The Pros and Cons

This is basically a wrap up of the information split into sections of what benefits us, and what disadvantages us when we continue with the production and processing of the tar sands for bitumen.

The Pros:
- It is a reliable source of crude oil because of the large deposits present

- Canada’s economy will do better because of the large deposits of tar sands oil, in comparison to other countries

- Canada’s economy growth is mainly because of the crude oil

- If we were to ever run out of oil wells, we could always depend on the tar sands for our oil needs

- If more tar sands sites are opened, they would create more jobs for unemployed workers

Cons:
- The cost of processing, refining and upgrading the bitumen from the tar sands is extremely expensive and harmful to the environment in almost every way

- Even though we have large amounts of the oil, majority of it gets sent to the United States, even when the prices of gasoline are continually rising in Canada

- If the price of crude oil were to ever drop a great deal, Canada’s economy as a whole will plummet.

- We are continuing to become even more dependent on crude oil, even if we were to run out of oil from oil wells, we would look to depend on the tar sand oil, rather than searching for new, better energy sources

- If too many workers get employed to work at tar sands sites, other job positions would be needed to be filled (there will be a lack of workers in other jobs) Like in Alberta, where there are not many skilled trade workers because majority of them had gotten jobs related to the tar sands projects

- Health effects on humans due to the increased exposure to greenhouse gas emissions like sulphur dioxide, nitrogen, etc. and the water contamination from the oil sands sites causing health problems like leukemia, and other rare cancers

- Environmental effects like the large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions that may prevent us from meeting our national greenhouse and death/ deformities that affect animals

- Other countries apart of the Kyoto agreement might get angry or irritated that we haven’t kept our promise to lower our greenhouse gas emissions if we continue at our growth rate. This will cause other governments and countries

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Obviously, there were more disadvantages than advantages. What should be noticed from this is that the advantages all had to do with the economy. So, the tar sands projects are good for us economically as a country, but it's damaging to us in every other aspect. Especially regarding the environment and health issues that may concern us. If I were to consider all aspects of the tar sands, I would say that it's definitely something that should be taken care of, or taken out. There are way too many bad things that occur from the tar sands because of the way it's being taken care of and handled, even if it helps our economy, I don't think that it's worth the harm its inflicting on us and the environment.