Canadian report - oil sands and olympic villages

One item on the agenda when Barack Obama makes his first visit abroad as president has been revealed - Canada's Oil Sands.

Obama has made securing sources of clean energy one of the top priorities of his administration, but the oil sands though are far from clean. Instead of great pools of oil buried underground (say like you find in Saudi Arabia), in the Oil Sands, as the name implies, the oil is locked into deposits of clay and sand. So to get the oil out you have to mine the sand, like you would coal, then refine it into a sludge that you then refine again into useable oil. If it sounds like a messy process, it is. Native groups in Alberta (the heart of the Oil Sands region) have for years complained about the strip mining of their lands for sand and the pollution produced by the refining process.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed the Oil Sands would be on the agenda when he meets with Obama and says that he is committed to working with Obama on environmental issues.

Meanwhile, a little further to the west, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver could be running into trouble.

The city of Vancouver is desperately seeking funds to complete the Athlete's Village (where athletes stay during the games); they now need more than $400 million (in Canadian dollars) in additional funds to complete the project. The city is planning to ask the provincial government of British Columbia for a one-time exception to the city's charter to let them just borrow the money to finish the Village rather than having to put the issue to a public referendum, as the city charter states.

Honestly, if I were a Vancouverite I wouldn't be happy with the city government trying to skirt the law like this, but the city is warning that if they don't get a loan, they would be responsible for the entire cost of the project (around $850 million) because of an agreement signed by the city council back in 2007. Originally a private development firm was suppose to finance the construction of the Village, then take it over after the Games and turn it into apartments that they would then rent. But the firm, US-based Fortress Investment Group, cut their funding in September, because they thought they wouldn't cover their costs due to Vancouver's declining housing market.

No word on whether or not Vancouver will just buy lots of tents as a fallback measure.