Canada sells out to oil industry. Environmentalists are livid. New regulations will be approved to loosen Canadian environmental laws to assist oil companies to drill oil and build thousands of miles of new pipelines.

Btw, this type of malfeasance is called regulatory capture.

Hundreds of environmental and activist groups in Canada shut down their websites for a day on Monday to protest Canadian government policies that will make it easier to build pipelines to transport oil from Alberta’s vast tar sands.

The groups - joined by U.S.-based groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council - say the Conservative government is also trying to silence opponents of the pipelines from the tar sands, the world’s third-biggest oil reserve and the subject of much environmental concern.

The Conservatives, determined to make Canada what they call an energy superpower, want to speed up reviews of resource development projects, cut back laws that protect fish habitats, strip key veto powers from the federal energy regulator, and give the government the final say on approving major pipelines.

Via