16 oilsands companies allegedly broke environmental rules. Alberta kept it a secret for three years

At least 16 fossil fuel companies operating in Canada’s oilsands allegedly broke rules requiring them to pay for environmental monitoring by independent scientists, according to newly released data from the Alberta government.

Alberta’s Environment and Protected Areas Ministry released the data to The Narwhal in November, about a month after the government lost a three-year battle to keep the names of 16 oilsands companies secret.

The companies paid financial penalties for allegedly flouting rules surrounding a joint Canada-Alberta scientific monitoring program, according to the newly released data. Federal and provincial officials introduced the program in 2012 to measure the cumulative effects of oilsands development on air, water, land and biodiversity.

The names of companies with late or unpaid fees include firms that wound up under bankruptcy protection or had their operations shut down for serious environmental infractions, such as Everest Canadian Resources and Sunshine Oilsands. They also include some larger multinational companies, including Koch, Imperial Oil, ConocoPhillips and MEG Energy, which faced fines for paying fees late.

For some critics, the late and unpaid fees cast doubt on how seriously Premier Danielle Smith‘s government is taking its responsibility to manage the monitoring program.

Shannon Phillips was the environment minister in the former NDP government during a period when some of the fees went unpaid. She said she asked public servants to use all the tools of the government to collect the money after they informed her about the problem.

But she noted there was an internal government culture to cut the industry some slack.

“The default setting was to lay down and die in the face of corporate whining and tantrums,” she said. “But the public service knew that might not be the response if they brought me a problem to solve.”

Oilsands companies ‘rip us off’: former Alberta environment minister

The government has written off debts owed by companies like Everest, which went into bankruptcy protection. Sunshine Oilsands, Koch, ConocoPhillips and MEG Energy did not respond to requests for comment.

Alberta’s Environment Ministry also did not respond to a request for comment.

Environment and Climate Change Canada, which is a partner in the program, told The Narwhal in a statement that it was not engaged in the collection of fees since Alberta is responsible for enforcing its regulations. The federal department also noted that while Alberta had failed to release annual reports for the program for five years, the province had just published the missing reports on Dec. 6, 2024, with support from its federal counterparts. 

Imperial Oil confirmed in an email to The Narwhal that it made a 2018 payment that “was delayed briefly due to a system problem,” but the company denied being assessed a penalty. According to the government data, the company was late making a $2.15-million payment that year and faced a $64,567 penalty.

Phillips said she believes the current provincial government is cowering in the face of pressure from oil and gas companies and failing to ensure they follow the rules like everyone else.

“If I don’t pay my mortgage, which is the condition of the approval of me living in my house, the bank takes away my house,” she said in an interview. “If oil companies don’t pay their monitoring fees, which are a condition of their approval to extract the resources that belong to Albertans, nothing happens.” 

“Alberta allows oil and gas companies to rip us off on our fair share of the revenues while leaving us holding the bag on the costs,” Phillips said.

While there were more than 30 companies operating in the oilsands 10 years ago, the data released by the government indicates there are now only 24 that collectively pay for the monitoring program’s $50-million annual budget. Koch is reportedly among the companies that sold or abandoned oilsands leases.

Government’s refusal to release data triggered inquiry

The federal and provincial governments launched the program in response to international criticism and environmental campaigns accusing fossil fuel companies of producing “dirty oil” in the region. A panel appointed by the federal government recommended the framework for the program in a report released in 2010, proposing a “scientifically rigorous” approach to monitoring that is also “transparent and accessible.”

The Narwhal previously reported in 2021 on a redacted version of the data, released in response to a freedom of information request. At the time, the numbers confirmed some oilsands monitoring bills were going unpaid, but lacked specifics.

Subsequently, The Narwhal complained about the redactions, triggering an inquiry by the office of Alberta’s information watchdog. Although the government argued it would have more trouble enforcing the regulations if it released the data, an adjudicator rejected those arguments and ordered the ministry to release its spreadsheets tracking invoices and bill payments between 2015 and 2021 for the monitoring program.

The provincial government has refused to release additional numbers it tracked from 2021 to 2024, but a staffer responsible for responding to freedom of information requests told The Narwhal it is considering whether to release them, in light of the inquiry.

Critics see a ‘pattern’ of lenient rule enforcement in the oilsands

Jeff Brook, a former Environment and Climate Change Canada scientist who has been involved with research as part of the program, said the program is essential to ensure the best regulations are in place to mitigate harm caused by industry.

“Regulations will tell you to look under the light post,” Brook, a faculty member at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said in an interview. “But there’s a lot that’s not underneath the light post.”

But the apparent secrecy surrounding the fees contrasts with Alberta regulations requiring all the information it gathers in relation to the monitoring program to be public.

Some researchers say they believe the industry is sometimes playing games to block progress in improving the monitoring system.

David Spink, an environmental consultant whose work includes air quality monitoring near Fort McKay First Nation in northern Alberta, accuses industry stakeholders of trying to block some proposed research with claims that there is not enough money available to proceed.

“Overall, there’s no doubt industry wants to keep the costs of this program down so that there’s not pressure on them to increase their contributions to the fund,” Spink said in an interview.

The other companies fined for late or unpaid fees were Pengrowth Energy Corporation, Value Creation, Southern Pacific Resource Corp., Surmont Energy, Birchwood Resources, Connacher Oil and Gas Limited, Ivanhoe Energy, Grizzly Oil Sands, Greenfire Resources and Prosper Petroleum. Some of the companies no longer appear to be operating or active. In a few cases, their assets were sold following insolvency.

Aliénor Rougeot, senior program manager for climate and energy at Toronto-based Environmental Defence Canada, said she believes it’s part of a pattern of behaviour when it comes to enforcing rules for Canada’s oil and gas industry.

“Of course, one-off mistakes happen, and you wouldn’t want to be drawing a conclusion if there was a one-off administrative mistake,” she told The Narwhal. “The reality though is when it comes to the oilsands, we see a pattern of either a lack of enforcement of rules or very lenient enforcement, which is what we’re seeing here.”