ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes the dominant objectives forwarded by the six overarching policies and strategies governing oil sands extraction published since 1999, along with the purported means for their realisation. Divided into three sections, each centres on the dominant objective posited in each: environmentally sustainable economic growth. The first describes the presentation of this objective in greater detail, explaining its positioning within a particularly eco-modernist interpretation of ‘sustainable development’ and its consistent association with the notion of inter-generational justice. The second section explains the dominant means by which these objectives are to be realised at the level of operations – a form of precautionary adaptive management which seeks to mitigate risk through optimistic recourse to techno-scientific innovation. The third and final section explores the purportedly high level of First Nation involvement in the creation and execution of the various policies and strategies over a period of almost two decades.
