Some reductions in greenhouse gas emissions per barrel from oilsands facilities over the past 20 years have been achieved by new technologies as well as the transfer of some activities and their pollution to other industries, Environment Minister Peter Kent said in a statement tabled last week in Parliament.

Kent's comments, delivered in response to questions by Liberal environment critic Kirsty Duncan, were based on a summary of several recent government reports and internal federal records on heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Although oilsands operations have decreased pollution for each barrel of oil produced, the federal government has described the expanding sector, in its internal records, as the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. For more than a decade, successive federal governments have pledged to crack down on pollution from the sector, without delivering action.