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Oil, gas and cigarettes

Oil and gas industry allies’ pushback against plans to ban ads and limit emissions is a familiar story — we’ve been here before. Plus, remembering the life of epic Rocky Mountains guardian, Karsten Heuer

By Carl Meyer

Nov. 8, 2024

Big oil, big tobacco

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Collage of newspaper headlines from the 1980s highlighting tobacco industry opposition to a ban on cigarette ads

Last month I asked the epic researchers at the Library of Parliament if they had any archival material about tobacco advertising bans from the 1980s.

Two days later they sent me a glorious package containing dozens of nostalgia-inducing newspaper articles. The picture that emerged is of a bitter fight.

Canadians were dying of lung cancer and heart disease strongly linked to smoking. Doctors and other public health advocates, informed by years of solid science, went to war against the entrenched monied interests of the tobacco industry and its advertising and sponsorship partners.

It was striking how closely the details of that battle mirror the struggle The Narwhal reports on today: between scientists trying to warn the world about the destructive impacts of climate change driven by fossil fuels — and the oil and gas industry, which includes some of the world’s richest and most powerful companies.

An ad on an urban street reads, "as long as the world needs oil and gas, it should be Canadian."

🔗 Smoke, out: cities discuss fossil fuel ad ban, echoing tobacco fight

Back then, tobacco firms spent millions to convince Canadians their products should be a part of everyday life. When the industry became threatened, it warned that cracking down on tobacco ads could harm the economy.

Firms touted studies that supposedly concluded bans on ads wouldn’t keep Canadians from smoking. They argued the ban would instead freeze the market, kill competition and displace local jobs.

It’s all so familiar. Canada’s oil and gas industry has spent millions promoting itself as a responsible environmental steward, even as scientific evidence increasingly links the heat waves, floods and wildfires pummelling Canada, and the world, to fossil fuels.

Companies have warned that environmental protections could lead to economic and job losses. They have touted research supposedly showing climate policies don’t work.

Now their ads are being challenged, too, by new federal legislation targeting greenwashing. The oilpatch and some of its political allies say freedom of speech is at stake, not unlike arguments raised by tobacco companies.

In the 1980s, Ottawa only imposed an ad ban after the tobacco industry failed to change advertising practices themselves. On Monday, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson similarly noted how oilsands companies have promised to voluntarily lower emissions for years, as he outlined proposed rules to hold them accountable to their promise.

🔗 5 takeaways from Canada’s draft rules for an oil and gas emissions cap

With the tobacco ad war on my mind, the missive oil lobbyists sent out in response to the emissions cap announcement was instantly recognizable. It warned of negative economic impacts: deterred investment, fewer jobs, lower GDP. It’s all there.

Canada’s tobacco industry eventually lost the advertising war: smoking and associated cancers dropped, but it took decades, and progress hasn’t been linear. Fossil fuel companies are just starting to be held accountable for their pollution, and it’s far from certain what the future holds.

The proposal announced Monday won’t be official until 2025. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s governing Liberal Party is polling badly and could be defeated within the year.

If Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party wins, he’s already said he would trash the cap, as well as several other climate policies. And Americans have just voted in a man who calls climate change a “scam.” One of president-elect Donald Trump’s first objectives after taking office, a senior advisor said, will be to “get back to drilling.”

If there’s one takeaway from the tobacco fight that rings true, as we head into the uncertain waters of a second Trump presidency and a looming Canadian election, it’s that the science is incontrovertible.

Science proved then that smoking cigarettes is a major risk factor in disease. Science has proven now that burning fossil fuels is driving climate chaos.

It offers a clear perspective we’ll need as we navigate these next months and years.

Take care and hold on to that clarity,

Carl Meyer
Climate investigations reporter

🤍 Support independent journalism

A young Karsten Heuer and his dog rest on a rocky slope

A life with purpose

It was expected, but it is sad. On Nov. 5, Karsten Heuer, a Rocky Mountain guardian and epic adventurer, died in the little writing shack in his Canmore backyard, surrounded by family. His neurological condition had worsened and Heuer chose a medically assisted death. I had the privilege of speaking to him this summer about his purpose-driven life and his looming death.

“Letting him go reminded me of giving birth; there is no negotiating with it and surrendering is the only way,” his wife, Leanne Allison, wrote in an email announcing his death.

I hope you’ll take some time to read Heuer’s story.

— Drew Anderson, Prairies reporter

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Published By

Carl Meyer

Carl Meyer is The Narwhal's climate investigations reporter, based in Ottawa. In 2024 he won a Canadian Association of Journalists...

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