Oil and Water, the cover story for Lexpert’s June 2012 issue, was one of the toughest pieces I’ve ever had to write. My personal environmental ethics and my economic sensibilities rubbed against each other, collided. This happens fairly often given the province I live in, the field I write in. I think it’s one of the reasons why I write business and legal prose the way I do: friction is good for creativity and expression. The end result here is an imperfect piece that didn’t resolve anything for me, Alberta, Canada or the hydrocarbon-dependent world we live in… but probably the most “balanced”–if there can be such a thing–look at the ongoing pipeline debate I’ve produced.

You can read the full article (for a while, anyway) here, courtesy of McLennan Ross LLP’s digital assets section.

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Featuring Lorne Carson and Shawn Denstedt from Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Lawrence Smith from Bennett Jones LLP, Gavin Fitch from McLennan Ross LLP, Josh Paterson, counsel with West Coast Environmental Law, and Alan Ross from Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. An indirect cameo by Joseph Doucet, Interim Dean of the Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta.