Eight academics with ties to U of R and U of S sign letter opposing carbon capture, utilization and storage investment tax credit. Not one is a geologist or engineer

REGINA, SASKATOON – Among the over 400 “scientists, academics, and energy system modellers” who wrote to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland about their opposition to carbon capture utilization and storage, eight listed affiliations to Saskatchewan’s two major universities.

The letter stated, “As scientists, academics, and energy system modellers we are deeply concerned with the government’s proposal to introduce a new investment tax credit for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). We urge you to not introduce the proposed investment tax credit for CCUS because it will constitute a substantial new fossil fuel subsidy. As well as undermining government efforts to reach net-zero by 2050, the introduction of this tax credit would contradict the promise made by your government to Canadians during the election period to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies by 2023 as well as our international commitments under the Paris Agreement. And once new subsidies are put in place, they are very hard to repeal.”

You can read the entire letter as a pdf here: Letter-from-Academics-re-CCUS-tax-investment-credit_January-2022-4

When you look up their academic backgrounds, not one of the eight associated with Saskatchewan specifically lists an affiliation with the actual carbon capture and storage projects that have been in place in Saskatchewan for the last 22 years. The University of Regina, in particular, has done extensive work with the Petroleum Technology Research Centre over those years in researching the implementation of carbon capture and storage. Specifically, not one of the signatories listed an affiliation with the University of Regina’s petroleum engineering program, or the geology departments of either university.

Of the eight, their areas of specialty include geography and environmental studies, environment and sustainability, politics and international studies, law, history, and economics. Not one of the eight linked to Saskatchewan listed geology, engineering or petroleum engineering.

Indeed, in the entire listing of over 400 academics, not one listed geology as their specialty, despite the fact carbon capture utilization and storage is principally within the realm of geology.

• 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
  0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
• 0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click
  0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click
• 0082 CsHM 2024 Pipeline
  0082 CsHM 2024 Pipeline
• 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
  0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
• 0076 Latus only
  0076 Latus only
• 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
  0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
• 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
  0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
• 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
  0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
• 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
  0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
• 0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
  0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
• 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
  0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
• 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
• 0022 Grimes winter hiring
• 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
• 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
• 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
• 0011
• 0006 JK Junior
• 0002 gilliss casing services
  0002 gilliss casing services
• 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
  9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
• 9001

 

Number 5 on the list of signatures was Dr. Emily Eaton, who has acted as the principal anti-oil activist in Saskatchewan for several years now.

Eaton tweeted the following on Jan. 20:

 

The Saskatchewan signatories are as follows, listed verbatim within the letter. The following paragraph comes verbatim from their page on their respective university web sites. The link to that page is provided by clicking on their name.

University of Regina:

Dr. Emily Eaton, Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Regina

I am a white settler doing community-based research, teaching and service devoted to addressing the climate and inequality crises at local and national scales. Central to this work is understanding the power and influence of the fossil fuel industries and mapping pathways to climate action that prioritize the needs of marginalized communities and that rectify the unjust colonial relationship that Canada has with Indigenous Peoples.

I am a co-investigator on a SSHRC Insight grant titled: Décarbonisation, transition écologique et verrou carbone: discours et organisation sociale des mouvements pour la transition et de l’élite anti-transition dans l’est Canadian. This grant examines movements for energy transition and movements opposing energy transition in Québec and Atlantic Canada.

My previous work has included studies of the oil industry’s influence on rural instiutions and culture in oil-producing communities and in public education.

 

Dr. Simon Granovsky-Larsen, Associate Professor, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Regina

Dr. Simon Granovsky-Larsen is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina. With a background in Political Science, International Development, and Latin American Studies, Simon’s writing is interdisciplinary and has been focused on Guatemala, and on Central America more broadly. His research explores social movements and political violence across Central America during the period of regional democratic and neoliberal reform since the 1990s. Recent projects have looked at the expansion of renewable energy production in Central America; violence against land and environmental defenders; changes to paramilitary violence; the militarization of extractive industries, including the security practices of Canadian companies; and the role of social movements and agrarian conflicts in the Guatemalan peace process. His research has appeared in Latin American Perspectives, Journal of Peasant Studies, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, NACLA Report on the Americas; in various books; and in online and magazine publications including The Conversation, Canadian Dimension, Briarpatch, Upside Down World, and NACLA.

Simon published two books in 2019. Dealing with peace: The Guatemalan campesino movement and the post-conflict neoliberal state (University of Toronto Press) looks at how the Guatemalan campesino (peasant) social movement participated in the country’s peace process and neoliberal transition from the mid-1990s through the present day. Organized violence: Capitalist warfare in Latin America (University of Regina Press; co-edited with Dawn Paley) is an interdisciplinary collection of research on the relationship between capitalism and repressive violence in contemporary Latin America. In 2020, Simon began a new SSHRC-funded research project comparing the security practices of Canadian-financed extractive projects across Central America.

Simon teaches courses in the International Studies program, with an emphasis on the Development Studies stream. He supervises honours theses and graduate work on a range of topics, including Latin American politics, social movements, extractive industries, peace processes, rural development, migration, and more.

 

Dr. Joyce Green, (Emerita) Political and International Studies, University of Regina

“The indigenization of the university, a project ranging from inclusion of Aboriginal ideas and people to transformation of the canon, is a matter at the top of [my] research agenda for the forseeable future.” Canadian constitution and politics, Aboriginal decolonization, and critical post-colonial and feminist theory

Joyce Green is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Regina.  Her research interest are currently focused on Aboriginal-settler relations and the possibilty of decolonization in Canada; and a transformative ecology of relationship with place, epitomized by many traditional Aboriginal conceptions of land and place.  Her recent publications include Making Space for Indigenous feminism (Fernwood and Zed books, 2008); (with Ian Peach) “Prescribing Post-Colonial Politics and Policy in Saskatchewan”, Belonging?  Diversity, Recognition, and Shared Citizenship in Canada (Keith Banting, Thomas Courchene and F. Leslie. Seidle, eds).  Montreal:  The Institute on Research for Public Policy, 2007.  pp. 263-284; “From Stonechild to Social Cohesion:  Anti-Racist Challenges for Saskatchewan”, Canadian J. of Political Science Vol.39 (3), 2006.  Pp. 507-527; and “Self-determination, Citizenship, and Federalism: Indigenous and Canadian Palimpsest”, in Reconfiguring Aborigianl-State Relations (Michael Murphy, ed.).  Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, 2005. Pp 329-352.

 

University of Saskatchewan:

Dr. Chad Walker, School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan

Chad Walker (he/him) is an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist with interests around justice, equity, and public support for low-carbon transitions. Recent research includes studying the impact of environmental justice in shaping support for wind energy, critically investigating the meaning of community energy, and using diverse methodologies to better understand reconciliation, autonomy, and pathways for improved health via Indigenous-led renewable energy development (see A SHARED Future). During his time in the United Kingdom, he studied user engagement and public participation through the development of Smart Local Energy Systems (see EnergyREV). Through these projects, he has used a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, spurring a keen interest in the ways we think about and practice mixed methods. Chad has a PhD from Western University (2017) and worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queen’s University (2017-2019) and the University of Exeter (2019-2021). In June 2021, Chad joined the University of Saskatchewan as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the SSHRC-funded Community Appropriate Sustainable Energy Security (CASES) initiative.

• 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
  0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
• 0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click
  0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click
• 0082 CsHM 2024 Pipeline
  0082 CsHM 2024 Pipeline
• 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
  0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
• 0076 Latus only
  0076 Latus only
• 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
  0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
• 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
  0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
• 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
  0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
• 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
  0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
• 0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
  0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
• 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
  0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
• 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
• 0022 Grimes winter hiring
• 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
• 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
• 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
• 0011
• 0006 JK Junior
• 0002 gilliss casing services
  0002 gilliss casing services
• 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
  9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
• 9001

 

Dr. Lucinda Vandervort, Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan

Dr. Lucinda Vandervort (PhD) teaches law and writes at the intersection of law and philosophy and is currently working on a book on sexual consent and the rule of law. Her research focuses on “legitecture,” defined by her as a discipline—distinct from both jurisprudence and public administration—that examines and theorizes the design and operation of legal institutions. Recent projects have dealt with access to justice, social justice, gender violence, sexual assault and the rule of law, police and prosecutorial decision-making, and the design of mechanisms to regulate the exercise of discretion in the legal system. Her work has been funded by grants from the Foundation for Legal Research, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the President’s SSHRC Research Fund, the Borden Ladner Gervais Research Fellowship program, and the College of Law Endowment Fund.

Her PhD work at McGill University and in Bonn, FDR, on legal philosophy and theory of knowledge, was supervised by Raymond Klibansky and supported by a JW McConnell Fellowship. She later earned an LLM at Yale and then taught as an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York (Albany)(1980-1982). As a law student and articling/bar admission student (1974-1979), she continued to teach and write, teaching philosophy courses at Carleton and Concordia on ethics, phenomenology, and existentialism, and at the University of Ottawa on law and philosophy. She also worked as a research consultant for Health and Welfare Canada and the Criminal Law and Administrative Law Projects of the Law Reform Commission of Canada. She articled in Ottawa in criminal law and with the Regulated Industries Board of the Consumer’s Association of Canada, and is a non-practicing, non-fee paying member of the Ontario Bar (admitted April 1979). In the 1980s she appeared as counsel, often pro bono, in a number of cases before the Federal Courts on behalf of federal prisoners in Saskatchewan. Tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 1987, she went to Harvard as a Visiting Scholar, 1988 to 1991.

As a member (1996-2002) of the National Legal Committee (NLC) of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), she participated in LEAF’s strategic litigation program under sections 15 and 28 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and collaborated on the intervener factums in a number of cases in the Supreme Court of Canada, including Whitley & Mowers (1994), R.D.S. (1997), Winnipeg Child and Family Services (1997), Ewanchuk (1999), J.G. (1999), Mills (1999), Darrach (2000), and Shearing (2001). Her legal and philosophical writings are cited by academics and law reformers in Canada and internationally. Her analyses of sexual assault law, consent, theory of criminal responsibility, and mistake of law are cited, quoted, and applied in a number of judgments by the Supreme Court of Canada and other levels of Court in various provinces. She was promoted to Professor in 2005.

 

Dr. Andrew Watson, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan

I am currently working on three projects. The first is a book that explores the ways that the environmental realities of the Canadian Shield shaped the rural identity of Muskoka, Ontario during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I examine the transformation of Muskoka from a strictly Indigenous place into a settler colonial society and the rise of tourism, and assess the ways that social, economic, and environmental changes shaped sustainability and rural identity in the past. I am also working on a new project on the history of coal in Canada during the first half of the twentieth century. This work examines the ways that efforts to connect sites of production with sites of consumption shaped communities, economies, and environments in both rural and urban Canada, as well as how coal pulled Canada into an industrialized and globalized North Atlantic world. Finally, I am engaged in research with the Sustainable Farm Systems project, which explores the socioecological transition in agriculture, from traditional, organic practices at the end of the nineteenth century to modern, industrialized processes by the end of the twentieth century. My work on this project involves tracing the flow of energy through agroecosystems on the Great Plains of the United States, and in particular the role of fossil fuel energy in groundwater irrigation on the High Plains.

 

Dr. Joel Bruneau, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Economics, University of Saskatchewan

• International Trade
• Environmental Economics
• Resource Economics
• Water Resource Economics
• Industrial Structure

 

Dr. Jason MacLean, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick, and Adjunct Professor, School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan

• Environmental law
• Natural resources law
• Climate change and energy policy

Sustainability pathways and co-benefits

 

• 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
  0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
• 0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click
  0053 Kingston Midstream Westspur Alameda Click
• 0082 CsHM 2024 Pipeline
  0082 CsHM 2024 Pipeline
• 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
  0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
• 0076 Latus only
  0076 Latus only
• 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
  0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
• 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
  0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
• 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
  0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
• 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
  0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
• 0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
  0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan
• 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
  0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
• 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
• 0022 Grimes winter hiring
• 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
• 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
• 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
• 0011
• 0006 JK Junior
• 0002 gilliss casing services
  0002 gilliss casing services
• 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
  9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
• 9001