Tar Sands: Th Selling of Alberta captures the intersecting storylines of a remarkable cast of characters eager to cash in on the oil boom in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Washington lobbyists, Newfoundland pipefitters, Chinese investors and Norwegian industrialists descend on tar-soaked “Fort McMoney”, a modern-day Eldorado, where rents are sky rocketing and cocaine abuse is four times the provincial average. Up for grabs - a stake in a $100 billion energy bonanza and Canada’s economic sovereignty.

This hour-length documentary, commissioned by the CBC, tracks the growth of the world’s largest reserve of ‘unconventional’ oil.  This Florida-sized “environmental sacrifice zone” has become Canada’s contribution to US energy security in the post-9/11 world.  Yet, for many, the tar sands are a global warming disaster.

As Fort McMurray bursts at the seams, children from Thunder Bay to Cape Breton are made tar-sands orphans by their migrant-worker parents.  Canada’s petrodollar breaks the back of the manufacturing economy in the East.  Cancer rates skyrocket downstream of Fort McMurray while Rocky Mountain glaciers melt and disappear.  And all the while, Alberta crude goes south to US markets while Eastern Canada pays ever more for insecure Middle East oil.

In an isolated region of the north, Canada’s future is being carved out of the forest at a breakneck pace.  Tar Sands: The Selling of Alberta  questions how much Canada is willing to sacrifice for a stake in this century’s greatest energy bonanza.

PRODUCED BY WHITE PINE PICTURES INC. and CLEARWATER MEDIA INC.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
DIRECTOR TOM RADFORD PRODUCER PETER RAYMONT WRITER PATRICK REED EDITOR MICHÈLE HOZER
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER NIOBE THOMPSON PHOTOGRAPHY DARON DONAHUE AND JOHN WESTHEUSER
MUSIC COURTESY OF RUSSELL WALKER, MARK KORVEN, JOHN WELSMAN AND ROB CARLI