Canada

"Downtown Calgary could look like a bit of a ghost town today, with entire neighbourhoods shut down and office workers told to stay home due to massive flooding."

"TransCanada Corp., which says Keystone XL will be the safest pipeline ever built, isn’t planning to use infrared sensors or fiber-optic cables to detect spills along the system’s 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) path to Texas refineries from fields in Alberta."

"None of the companies operating in Canada's tar sands have met a commitment to clean up the vast and expanding sprawl of toxic waste ponds, an official report has found."

"Former TransCanada Corp. employee Evan Vokes' impassioned testimony before a Canadian Senate committee last week painted 'a very, very bleak picture of the pipeline industry in Canada, and probably by extension, the States,' according to Sen. Betty Unger."

"Canada will make operators of nuclear power plants liable for the first C$1 billion ($980 million) of damages in the event of an accident, up from C$75 million under existing rules, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said on Monday."

"Apache Canada has reported a significant pipeline rupture and spill about 20 kilometres northeast of Zama, Alberta, in the northeast corner of the province."

To hear Canada's oil industry tell it, the U.S. State Department's draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is exactly wrong. The EIS said Canada's tar sands oil would be shipped regardless of whether the pipeline is built. But the oil industry says it will double their output.

"OTTAWA — The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has declined an interview request with a scientist to discuss the environmental impacts of oilsands development because it objected to a recent Postmedia News report, a federal government spokesman wrote in an email."

"Fisheries and Oceans Canada is one of seven federal departments and agencies under investigation by Parliament’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, over allegations that the government is 'muzzling' and restricting access to government scientists.

"OTTAWA -- A pipeline for exporting oil sands bitumen to Asia-bound tankers was dealt a severe blow on Friday when the province of British Columbia urged a federal review panel to reject the $6 billion plan."