For months on end, buses and SkyTrain cars all over Metro Vancouver were wrapped in ads declaring “B.C. LNG will reduce global emissions.” Memo to TransLink: these misleading claims about liquefied natural gas (LNG) didn’t make my commute any faster.

And, boy, were they ever misleading. Canada’s Ad Standards Council said so itself. A January decision by the standards council, a national advertising regulatory non-profit, declared the ubiquitous ad campaign, paid for by pro-liquefied natural gas interests, created an “overall misleading impression … that B.C. LNG is good for the environment, amounting to greenwashing.” 

Greenwashing, for the layperson, promotes false solutions to the climate crisis that distract from and delay concrete and credible action. These ads were paid for by Canada Action — a “grassroots” group with deep ties to the oil and gas industry and Conservative Party campaigners that declines to reveal details about its funders. The ads are “a textbook case of greenwashing, right down to the colour,” according to Vancouver general practitioner Dr. Melissa Lem, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

A leaked decision of the Ad Standards Council unanimously found pro-LNG advertising, recently ubiquitous on Vancouver SkyTrain lines, misled the public. Photo: Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

The association published the council’s decision last month, making that very point. “Some members of [the] council were also concerned with the bright green background colour that was used to emphasize an environmental benefit that liquefied natural gas does not truly have,” the Ad Standards Council report stated. It should be noted that had the physician association not published a copy of the document, details of the decision would still be kept out of public view by the Ad Standards Council, a self-regulating body, where industry polices itself. But more on that later. 

Canada Action defended its claims by providing evidence LNG could reduce global emissions, if China reduces reliance on coal-fired power plants, pivoting instead to B.C. liquefied natural gas and theoretically lowering global greenhouse gas emissions. But there is no proof — whatsoever — that B.C. liquefied natural gas will reduce global emissions. It may even delay the transition to renewables. 

As such, the standards council unanimously determined the ads “distorted the true meaning of statements made by professionals or scientific authorities” and falsely promised ramping up LNG “will” lower global emissions. 

“By using the word ‘will,’ [the standards] council unanimously determined that all of the advertisements promised a verified result without competent and reliable evidence,” the decision summary posted by the physician association reads. “No evidence was provided to support the expected increase in LNG demand.”

A minor quibble: Canada Action didn’t just use the word “will” in its pro-LNG advertising. In some cases they italicized it, emphasizing the certainty, doubling down on the verb when a factual statement demanded a different one: “might” was one option. So was “could” or perhaps even “won’t.” 

This is fracking we’re talking about, after all, the process of fracturing bedrock by blasting a mixture of water, sand and hazardous chemicals into a borehole to get at the natural gas trapped within it. In addition to contaminating groundwater and causing earthquakes, the operation itself is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, including high levels of methane pollution. 

We’ve been made to forget liquefied natural gas comes from fracking. The term has all but been replaced with LNG, a seemingly innocuous acronym, part of a move to rebrand this particularly ruthless means of resource extraction as an eco-friendly remedy for climate change. 

It absolutely isn’t. In addition to significant environmental harm, fracking has been linked to all manner of medical issues, as the physicians association has outlined: preterm birth, birth defects, low birthweight, childhood leukemia, respiratory and cardiovascular issues and premature mortality. Even in a world where liquefied natural gas has a positive impact on global emissions, a body of research suggests it hurts babies. No one is asking to save the environment at the expense of our children. As far as I know, it’s their future we’re trying to preserve.

“I’ve had the experience of treating a patient with an asthma exacerbation from wildfire smoke, and then stepping outside my office and seeing one of these ads roll right by,” Lem told reporters in May outside downtown Vancouver’s Burrard SkyTrain station. “It is distressing and it’s infuriating as a health professional who’s caring for patients who have been affected by climate change to see these incredibly misleading and untruthful ads polluting our public spaces.”

‘Grassroots’ oil and gas advocacy group Canada Action received $100,000 from ARC Resources

Yet with all that’s at stake, the big finger-wag from the Ad Standards Council was directed at the physician association, which had the audacity to leak the decision after Canada Action immediately appealed the ruling. Decisions are typically not made public until the appeals process runs its course, the Ad Standards Council said. 

Canadian public no longer entitled to see Ad Standards Council report 

That’s handy for Canada Action. Its green billboards on the highway leading from Victoria to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal were swiftly replaced with new billboards proclaiming, “the world is asking for Canadian LNG.” And Canada Action doesn’t have to be embarrassed by the release of the final decision. The Canadian public is no longer entitled to see the report. 

“Due to egregious violations of confidentiality in this case, by the leaking of this decision which was not final, we will only be advising the advertiser of the outcome of the appeal,” Ad Standards Council president and CEO Catherine Bate wrote in a statement. “We will not be able to report the results of that decision publicly, or to comment further.” Of Canada Action, the council also noted the coalition “has responded promptly, adhered fully to the complaints procedure and provided fulsome responses.”

But they’re punishing the public like we peeked at a Christmas present. (The other option, I suppose, is to give us coal for being naughty, but that’s probably worse, in this case.) It’s patently outrageous. This situation demands a thorough correction of the public record from a truly non-partisan source. Instead, we get scolded for learning the truth, while the offending party gets a press embargo as a treat. The misleading advertising was public. The findings should be public too. The key takeaways of the final report should be plastered on the side of Vancouver’s 99 B-Line, Canada’s busiest bus route, which runs east-west from Burnaby to the University of British Columbia. Is a decision summary seen by too few the best we can do?

Twas ever thus. The oil and gas industry has been calling the shots for years, putting out dubious statements supported by dubious research and letting the tedious labour of setting things straight fall to small outfits like the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. The BC Green Party did what it could, responding to Canada Action’s misleading claims (and misuse of the colour green) with a full cover wrap in Victoria’s Times Colonist newspaper two months ago. But a one-time print ad on Vancouver Island isn’t nearly enough.

The BC Green Party responded to pro-LNG ads with a front page ad wrap on Victoria’s Times Colonist newspaper (left), saying, “we fixed your ads for you.” Two weeks later, Canada Action took to the newapaper’s front page to reiterate its message. Photos: Dave Lacey / X (Twitter); Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

This is why the Ad Standards Council’s decision was so notable. The council is harder to simply dismiss than, say, a niche political party or “a group of environmentalist doctors.” They’re the higher authority here, and we need them to be a real force. It’s not encouraging to learn they’re understaffed and dealing with a backlog of cases. When it comes to maintaining the standards of honesty, truth and accuracy in advertising, the Ad Standards Council is all that stands between us and wall-to-wall house hippos, the fictional critters that taught ’90s kids to think critically about what we saw on TV.

“The decision is significant because it shows the Ad Standards Council is stepping up and doing what government isn’t doing, which is regulating misleading fossil fuel advertising that drives demands for fossil fuels,” Lem told the Vancouver Sun.

That was chillingly true just two months ago. Since that statement, however, the federal government has taken action: an anti-greenwashing provision in omnibus Bill C-59, which recently became law, contains a truth-in-advertising amendment that will allow corporations to be fined for failing to back up their environmental claims. Under the amendment, claims about a business’s environmental benefits can only be made if they’re substantiated in accordance with “internationally recognized methodology.”

It’s a massive shift in practice that’s left Canada’s oil and gas industry rightly apoplectic. The game changed overnight — the burden of proof is now on corporations — and, just like that, so did the industry’s approach. The website advertised by Canada Action’s liquefied natural gas ads was taken offline. Same for much of the online content put out by the Pathways Alliance group, a consortium of Canada’s six largest oilsands companies whose net-zero claims have been slammed as greenwashing by the physician association.

Oil and gas interests say new anti-greenwashing rules will silence energy industry

Meanwhile, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said in a statement in late June it has “chosen to reduce the amount of information available on its website” — while simultaneously complaining the new anti-greenwashing provisions will put a damper on debate about environmental issues and silence the energy industry. 

“It has been the Wild West,” Leah Temper, program director for the physicians association, told the Toronto Star. “Companies have been able to make almost any claim they want, using terms such as net-carbon neutral, without any reliable evidence base. Hopefully this will represent a sea change.”

Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz called the federal bill an attack on freedom of speech — which would be true if you believe expression grants the right to mislead the public without pushback or consequence. It’s always amusing to hear people whinge about the first amendment in Canada, since it’s not our amendment. 

Canada’s charter permits the passage of laws that limit free expression, provided they’re reasonable and can be justified in a free and democratic society. This one seems imminently justifiable, especially in light of the global warming catastrophe unfolding before our eyes. In Canada, fossil fuel companies can no longer claim to be addressing climate change while they continue to be its most dominant cause.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

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It’s difficult to know who to root for in the city of Vancouver’s ongoing turf war with its much-maligned, one-of-a-kind local park board.

This is a specialized unit. While most cities have municipal committees created to manage green spaces, Vancouver is the only Canadian city whose park board is elected democratically.

Established by a late 19th-century amendment to the Vancouver Incorporation Act, this seven-commissioner outfit has enjoyed exclusive jurisdiction and control over the city’s public parks for nearly 140 years, protecting and preserving its most precious assets (the seawall, the beaches, Stanley Park) amid rapid growth and rabid development. Many of Vancouver’s most feted attractions — some of the country’s best-known public spaces — would not have survived were it not for the park board. 

Still, the board itself is far from beloved; residents have long complained about endless pilot programs, neglected facilities, declining public events and other expressions of the city’s “no-fun” reputation.

For more than a century, the Vancouver park board has served to preserve green spaces in the city. A 1921 panorama shows the Stanley Park causeway passing by Lost Lagoon. Photo: W.J. Moore / City of Vancouver Archives / Flickr

But now, the Vancouver park board itself is under threat. Last December, Mayor Ken Sim announced a surprise plan to formally get rid of it.

News of the plan sent shockwaves through Vancouver politics, including Sim’s ABC party, which held a supermajority on the park board, having won six of seven seats in the 2022 election. Upon Sim’s announcement, however, they found themselves in the minority, as three park board commissioners with Sim’s party — booted from the party for opposing Sim’s agenda — immediately became independents.

Sim and his remaining allies insist eliminating the Vancouver park board will make things more efficient, which is probably very true.

That said, it’s hard to believe this endeavour won’t lead to developers carving up Vancouver’s world-class parks, especially as Sim keeps insisting the city is “open for business.” His election was celebrated by the city’s big real estate players, almost all of whom gave big money to the ABC campaign. Billionaire Lululemon founder and Low Tide Properties co-owner Chip Wilson, Sim’s longtime friend, even hosted the mayor-elect’s victory party.

Five months later, Sim’s council voted to return $3.8 million in taxes to the development industry and cancelled an increase to the empty homes tax. Meanwhile, the ABC-controlled Vancouver School Board has been pushing for the sale of public land since taking power. 

“The only thing it’s going to allow them to do is strip out park board assets and sell off parts of the park,” ex-ABC Vancouver park board commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky told the Tyee. “If they [Ken Sim and ABC] are gonna go this far and surprise everybody, there’s only one upside, which is the selling of land … then you have to wonder whether or not that’s the underlying motive for them to do it.” Green Party park board commissioner Tom Digby has also referred to the plan as a “real estate coup d’état.”

Popular recreation spots like Queen Elizabeth Park could get new names if Mayor Ken Sim’s plan to sell off the naming rights comes to fruition.

It sure seems like Sim has private interests in mind. Just last month, he floated a plan to generate municipal revenue by selling naming rights to public parks. City staff are currently exploring how much money corporate sponsorship might yield. What’s in a name? Not as much as in a real estate deal, one imagines. 

Amid speculation about selling off assets, the mayor has insisted he is committed to protecting Vancouver’s green spaces. His council’s motion includes a special amendment to ensure the protection of “permanent public parks.” Granted, nearly half of Vancouver’s 230-odd parks (including large portions of Spanish Banks, Jericho Beach, Sunset Beach and the bulk of Renfrew Ravine Park in East Vancouver) are classified as “temporary,” meaning their park designation could simply be cancelled by council, despite the amendment. Convenient.

Furthermore, the motion to abolish is a full-blown reversal of Sim’s campaign promise to “fix” — not just simply dissolve — a board Sim’s supporters say wastes taxpayers’ money and gets nothing done. One wonders why anyone would even be tempted to take the mayor at his word now.

“This is not what he campaigned on,” Laura Christensen, one of the three commissioners turfed from the ABC party, said. “There was never any comment about removing the park board in any way. If that had been the case, I would not have run with ABC or run for the park board.”

Sim has said this move is the fix.

“We’re talking about a structural issue here,” he said at a city hall news conference. “We committed to the public that we’re going to try to fix it. We had elected a supermajority in that chamber. We can’t fix it. It’s not about the people. It’s about the structure, and no amount of tinkering with that current structure is going to fix it.”

Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party held a majority on the elected park board — until it booted off three commissioners for opposing Sim’s agenda. Photo: Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press

Rather than tinkering, one wonders if simply funding the Vancouver park board in earnest would help. While the park board sets its own annual budget, the city decides how much money to give them. It’s not very much. Other big cities, from New York to nearby Surrey, allocate roughly two-thirds of their property taxes to fund park budgets. Vancouver gives just over half.

Park board advocates and the majority of commissioners have loudly opposed the proposed abolition, arguing Sim’s plan undermines democracy and contravenes Vancouver’s civic charter. In February, the park board voted to seek legal advice in preparation for a forthcoming legal challenge. A truly fascinating court case looms.

Unfortunately for the mayor’s opponents, Vancouver’s charter can simply be changed, and the BC NDP government has signaled its willingness to support Sim’s plan and do just that during the next legislative session, either this fall after the Oct. 19 provincial election or next spring (provided they are reelected). So have the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, all of whom recently announced their support for the dissolution of the Vancouver park board, with an eye towards additional tweaks to the charter — so long as the document’s open — to better align with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, as promised.

And surprisingly, so have many progressives, who might be inclined to oppose Sim without hesitation on just about everything else. Pressed to defend the park board amid threats from a right-leaning mayor, Vancouver’s left wing seems conflicted. 

One Vancouver columnist told me most correspondence he’s received opposing the mayor’s plan goes something like this: “I’m no fan of the park board, but … .”

That definitely tracks, and I get it. When it comes to this particular body, there’s little love lost among the local population.

For one thing, the Vancouver park board has long seemed indifferent to most of the people it serves — its stewardship of public parks has never been particularly balanced. A 2022 University of British Columbia study found Vancouver ranks among the least equitable of Canada’s major cities when it comes to green space access. Compared to 31 counterparts assessed in the study, the link between higher income and greater access to greenness is stronger in Vancouver than anywhere else.

A 1969 preliminary proposal for the development of Jericho Park includes an amusement park, a pitch-and-putt golf course, a marina and a cultural centre. The Vancouver park board is sometimes accused of contributing to the city’s “no-fun” reputation. Photo: City of Vancouver Archives / Flickr

Beyond the inequity, Vancouver’s reputation as a no-fun city is largely the park board’s influence. It took a full-blown pandemic for the board to reconsider its no-drinking policy; somehow this project is still in its pilot phase. Pop-up music venues, art installations and other waggish uses of public space rarely last long. Family-friendly neighbourhood events and festivals are few and far between, and frequently face stodgy opposition. Sometimes it seems like the park board would rather we stay in our homes while the grass grows outside.

And then there’s the century and a half of ruthless colonialism. Park board commissioners are really just stewards of stolen land, after all. First proposed by real estate agent Arthur Wellington Ross, the Vancouver park board was originally created in 1890 to oversee one place, Stanley Park, which needed protection from two perceived threats: real estate speculators who wanted to build there, driving down property values nearby and First Nations people who lived there.

One cannot forget the creation of Stanley Park, like Canada’s other pristine, “protected” landscapes, wasn’t simply because we think parks are a good thing. The insistence the park belongs to everyone and should be enshrined as public land also achieved the explicit colonial goal of dispossessing the people to whom it belonged.

Sixty years after the fact, Squamish Nation Chief August Jack Khahtsahlano recalled road surveyors who carved off a chunk of his family’s home to make way for their survey line, drawing new boundaries, eventually destroying the entire village and paving a road made of discarded shells, bones and other artifacts unearthed along the route. Families at Brockton Point, on the western tip of Stanley Park, were still holding strong in the 1920s while the city erected four totem poles at nearby Lumberman’s Arch, enshrining a legacy with its left hand while demolishing it with the right.

The Vancouver park board’s efforts to create and preserve green spaces for settlers came at a cost — including the displacement of First Nations communities. Photo: James Crookall / City of Vancouver Archives / Flickr

It bears mentioning the Vancouver park board only just recently voted to apologize to the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations for taking away their ancestral lands, digging up burial grounds to build roads and playgrounds and other damaging actions, as part of a “colonial audit” conducted in 2018.

“It’s important that we recognize that this is where we come from,” park board chair Stuart Mackinnon said at the time. “Stanley Park was the home to many First Nations peoples and over the course of time they were evicted, removed from the park. What we call our western beaches — Kitsilano, Jericho, Locarno and Spanish Banks — were also home to First Nations people, a gathering place and a place for food collection. They were all removed from there as well.”

In 2021, the park board went a step further, announcing a motion to explore co-management of Vancouver parks with local First Nations. Less than a year later, Sim’s conservative ABC party swept into power, flipping the council, establishing a fleeting supermajority on the park board and moving swiftly to stem the momentum of liberalism in Vancouver civic life.

Most recently, council rejected as “fantasyland” a $300 million, ten-year plan submitted by the Vancouver park board for essential work to blunt the effects of climate change along the West End waterfront. ABC councillors pointed to funding concerns, though it’s hardly the only climate-focused plan rebuffed by this council. (Plus the plan makes no sense if a chunk of this waterfront land won’t be public a decade from now. But I digress.) Meanwhile, Sim remains enthusiastic about hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup, despite the estimated costs now ballooning north of $500 million. 

Prior to that, Sim and his allies proceeded to allocate funds for 100 new Vancouver police department officers and reversed the decision to end the department’s student liaison officer program, putting police back in schools. They dismantled the polarizing bike lane in Stanley Park, restoring the rule of the automobile.

It seems relevant, therefore, that the move to abolish the park board in full comes hot on the heels of the board’s plan to reconcile with First Nations and reckon with Vancouver’s colonial past. Historically, that’s not what the park board is for.

In the end, what we’re left with is two groups of settlers at war over unceded land. There are no heroes in this fight — it’s basically Alien vs. Predator, set in Vancouver instead of just filmed there. No wonder it’s hard to root for anyone.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.