Two dozen activists from Canada, the United States, and France are protesting Shell’s massive oil sands mine in northwestern Alberta. This was a coordinated effort with a group of protestors in Washington, as Prime Minister Harper met with President Obama earlier today to discuss various trade and security issues. The tar sands is currently a poster campaign for environmentalists, including Greenpeace and a group under the banner “dirtyoilsands.org” which claims the process to extract oil from the sand produces 3 to 5 times the greenhouse gas pollution of conventional oil production.

On the other side of the argument, a slick Alberta government website, oilsands.alberta.ca, promotes the benefits of the tar sands and its efforts to be environmentally friendly.

Canada has the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world sitting at 180 billion barrels, mainly from the oil sands in Alberta. In 2007, Alberta exported about 1.34 million barrels per day of crude oil to the U.S., supplying 13 per cent of their crude oil import.

Oil sands make up about 5% of Canada’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. According to environmentalists, the oil sands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution in Canada, and they say its expansion will destroy huge parts of one of the world’s largest boreal forest and wetland ecosystems.

Joining us to discuss this was Gillian McEachern, an environmentalist who is leading Forest Ethics’ tar sands campaign.

McEachern says that there is increasing controversy over tar sands in Canada, but also abroad. She says that recently in Norway issues have been raised in a similar fashion to that of Canada. McEachern says that the tar sands are becoming a crisis of the environment. She says that scientists and researchers are finding new ways to transition off of using fossil fuels as a resource and Canada needs to follow these methods.

We spoke with Dr. Phil Walsh, a professor at the Ryerson Ted Rogers School of Management, who told us that objectivity is key when talking about the oil sands from any side of the argument. He says that the oil sands have a great impact on Canadian economy, labour force and security of resource, and those benefits are crucial despite some impact on the environment. Walsh says that these factors need to be considered in an objective way by all involved in deciding regulation on the oil sands and the environment.

McEachern told us that the U.S. and other countries are all following in the idea of transitioning off of fossil fuels as a resources and that the Canadian government is investing in the exploitation of its resources by continuing the expansion of the oil sands. She says that energy and climate security is on the minds of people everywhere, and should be on the minds of Canadians as well.

For more information on both sides of the argument please visit:

http://Oilsands.alberta.ca
http://Dirtyoilsands.org

At yesterday's well-publicized Ottawa press conference, the Federal Justice Minister was promising to get tough on white-collar criminals.

As well, the Conservative party platform says tougher sentences and more police are one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s top five priorities. But are tougher sentences, more cops on the street, the way to go?

Despite the latest statistics from 2008 showing that the crime rate in Canada has dropped to a thirty-year low, the majority of Canadians feel that crime is actually on the increase, according to a recent Harris-Decima poll. It also found that 61% said they were confident in the Canadian justice system, while 37% were not.

Our guests tonight were Selwyn Pieters, a criminal defence lawyer and activist involved in human and civil rights. He was a guard at the Don Jail before pursuing his legal career. Pieters earned his Bachelor of laws from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2003.

Our second guest was Lorrie Goldstein, senior associate editor of the Toronto Sun since 2005. He was previously editorial page editor, Queen's Park columnist, and city hall reporter. Goldstein joined the Sun in 1978 as a reporter.

Pieters says that he does not believe that we have been too soft on run of the mill crimes such as street crimes, but the area that needs improvement most is white-collar crimes. Goldstein agreed that these white-collar criminals are really destroying people’s lives and are getting away with it. Pieters says one of the problems is these type of cases need to have a lot of well-documented evidence and there are often many documents involved in the prosecution of these cases.

Goldstein said that we have enough laws, but the problems lies in the fact that we need more resources such as more humane jails and more courts to deal with the number of cases in a reasonable time period.

Pieters says that incarceration is not always effective and that sometimes other programs like social and rehabilitation programs are needed.

On the topic of youth crime, Goldstein mentioned that it is a two-prong problem - on one hand these kids need to be punished, but they also need to have the support and the resources to help them not re-offend in the future.

Both Goldstein and Pieters agreed that this is not a simple issue.

Tonight on Canoe Live:

Crime and Punishment - Does the punishment fit the crime? Are we letting criminals off too easy? Why are we so slow to prosecute white collar criminals? Does getting tough on crime act as a deterrent? Is getting to the root causes of crime the real solution?

Joining us tonight to discuss these issues is Selwyn Pieters, a criminal defence lawyer and activist involved in human and civil rights. Our second guest is Lorrie Goldstein, the Sun's Senior Associate Editor.

Watch Canoe Live tonight at 5:30pm ET.