Canada looks like a real-life laboratory for sustainability issues, a lab in which choices about policies and practices now being debated in that country will have major economic consequences. The country’s vast natural resources of gas and oil, wood, and minerals, and its global mining operations have inspired much environmental activity related to the extractive industries. Its robust financial sector and an economy in Quebec closely tied to the EU and its sustainability regulations have assumed better practices as a base standard. On the other hand, the ruling conservative government has been aggressively pro development in spite of environmental cautions, especially in regard to Alberta’s oil sands that would feed the proposed XL pipeline. Its mining industry has a history of subpar environmental and social practices in developing countries to make up for. And a segment of its national economy argues for market-driven forces to play out, free from government mandates. These is