Oliver calls European oilsands threat grandstanding

Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is calling a European effort to bar oil imports from Alberta's oilsands nothing more than grandstanding.   

Proposed changes to the European Union's fuel quality directive would reduce emissions from transport fuels by 10 per cent in the next decade —a goal that would make it more difficult to import oilsands fuel.   

Oliver says the European position is both unscientific and an attempt to single out Canadian crude.   

He says the EU imports very little oil from Canada and conveniently ignores the high levels of greenhouse gas emissions from Russian and Iranian oil production.   

Oliver says an increasing number of European countries, most recently France, have indicated they are opposed to the proposal.   

The minister was speaking at a pipeline conference in Calgary.