Wall says he believes Young lost a lot of credibility by making the comments before a concert in Toronto on Sunday.
Young held a news conference during which he compared the landscape at a Fort McMurray industrial site to the devastation caused by the atomic bomb in Japan.
Wall says he disagrees with how Young is characterizing the industry, but adds it’s a free country and Young is welcome to speak his mind.
The premier acknowledges more needs to be done for the environment, but he also suggests that Canada’s record is better than any other oil-exporting country in the world.
Young is doing a four-city concert tour to raise money for an Alberta First Nation living downstream of the oil sands and is to perform Friday in Regina.
The debate comes as a new poll adds to evidence that a push by likes of Young and other celebrities, environmental groups and aboriginal activists opposed to big oil projects may be affecting public opinion.
According to a poll released Wednesday by Nanos Research Group, public support in Canada for TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline is waning, a development that could embolden opponents of the project.
Canadian support for the $5.4 billion link between Alberta’s oil sands and U.S. Gulf Coast refineries has declined to 52% in December from 68% in April, while opposition has increased to 40% from 28%. The survey of 1,000 Canadians taken between Dec. 14 and Dec. 16 has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, according to the Ottawa-based agency.
President Barack Obama’s government is weighing whether to approve TransCanada’s plans. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a strong proponent of the pipeline, a key part of the country’s plans to find new markets for its oil.
The Canadian government “has to be concerned about the erosion of approval in Canada, not just in terms of its impact in Canada but also in terms of the U.S.,” Nik Nanos, president of Nanos Research and Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said in an interview. “This has implications for the anti-Keystone movement in both countries.”
Keystone is becoming a barometer for many environmental groups on Obama’s commitment to addressing climate change.
The U.S. State Department is overseeing the review of the pipeline because it crosses an international border. The agency is preparing a final version of an environmental review that will assess whether Keystone would contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists believe are warming the planet.
A State Department official said today the agency will give the public more time to comment on the pipeline, which could delay the final decision.
A Bloomberg National Poll in December showed support in the U.S. was at 56% of respondents. That survey also found that 58% said they want Canada to take steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as a condition for approval.
Canadian oil-sands developers are counting on Keystone XL to lift heavy crude prices by connecting them to the U.S. Gulf Coast, the world’s largest refining center, as they double production by 2025. Keystone would ship about 830,000 barrels a day.
Environmentalists are trying to block the line because they say it would encourage oil-sands development, which releases more of the carbon dioxide that scientists say is warming the planet than extracting some conventional crudes.
A glut of oil caused by a lack of transportation options for Alberta production has led to Canadian heavy crude selling last year for an average $24.46 a barrel less than the U.S. benchmark.
Other proposed pipeline projects for Albertan oil include Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline to the Pacific coast that also faces opposition from environmental and aboriginal groups and a separate TransCanada pipeline to transport oil to eastern Canada.
Canada’s government has been staging a public relations battle with opponents of the nation’s oil industry for years.
The Nanos poll also found that 94% of Canadians have heard of the project, up from 92% in April. Of those surveyed, 48% had a positive impression of the project, down from 60% in April.
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