CALGARY – The president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says rock legend Neil Young’s anti-oilsands statements are irresponsible and do a disservice to the aboriginals he’s trying to help.
Dave Collyer made his remarks ahead of Young’s fundraising concert in Winnipeg.
The Friday concert will be the second stop on a four-city circuit in support of a First Nation that lives downstream from the oilsands.
Collyer says the musician’s statements show a lack of understanding about the oilsands and the economic benefits they bring.
Collyer says he’d be happy to meet with Young on the final stop of the “Honour the Treaties” tour in Calgary this weekend.
Conservative Manitoba MP Candice Bergen has released a statement criticizing the anti-oilsands stance of — quote — “champagne socialists” who “hypocritically” use products made from oil.
Young’s tour is meant to raise money for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, which is in a legal battle to protect traditional territory from further industrialization.
Read: Neil Young amps up national oil sands debate
During a television interview with (one of my heros) Neil Young on this very hot topic, he said he’s not telling us WHAT to think, he is just urging us to THINK. Neil is a flawed human, just like the rest of us. What makes him, to my mind, someone to be admired, and listened to, is that he feels passionately about human issues and actually DOES SOMETHING. The fact that he earned great wealth, and is utilizing some of it for the good, raises Mr. Young to heroic level. And I am fairly certain he would not necessarily agree with the “hero” part. He’s just doin’ what he’s gotta do. Old man take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you were…..
I vote for Neil for Prime Minister!!!!! get out of the house Stevie!!!!!
Heh, heh,…the neo-rightists are so transparent: Neil Young obviously stung ’em where it hurts and there are many who are thankful for that. Just look at all the reaction he’s getting. Even woke up a few of my Eastern friends—well, at least to the extent that they recognize a big star is involved. Unfortunately the recessive news allele attached to Neil Young’s dominant one has been the tired old “hypocrisy” rejoinder so thoroughly worn out here on the West Coast (the notion that Albetarian bitumen somehow allowed us to drive our cars and wasn’t really going 100% to China for their own use, not ours—and that we were therefore hypocrites for using fossil fuels while deriding the tar sands—could not logically fly for very long here). The news allele Neil Young attempts to bring to light by his celebrity is the Athabasca/Chipewyan First Nation’s legal challenge to an extension of tar mining activity, which, of course, Big Tar is doing its utmost to obscure. Their trite defence appears, nonetheless, to combine the facile comprehension of those not directly impacted by tar sands development with Neil Young’s celebrity as if it was shockingly heinous, even salacious. This ridiculous stance will last only as long as the accusers can stand looking like prejudiced boneheads..like .maybe right up to the next election. Otherwise Neil Young need not fear his longstanding reputation for advancing non-fossil fuel technology becoming besmirched by closer inspection.
Scotty, you and Neil Young are not happy that Canada sells oil to China.
May I ask how we do that? By rail? Air? Tanker truck?
Actually, Northern Gateway isn’t a done deal and there’s no tar (not oil) wending it’s way perilously through the fjords and islands of the North Coast. So, how are we going to send oil to China? Jeez, I guess we ain’t.
Me ‘n’ old Neil are definitely happy about that.
Maybe they’re both right. Young has long been a champagne socialist, jetting around the world while offering little real support for lifestyles that would let us reduce dependency on oil consumption. We are leaving to get ourselves back to the garden, he told us, then woke up at his Malibu mansion one day to realize the wooden ships were just a hippie dream.
Yet it is a too quoqua fallacy to suggest that a junkie is unable to articulate the inherent error of someone else’s addiction simply because they, too, are addicted.
All my research shows Mr. Young lives and has for the past forty years, on his ranch outside San Jose, No Malibu Mansion???
You’re right, no Malibu mansion. But I guess McMansions in Hawaii and Florida make up for it. Malibu is SO overrated – what with the traffic, mudslides and wildfires.
And your point is Barb?? Is that jealousy I detect??
I don’t care if Mr Young owns all of Hawaii and all of Florida combined! He pays for what he has!
Unlike the oil industry being massively subsidized at taxpayers expense or of coarse our great Mr. Harper and his senate appointees.
How utterly upsurd and lame an argument you make!
Forty,
Perhaps it would be best to comment on things that you actually know something about, and I can tell you that Neil Young is not a subject that comes to mind with these obviously uniformed claims.
Much respect to Mr Niel Young for his stance and to ALL the citizens who oppose the oilsands and the pipeline. In solidarity, from Cape Town, South Africa.
Thank You Jeremy, in solidarity, from Canada.
The CAPP is blowing smoke,
Neil is trusted to tell the truth
and they have been handing the
Canadian People a crock of lies for decades…
You guys are AFRAID if him and You should be..
People are Waking Up CAPP…
WE know Your Agenda and It has nothing to do with
making the world a better place, it’s your bottom line… $$$$…
Standing up to Corruption and standing for the environment..
“It is a Fool who thinks he sleep in a bed he has set fire too.””.CCVolpe’
Well said Catherine! He’s Canada’s hero!!
well said- everything has changed, can’t stop this train now
Right On!
“…Neil is trusted to tell the truth …”
The “truth” according to Neil. May I ask how we are transporting all that oil to China? Air? Rail? Ground?
Neil Young’s actions resonate across the political spectrums and they are rattling the Oil and Gas ‘Thugs in Suits.’ Nobody shoots at a dead duck Neil! Keep on Rocking in the Free World!
The only people who donate to the cause of the Tar-sands are the thieves who cheated to get elected and they do so with our “medicare money.”
The only people who are donating to the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation are citizens who stuggle daily to put food on the table.
Who would you trust?
For years there has been research into alternatives to fossil fuels but oil companies search out and buy rights on most progressive and promising research/patents. Gov’t receives a cut in roundabout way while companies receive tax breaks of huge proportions. CBC is now being used as a mouthpiece for anti- anything that speaks against feds
well said – man I’m proud to be Canadian again, been a long time I was disapointed
Collyer and the merry band of sycophants that follow the oil industry and faithfully proclaim the pro-oil nonsense, have managed to convince themselves that they, and only they, can decide who, or what, is doing a disservice to the First Nations Peoples of Canada.
As if the First Nations People are unable to decide or determine this for themselves; they need a bunch of white guys sitting around deciding what is good for the Indian populations of Canada.
It is the height of arrogance, ignorance, and demonstrates the empirical attitude of those involved at the top level of the oil industry that seem to think they can dictate what others can form as an opinion.
well said
Dave Collyer has no business speaking about disservice to FN unless he can tell us what that is and who let him speak on behalf of the FN, hollow words if no FN allowed him to speak for them.
Perhaps Mr. Collyer could enlighten us on exactly how Mr. Young is doing a disservice to the aboriginal people. Does he really assume all of us so gullible that he can just utter these weak words and that is enough. Perhaps he should explain to us the truth surrounding his industry and it’s interests!
After watching the CBC National coverage of Mr. Young’s interview with Q 10 I was left cheated and angry! All of Neils words on the deception of their Reclamation Sites, the true Destiny of the oil to China via the Keystone pipeline, the Governments malicious treatment of the treaties, all of this was removed. Is this the version of the truth they wish us to accept?
Where exactly is our Media’s interests when someone like the CBC can manipulate what was truly said in this way?
It is my hope that Mr. Young is too wise to get caught up in this game of he said she said with these people. I believe he is!!!
Neil Young has tackled some of the biggest wrongs I’ve seen in my 55 years of life. Vietnam war gave him a tough skin against greed. He can handle small greedy oil men – the right man showed up for the job and he’s made me proud to be Canadian again