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Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands, by Ezra Levant ( McClelland and Stewart, 2010 ) does what an Ezra Levant book usually does. It makes a strong case for a controversial issue, and it throws its author right in the middle of a contentious debate.

The title says it all, really. Ethical Oil is the moral case for Alberta's oil sands, a rebuttal to the constant refrain of criticism that the rapid development around Fort McMurray has had to endure for years on end. It's one author's impassioned plea for more common sense in the debate over Alberta's oil sands.

This is not to say that Ethical Oil is a whitewash of the industry. Far from it. From Page 140: "The oil sands are not perfect, and criticizing them is fair game. But wy has criticism of the oil sands been so disproportionately loud compared to criticism of other, larger, more disturbing sources of oil?" Sources such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuala, the Sudan, China...the list of oil-producing nations, in large part, reads like a list of target countries for Amnesty International. Human rights abuses, crackdowns on citizens and journalists, environmental abuses - this is what, for the large part, Western countries like the United States have to do business with on a regular basis, just to keep up their fuel supply. Wouldn't it be better to buy from a country without the laundry list of crimes to its name?

In a nutshell, this is all that Ezra is saying. The critics of Western, liberal companies doing business in illiberal countries. The ethical funds that make a show of avoiding oil sands investments ( but who, in many cases, still invest in oil money ). The environmental groups more concerned with their own interests and financial bottom line to criticize, say, real environmental abusers like China as much as they go after an easy target like the oil sands. The journalists and other critics who don't disclose their personal stake in oil sands criticism. The whitewashing of how experimentation in 'Green jobs' can damage an economy. The break-throughs in environmental practices, and the economic benefits of oil sands development. Ezra walks us through all this and more, and the reader is left to conclude that while the oil sands might not be perfect, its critics are far from having the moral high ground.

Or, as Ezra concludes in the last chapter of his book: "There can be no doubt: Canada does it best. We're an energy superpower. And we're an ethical superpower too, setting international standards for how we treat the environment and how we treat each other. And if our goal as moral citizens is to make the world a better place, then there is only one choice: to pump as much oil as we possibly can out of For McMurray." The oil sands have their problems, but they're the best game in town. We should be proud of that.

Sure, Ethical Oil suffers here and there from the occasional over-done rhetorical flourish. But it's well worth reading. Even if you still end up opposing oil sands development by the end of the book, even if you think that some things are missed, or over-looked, it makes a very good, very effective case for holding Alberta's oil sands to a more realistic standard.