Tarmageddon

Andrew Nikiforuk, in his essay Tarmegeddon, uses lots of examples, facts, research and data to express his worries about the environmental problems Canada could face due to the tar sands in Alberta. He pointed out "it now accounts for 5 per cent of the nation's emissions and pollutes the global atmosphere with 40 megatonnes of greenhouse gases a year. That's nearly double the annual emissions of Estonia or Latvia." so the example Nikiforuk provides immediately gives readers a emotional thinking about negative impact of the process from the tar sands to Bitumen which destroys our environment. The toxic waste after the process ruins the plant, water and kills wild animals, and once the land is mined, it is not sustainable for the plants and in the future, our green area will be less and less.

Question: in the essay Andrew Nikiforuk also directly points out Stephen Harper's position on the tar sands, so does that also means Nikiforuk has opposite political position from Stephen Harper? and this essay has political purpose?