industry don't seem to worry too much about other forms of life, or in some cases their own rig workers, considering safety standards on some rigs. Sort of like some other environment-destroying industries that are the "enemy of the human race." I'm sure if there were other opportunities with equal pay, a lot of people would be happy to get out of oil, etc.

But, the federal government is financing carbon capture in windy provinces where I've heard wind energy could be more productive and cheaper to set up, and I don't know of any schools or apprenticeship programs or even many companies teaching or doing wind turbine maintenance, solar energy installation or even green roof installation. Canada's in the same place as the U.S., even though our population is probably more accepting of the human role in climate change and would like to see action on it. People were still more concerned about government corruption and gay marriage in the last federal election than they were about the fact they were voting in a party whose leader still doesn't really "believe in" climate change.

I'm not too hopeful. People say one thing and do another, or they don't have enough information to act according to their beliefs.

So I copied the URL again, hoping against hope it may work in another context:

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2008/04/30/542726 ....

I do not understand the context well enough to be able to explain it.  But the title is "Birds Dog Syncrude," and it is listed among the Edmonton Sun's news articles.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I don't know if these cannons would have been in use all winter or not, because most birds around there head south to warmer climes in winter. But in most cases the weather's more extreme in January than April. I don't know if he's talking about a big snowstorm or what, but you'd need more information to believe there's any substance to his claim. Knowing some of the conditions people in the industry work in, out of necessity to keep things running, it sounds like they just dropped the ball.

'"It was sad because it could have been avoided," Willie Courtoureille, a Cree hunter from Fort Chipewyan, said of the Syncrude duck incident.

The air cannons used by Syncrude and others to scare away birds from the tailing ponds are not very effective, he said. Courtoureille said he wants to see the companies make more intensive efforts like using boats and crews to deter birds from landing on the ponds during periods of high migration.

"Have maybe a month scaring ducks," he suggested. "They've got the money."

Courtoureille said a problem right now is that most of the marshes and wetlands are frozen because of the severe cold weather in the region, making the oilsands ponds particularly attractive to migrating birds at this time of year.'