This is the first instalment of a three-part series on Dr. John O’Connor, the family physician to first identify higher-than-average cancer rates and rare forms of cancer in communities downstream of the Alberta oilsands. Read Part 2 and Part 3.

The day John O’Connor landed in Canada from his native Ireland,* he had no idea how much he would end up giving to this land, nor how much it would ultimately demand from him.

“I had no intention of staying in Canada,” he told DeSmog Canada in a recent interview. “The intention was to go back.”

“But I got enchanted with Canada.”

That was back in 1984 when O’Connor first arrived in Canada for a three-month locum.

With a large family practice already well established in Scotland, O’Connor had no real intention of settling in this foreign land where, in a few decades, he would find himself embroiled in a national conflict — a conflict that would pick at so many of our country’s deepest-running wounds involving oil, First Nations and the winners and losers of our resource race.

No, when O’Connor landed in Canada he was just planning to fill a temporary family physician position in Nova Scotia. Soon after his arrival, however, his light curiosity about Canada transformed into a newfound passion. He was hooked.

“It was just a perfect match for me.”

After nearly a decade, O’Connor decided a shift to Alberta made sense for him and his growing family. He travelled there in search of what so many still do: opportunity.

“The kids were getting to the point where I realized I would probably like to look at opportunities in terms of careers that may not have been available in the Maritimes. So I came out to Alberta in 1993.”

O’Connor landed in Edmonton, rented a car and explored four practices with openings for new physicians.

“Fort McMurray was the last destination, and it looked the most attractive of all of the options,” he said.

Back in ’93 Fort McMurray was an entirely different place. With a population of around 30,000 people, the community was far from a boom town. It was under-doctored, said O’Connor, and extremely friendly. Within a few weeks, the O’Connor family made friends with patients who had kids of a similar age. They joined sports teams and attended good schools.

“It was good. Don’t regret it for a second,” O’Connor said.

New beginnings

At the time, the oilsands were hardly a topic of conversation, O’Connor remembers.

“You could certainly see what was being emitted from the smokestacks in the distance,” he said. Once, O’Connor even drove toward the smoke, trying to catch a glimpse of the source, but he never spent much time thinking about it.

Emissions rise from industrial facilities in the oilsands region. Photo: Kris Krug

Many of his patients were working in the oilsands.

“I would listen to their descriptions of work and everything else. And it was fascinating, but I really didn’t have time and probably not, at that point, the interest in knowing more about it,” he said.

In 1998, O’Connor travelled out to Fort MacKay, home of the Fort MacKay First Nation, for the first time.

A road sign directs traffic to Syncrude operations and the community of Fort MacKay along the main highway in Fort McMurray. Photo: Kris Krug

“It was an eye-opener,” he said, “realizing how close the community was to development. How much the community depended on the tar sands.”

When he first arrived the medical centre was no more than two double-wide trailers pulled together. Within two or three years, the band had built an impressive new centre for the community.

“[There was] obviously a very important connection between the community of Fort MacKay and industry for socio-economic reasons,” O’Connor came to recognize.

It was the dawn of a new era for the region, O’Connor said. Things started to get busier.

“This was the beginning of the two or three booms that we’ve seen over the last about 14 years or so. Just to be there as an observer of this and not directly dependent on the mystery…” he said of the oilsands boom.

“But realizing its importance, that it was a…” O’Connor trailed off with a sigh.

He picked up again: “I’m going to write a book on this.”

“My wife has grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said, ‘Do it,’” he laughed.

“We’ve talked about it for a few years and that early time that I’m trying to describe to you, it was fascinating and very important for what came later.”

Dawn of a new oilsands era

The ’90s were a transformative time for the Alberta oilsands. New advancements in technology improved the economic prospects of extracting and processing the resource and led to an ambitious industry and government strategy to dramatically increase production in 1995.

Highway 63, also known as the “Highway of Death” for its dangerous and busy conditions, runs through Fort McMurray. Photo: Kris Krug

As a part of this new strategy the Canadian and Albertan governments dropped royalty and tax rates in an effort to generate interest in the resource.

What’s contained in the tarry sands of northern Alberta is a heavy hydrocarbon called bitumen. As industry describes it, unprocessed bitumen has the consistency of “peanut butter” and, as a result, requires tremendous amounts of energy to extract, process and upgrade into lighter fuels.

Before the technology existed to essentially melt the bitumen out of the sands, oil companies expressed little interest in the region.

But all that changed with new methods for extraction and upgrading and some of the lowest royalties and taxes in the world.

By 1995, Alberta announced a new goal of producing one million barrels a day from the oilsands by 2020. They passed that goal 16 years early in 2004. Plans now involve producing up to 5 million barrels a day by 2030.

Retired machinery forms part of a roadside display along the ‘Syncrude Loop’ in Fort McMurray. Photo: Kris Krug

While these transformations took place, O’Connor’s business steadily grew, as did the need for him in downstream and local communities, especially First Nation communities.

O’Connor began to see the oilsands at this time as a “two-edged sword.”

“Couldn’t possibly live without it,” he said, “but at the same time, having to contend with the fact — no doubt — about the impact; the adverse impact on environment and life in general.”

O’Connor said that in those early years the impact of development wasn’t yet visible, but by the early 2000s things started to change.

Read Part 2: Deformed Fish, Dying Muskrats Cause Doctor to Sound Alarm. Read Part 3: The Spotlight Turns on Fort Chip Doctor.

*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated O’Connor was from Scotland. Image Credit: In 2011 author Carol Linnitt travelled to the oilsands region and Fort Chipewyan with photographer Kris Krug. All photos by Kris Krug.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This article originally appeared on MikeDeSouza.com.

A new study from the University of Manitoba will soon challenge industry and government claims downplaying environmental health impacts of oilsands development, said the chief of a First Nations community Friday.

“When that report comes out, it’s going to blow the socks off industry and government,” Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation told native and non-native supporters gathered at a campsite for an outdoor weekend retreat near major oilsands projects. “We went ahead and did our own independent studies and we found some very stunning results.”

First Nations communities have alleged that toxic pollution from oilsands operators is contaminating their air, water and food. Representatives from industry and the federal and provincial governments have pointed to research suggesting the toxins aren’t yet at unsafe levels.

Environment Canada has sometimes declined requests from journalists asking for interviews with federal scientists doing this research.

But the anticipated study described by Chief Adam would follow a provincial government report, released in March by Alberta’s chief medical officer, James Talbot. The provincial report confirmed warnings about high rates of a rare form of cancer from a local physician, Dr. John O’Connor, who had been criticized for publicly drawing attention to the cases in the community of Fort Chipewyan.

The provincial government confirmed levels of bile duct, cervical and lung cancer in the community, between 1992 and 2011, that were several times higher than expected. But the report also found that the overall number of cancer cases was 81, and therefore not significantly higher than the expected total of 79 cases.

Bile duct cancer can be linked to a number of factors such as family history or exposure to some toxins.

Talbot said in March that there wasn’t “strong evidence for an association between any of these cancers and environmental exposure.”

Talbot also confirmed at the time that there were never any comprehensive studies in the potentially affected communities.

O’Connor said that nurses and doctors in the community may see things differently.

“The proof is up there if anyone chooses to look,” O’Connor said in an interview after participating in a panel discussion with Adam and George Poitras, the CEO and a former chief of the Mikisew Cree indigenous First Nation.

Several hundred people from Canada and the United States travelled to northern Alberta for the outdoor weekend retreat – described as a “Healing Walk” around oilsands operations for First Nations communities affected by the industrial development.

This is the fifth and final edition of the walk, a 20 km trek scheduled on Saturday. The event’s website said organizers would shift their focus in subsequent years away from open-pit oilsands mining to raising awareness about impacts of other forms of oilsands extraction that use steam injected deep underground.

Chief Adam said in an interview that the University of Manitoba study would likely be released within a month with findings that would raise questions about the credibility of the Alberta Health report on cancer in Fort Chipewyan.

The provincial report prompted newspaper articles in the Globe and Mail and the National Post, among other media reports, that defended the oilsands industry – an economic engine in Canada that historically relied on generous government incentives and subsidies, but which also generates jobs and billions of dollars in tax revenues – suggesting that the Alberta government review proved that O’Connor’s warnings were “falling apart.”

O’Connor warnings drew official complaints from government officials, provoking a professional review that would eventually clear him.

“I didn’t expect the reaction that I got. I didn’t expect to be attacked so viciously, when I chose to do my job,” he said.

“My way of reconciling it and dealing with it, is if they (media personalities) think I’m doing wrong, I know I’m right, because if they agreed with me, I’d want to take a long hot shower and really examine what I’m doing.”

O’Connor said this is why he has no regrets. But he wonders whether government officials feel the same way.

“I have a clear conscience,” he said. “I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again and will do it again if a similar situation arises. I would hate to be in their position. They have to sleep at night and they have to answer their grandchildren: Why did you do this? And all you’ve got to do is look in the communities and you know there’s no doubt about what’s going on.”

Image Credit: Chief Allan Adam by Kris Krug via Flickr.

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If you ask an Environment Canada media spokesperson about contamination resulting from tar sands operations, they will not tell you the federal government has failed to adequately monitor the mega-project's effects on water.

They most certainly will not say outright that the federal government has failed to monitor the long term or cumulative environmental effects of the world's largest industrial project. They won't say it, but not because it isn't the case. 

The tar sands are contaminating hundreds of kilometres of land in northern Alberta with cancer-causing contaminants and neurotoxins.

And although federal scientists have confirmed this, they are prevented from sharing information about their research with the media. 

The result is an overly-monitored process that causes burdensome delays in media-scientist interactions. The overwhelming consequence is that the media has stopped talking to the country's national scientists.

No federal studies have researched contamination in furbearing mammals living near the tar sands, although species decline – as is evident in the disappearance of caribou – is becoming an increasing problem.

The Alberta Cancer Board confirmed in 2008 that higher than normal rates of rare cancer were present in the small community. The government refused to remove the charge of alarmism from O'Connor's file until late 2009, despite express wishes from the residents of Fort Chipewyan to have the accusation dropped.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.