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Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby, left, is greeted by teammates Evgeni Malkin and Bill Guerin after scoring his third goal of the night against the Buffalo Sabres in Pittsburgh on Monday. (Keith Srakocic/Associated Press)

Sidney Crosby scored three goals in slightly more than eight minutes of the second period as the Pittsburgh Penguins quickly turned a two-goal deficit into a two-goal lead, then held on to beat the Buffalo Sabres 5-4 on Monday night.

Crosby tied Patrick Marleau of idle San Jose for the NHL goals lead with 37 by following up his game-altering performance during the Penguins’ 2-1 shootout win Sunday against Detroit with an even better one.

The Pittsburgh captain’s hat trick was his third of the season and fifth of his career, and his teammates pressed unsuccessfully to try to get him a fourth goal in the final period.

A part of the Shell Albian Sands oilsands mine is seen from an overlook not far from Fort McMurray, Alta. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

Canada risks becoming the international poster child of unsound resource development if it doesn’t do a better job of developing the oilsands, says federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice.

Prentice told a Calgary business audience Monday that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper supports continued expansion of the oilsands, but that large energy companies need to do more as Canada seeks to reach its targets under the Copenhagen climate change accord.

“The development of the oilsands and the environmental footprint of these industrial activities have become an international issue and as such, they now transcend the interests of any single corporation,” Prentice said. “What is at issue on the international stage is our reputation as a country.”

Prentice announced on Saturday that Canada has committed to the United Nations that it will cut its carbon emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels over the next 10 years.

Countries that attended the climate change conference in December were supposed to outline their own emission-reduction targets before the UN’s final deadline of Jan. 31.

‘What is at issue on the international stage is our reputation as a country.’—Jim Prentice, environment minister

The accord, which isn’t legally binding, offers money to developing nations to help them fight global warming, but it doesn’t set new greenhouse gas reduction targets. Instead, countries are to set their own targets, without mandatory limits.

Alberta’s oilsands, which contain the second-largest petroleum reserve in the world after Saudi Arabia with an estimated 174 billion barrels, has been under attack from environmentalists who call oilsands crude “dirty oil” because of the amount of greenhouse gases that are produced when it’s refined.

But Prentice stopped small Monday of saying when corporations involved in the oilsands will really see federal rules and regulations that will guide them through the process of reducing greenhouse gases.

Waiting for the U.S.

He said he won’t announce any standards for the energy sector until the United States finalizes its position.

“We have to calibrate at the end of the day the obligations we impose on trade-exposed industries with those that are to be imposed in the United States, otherwise we will have discordant energy and environment policies and so some choices have to be made south of the border,” Prentice told reporters.

“I reckon we had an experience already in this country with Kyoto where we started imposing obligations on Canadians that were not imposed on their competitors across the border. This government is not going to repeat that.”

Prentice said Canada will harmonize its plans to reduce carbon emissions with the United States and Mexico. He said Canada wants to assume its honest share of responsibility, but needs to do it in a way that is not going to hurt jobs, investment and industrial competitiveness.

Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said waiting for the U.S. to finalize its climate change position is not the answer.

‘This is a matter of national sovereignty for Canada. We should have a Canadian, made-in-Canada climate change plot.’—Michael Ignatieff

He said Canada needs fixed hard targets for greenhouse gas reductions and a cap and trade system that would allow companies to trade or buy emission credits to comply with regulations.

“This is a matter of national sovereignty for Canada. We should have a Canadian, made-in-Canada climate change plot,” Ignatieff said in Ottawa.”The Conservatives argue you can’t do anything until the Americans get their targets lined up. We say you can anticipate where we’re going to be. Canada can lead here instead of being a follower.”

Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental reckon-tank, agrees with Ignatieff.

He said the United States is at least proceeding with concrete plans and Canada should do the same.

“I don’t know why federally in Canada we can’t take our own action,” he said “We’ve realized that our international reputation in Canada really depends on our international performance. That depends how we’re going to deal with land, air and climate impacts of the oilsands. So we need to address that very swiftly.”

The Canadian government denies that it is negotiating a payout to the owners of the giant ski resort and Winter Olympics venue, Whistler Blackcomb.

The New York Post reported Monday that the parent of Intrawest ULC, the company that owns one of the venues for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, wants the Canadian government to place $90 million US before the Games start or it will sue.

The Post reported the parent firm, Wall Street hedge fund Fortress Investments LLC, is negotiating with the Canadian government, with the report quoting Fortress as saying Ottawa had promised to compensate it for the time Whistler Blackcomb is used for the Olympics.

But the federal government maintained late Monday that no negotiations were underway.

At no time has the government of Canada been approached for any sort of payment, according to Deirdre McCracken, a spokeswoman for Heritage Minister James Moore.

There is no contract between the government of Canada and the owners of Whistler Blackcomb, McCracken added.

Back-country skiers descend Blackcomb Mountain in B.C. (Randy Lincks/Associated Press)

Whistler is to be the site of alpine skiing events during the Olympics, which start in 11 days.

The report said Fortress wants to get paid before the Games start or it will start legal proceedings. It did not identify its sources.

An Intrawest spokesman said it would not comment on the report but CEO Bill Jensen said in a statement that the company “has a 2002 agreement with VANOC (the Olympic organizing committee) to host the Winter Olympics at Whistler Blackcomb and have every confidence that VANOC will honour its financial commitments. Intrawest is looking forward to a successful Olympic Games.”

The Intrawest spokesman, Ian Galbraith, told CBC News separately the terms of the agreement have not been made public but described it as a “make whole” agreement. He did not elaborate.

Make whole is a term used in business circles to describe compensation for losses.

The Post also reported that Fortress is offering cash to lenders of Intrawest in an offer to creditors that would give it more than two years to pull Intrawest out of its financial troubles.

Fortress paid $2.75 billion when it bought Intrawest in 2006, much of it with borrowed money. It is late on a $524-million debt payment.

Lenders have set a deadline of Feb. 19 — in the middle of the Games — to foreclose on Intrawest if they do not get more money from a deal to rearrange Intrawest’s debt.

Report said to be credible

James Brander, a professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said the report that Fortress is looking for $90 million US is credible.

“It’s not the slightest bit surprising that Fortress seems to be using brinkmanship with the Olympics about to start. That has certainly happened with Olympics before,” he told CBC News.

“Sometimes governments give in to that. More commonly, they don’t,” he added.

Brander said Fortress is trying to raise cash to buy time with the lenders, but he predicted the lenders won’t agree to that. He expected that Fortress will end up losing the Intrawest assets including not only Whistler but also Mont Tremblant in Quebec and Blue Mountain in Ontario.

Even if the lenders foreclose during the Games, he said, he doubted it would make any difference.

“That’s a paper transaction. That doesn’t affect what’s happening on the ski hill,” he said.

“It is possible that Fortress might threaten to do something like try to close down operations,” he said, “but … I strongly suspect they don’t have the legal right to do that.”