The future of the tar sands is critical to Canada's role in addressing the climate challenge in the decades to come.

I am really glad to have had an opportunity to debate Ezra Levant (author of Fight Kyoto and Ethical Oil) on this critical issue. Ezra's sales pitch for the tar sands is very troubling to climate activists, so I wanted to make sure his positions didn't go unchallenged.

The Rio Theatre in east Vancouver was at capacity - close to 500 people - and we also had folks all over Canada and in the United States watching the livestream video of the event. Students in Prince George got together to watch the debate in a student lounge, folks in the Yukon watched together at a supporter's house and even my mom watched from Toronto (which meant a late night for her). The video is now available on our website as a series of youtube clips so you can check it out yourself if you haven't seen it already. Ezra and I then did it all over again on the Bill Good Show on CKNW for an hour the next morning.

Since the debate ended, my email has been flooded with people sending congratulations and feedback. Ezra is a skilled debater and an accomplished spin doctor, but judging by the response in the room as well as after the event I think it's safe to say that Ezra and his pro-tarsands position was on the ropes and some of his more extreme statements put him down for the count. One person told me they saw a couple of Ezra Levant supporters with their faces in their hands during a particularly offensive tirade regarding first nations people during the question and answer period. Some people actually left at that time because they were upset or they didn't want their children to hear what Ezra was saying.

The future of the tar sands is far from decided and the discussion about its future and Canada's role in taking action on climate change is ongoing. As I said from the podium last week, what we are debating is trajectories. Ezra wants to triple the size of the tar sands developments and infrastructure and climate activists want to phase them out. One route leads us in the wrong direction, unethically profiting from knowingly making the planet less safe - the other route leads us towards responsible global citizenship and being ahead of the curve for the economy of the future.

We have a lot of work ahead of us to make this a reality but working together we can win one project at a time. Stay tuned for footage from the recent forum on oil tankers off the coast of BC as well as more about coal mining, transportation investments and the future of the carbon tax in the near future. These will be amongst the upcoming critical issues related to climate change in BC.

Thanks to all of you who have contacted me already about the debate. Feel free to send me your comments after you watch the debate if you haven't already.

Cheers,

Ben West | Healthy Communities Campaigner
Wilderness Committee

P.S. In response to some of the statements Mr. Levant made during the debate the Beaver Lake Cree Nation have issued the following statement denouncing Levant and his belittling comments.