“Without natural resources we’d be naked” claims a message stencilled on the chests of four nearly naked, muscular young men.

They are the Natural Runners team in the April 2015 Vancouver Sun Run, sponsored by Resource Works, an organization that has raced to the front of the pack of resource industry promotional efforts.

There were no “without tourism we’d be naked” or “without technology we’d be naked” teams in the race, so B.C.’s natural resources had the message box to itself.

No one would likely take this point — revenues from natural resource extraction pay for our clothes, food, education and health care — too literally. But it’s part of a broader strategy to remake the industry’s reputation and, in the process, attack critics of unrestrained resource extraction. Resource Works is a leader in this campaign.

Resource Works and the Christy Clark Government

The message also helps the Christy Clark government, which has hitched its prospects to the resource industry cart. The Resource Works board and advisory council met with the B.C. Liberal Caucus a month before the organization’s launch. What they discussed was not revealed.

Resource Works’ nude runners is just the latest front in the war against environmentalists. And Resource Works’ undisclosed financial backers seem to be budgeting lavishly for it. Witness the dozens of slick promotional videos, the reports, the web site, the meetings across the province, the articles written by former Vancouver Sun journalists, and more.

Resource Works was launched in April 2014 with a mandate, as executive director Stewart Muir claims, “to create a badly needed middle ground conversation about natural resources in B.C.,” middle ground meaning an area of compromise or possible agreement. Such a conversation would recognize the strong resource-extraction component at the core of our prosperity, “but this is achieved with a responsible approach to environmental sustainability.”

But how middle ground is the Resource Works conversation? Does it give equal weight to resource extraction and environmental sustainability as it claims it does in its quest for the middle ground? It doesn’t help that Muir calls environmentalists the “anti-everything movement” with “the folk-singing, the props and the sloganeering.”

Nor do the organization’s publications help. “The Citizen’s Guide to LNG: Sea to Sky Edition,” is an evaluation of the Woodfibre liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant proposed for the Squamish waterfront. The report was also featured on the organization’s weekly video series titled “Higher Ground.”

Christy Clark’s LNG Ambitions

The timing was fortuitous for the Christy Clark government, which seemed desperate to have at least one LNG project underway.

“Confusion, misinformation and fear are part of the mix in the debate over liquefied natural gas in B.C.,” the video declared. “While the province is poised to break through and develop a new LNG export industry, it’s clear many British Columbians feel pulled in different directions when it comes to the use of natural resources.”

“That’s why Resource Works produced the Citizens’ Guide to LNG,” the video states, to address these concerns and present facts sometimes left out of the debate. But instead of providing balance and facts, the report, written by Muir and Barinder Rasode, Resource Works director of social responsibility and a former Surrey city councillor, turns out to be a 67-page paean to LNG:

LNG is a great product; BC will miss out if its LNG isn’t exported; LNG is safe, has little impact on climate, air and water, and has negligible impacts on human health and salmon populations; it will create high-paying jobs, provide ample tax revenues for increased teachers’ salaries and major benefits for First Nations. And we don’t have to worry about health, safety or the environment because B.C. has a first-class regulatory system in place.

Howe Sound tanker safety is a crucial question for residents who live along the route. But Muir and Rasode write reassuringly: “we have not seen evidence that Howe Sound is considered a narrow waterway by maritime professionals.”

They can say this because when they did interview a leading maritime professional, they didn’t ask him about Howe Sound, as Rafe Mair of the CommonSense Canadian points out in a blog post. The professional was Michael Hightower of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, whom Muir ands Rasode call “the world’s leading expert on maritime LNG safety.”

Mair relates that local resident Eoin Finn, a former KPMG partner and a chemistry PhD, did contact Hightower, who confirmed he had not been asked about Howe Sound. When Finn asked him, Hightower judged Bowen Island and parts of West Vancouver to be within a one-mile radius of tanker traffic and thus at risk.

Muir and Rasode demonstrate the same flaws in their brief discussion of fracking. They take as their definitive statement of fracking risks an American film titled Gasland. This film, they say, “has led some to fear that the practice is inherently unsafe.” Their response: “we have not found evidence to support a connection between the film’s claims and hydraulic fracturing in British Columbia.”

How could there possibly be a connection? Gasland looks at fracking in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Texas. Why didn’t they instead ask homegrown critics of fracking in B.C., of which there are many.

Mair is not kind to the organization: “They are obviously flacks for the LNG industry and pretty obviously for the Christy Clark government as well.”

Dark Funds Behind Resource Works

“Are they paid flacks?” he asks, but can’t answer because Resource Works doesn’t disclose its funding, either for the LNG study or for any of its products. The organization did volunteer the information that seed funding came from the B.C. Business Council, which says in its annual report that it “initiated” the organization.

Greg D’Avignon, the Business Council’s CEO is on the Resource Works board, perhaps representing the council’s investment. Other directors indicate a strong connection to the mining industry. Board chair Doug Horswill is a senior vice-president at Teck Resources, B.C.’s mining giant. Before his stint at Teck, Horswill served as B.C.’s deputy minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources. And before that he worked at mining companies Utah International and Inco. It’s B.C.’s version of the revolving door syndrome.

Director Philippa Wilshaw is an audit partner at KPMG and an expert on financial reporting in the mining industry. Then there’s advisory council chair Lyn Anglin, who is former president and CEO of Geoscience BC, a provincially-funded body whose mandate is to attract mineral and oil and gas investment to the province. Anglin left Resource Works after just six months to take a new job as chief scientific officer at Imperial Metals Corp., owner of the Mont Polley mine.

Is Mair correct that Resource Works is a flack for the Christy Clark government? Stewart Muir has been in the news before because of his close connections to Clark. He was married to Athana Mentzelopoulos, Clark’s deputy minister of jobs, tourism and skills training, and before that was in charge of Clark’s “priority” files. Mentzelopoulos is so close to Clark she was bridesmaid at Clark’s wedding, as Clark was at hers and Muir’s.

Muir’s problem arose when he was awarded a $141,000-a-year contract for the job of vice-president of communication at Vancouver Island Health Authority. The job wasn’t publicly posted and tenders were not called. When the news hit the fan, the contract was withdrawn. Then Muir moved to Resource Works.

Geoff Plant provides another link to the Clark government. He was attorney general under Gordon Campbell and was appointed by Clark in 2012 as the government’s chief legal strategist for the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel proceedings — resource development writ large. His expertise is aboriginal law, crucial territory for Clark’s resource-exploitation agenda.

While these industry and government connections are hidden beneath the surface, the message stencilled on the chests of the four nearly naked young men continues to resonate in the media.

Without natural resources, we’d be naked.

We cannot retain our standard of living without the pipelines, tanker traffic, LNG plants, mining developments and coal export projects that industry currently has in the works.

It’s an effective message, but one easy enough to see straight through.

Image Credit: Resource Works

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“Our messages are not resonating,” Natural Resource Minister Greg Rickford told a room full of oil and gas executives in a luxury Rocky Mountain resort last fall. “You are fighting an uphill battle for public confidence.”

Rickford, who attended the meeting at the request of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), encouraged the executives to do more to spread the oil industry’s message to the Canadian public.

“Much of the debate over energy is characterized by myth or emotion,” he said, suggesting scientists and campaigners critical of development in the Alberta oilsands were “crowding out the real facts.”

Rickford made no mention of Canada’s international climate commitments, but he did deride concerns about pollution from the oilsands — the country’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Rickford’s advice, released to Greenpeace via an Access to Information request, marked the beginning of a decisive shift in industry’s public relations campaigns.

As CAPP described it to The Guardian: “The energy industry is embarking on a different level of engagement and CAPP is moving to a ground campaign to activate industry supporters.”

While we’ll likely never know the level of coordination happening behind the scenes, the shared vision going forward was clearly articulated by Rickford: “Those of us here in this room have a responsibility to tell our shared energy story,” he intoned. “We must all be on the same page.”

Of Oil and Patriotism

Rickford’s call for a new “shared energy story” was in October of 2014.

At that point, the narrative that environmental advocates were “un-Canadian” had been seeded in public discourse, most doggedly by blogger Vivian Krause and most famously by key Conservative players high in the political party hierarchy.

The connection between pro-industry ideals and patriotism had been ham-handedly advanced by controversial personality Ezra Levant through his Ethical Oil campaign (which seemed to lose steam after its industry and Conservative-party connections were exposed by DeSmog).

Since then, the attempt to persuade Canadians of the Canadian-ness of the oil industry has ramped up and become much more polished.

A whole host of campaigns designed to advance the agenda of the fossil fuel industry have cropped up: Resource Works, British Columbians for Prosperity, Energy Citizens, Coal Alliance, Canadian Natural Resources Alliance, Pipeline Action, and many others.

But no individual has mastered the art quite as effectively as the oil industry’s citizen activist Cody Battershill, founder of Canada Action.

Described as a “one-man oil sands advocate…in [a] PR war,” last year Battershill told the National Post he wants to create a more “balanced conversation” about the Alberta oilsands.

But DeSmog Canada’s research indicates Battershill and Canada Action appear to have close ties to the oil industry and to powerful campaigners from the Conservative Party of Canada.

Who are Cody Battershill and Canada Action?

Battershill is a young Calgary realtor in the top one per cent of agents in his Canada-wide company. As he tells the story, his oilsands advocacy began in 2010 when he was walking along Vancouver’s Robson Street and noticed that a LUSH cosmetics store had placed some “Stop Oilsands” posters in its window. It caught his attention, he says. He knew nothing about oil and gas but “common sense says that everything in that store is made possible by natural resources.”

Battershill said he decided to get involved to foster “a more informed conversation about resource development.” He started a Twitter account and has been building Canada Action ever since.

His non-profit organization, Canada Action, sells clothing for men, women and children with the statement: “I love oil sands,” designed by Canada Action’s Robbie Piccard.

It echoes a longer-running campaign in the U.S. — run by Alex Epstein from the pro-industry Center for Industrial Progress — that makes a moral case for fossil fuels. Epstein, like Battershill, argues social prosperity relies on the consumption of fossil fuels while overlooking the overwhelming scientific evidence that shows the negative impacts of industrial pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.

Did you know you can move somewhere where it’s #EarthHour, every hour? (Always enjoy hearing @AlexEpstein speak) pic.twitter.com/7BOSp66buP

— Cody Battershill (@codyincalgary) June 16, 2015

Battershill declined to comment on his relationship with Epstein. Epstein did not respond to an interview request.

Battershill, right on point with Rickford’s advice, has said critics of industry add “a lot of fear and emotion to the argument that’s not supported by facts.”

Alongside his prolific Twitter activity, Battershill writes articles for the Huffington Post, the Calgary Herald and the Journal of the Canadian Heavy Oil Association, where he often opposes the opinions of climate campaigners or other environmental advocates.

Canada Action also produces numerous slick infographics that promote industry views on oilsands development. These are in turn shared by Canada Action sub-groups, Oilsands Action and Pipeline Action, which play an active roll disseminating industry-friendly information to large audiences on Facebook and Twitter.

Not bad for a realtor.

So is Canada Action a one-man band as Battershill would prefer people to believe or is there more than meets the eye?

Deep Industry, Conservative Connections

Canada Action was registered as a federal not-for-profit society in September 2014. With a little help from his friends, Battershill held a launch party at the Woods Buffalo Brewing Co. in Fort McMurray the same day. (Through a corporate registry search, DeSmog Canada discovered Canada Action existed as a numbered corporation between 2012 and 2013 before being renamed Canada Action Coalition in August of 2013.)

Kim Farwell, leader of oilsands extraction at Syncrude and two-time former president of the Conservative Party of Canada’s riding association in Fort McMurray helped Battershill organize the event along with Robbie Picard, Canada Action campaigner. Another organizer, Diane Slater, announced she was retiring as chief administrative officer at the Fort McMurray Chamber of Commerce — whose ranks are loaded with heavy oil businesses — to take on a more active role in Canada Action.

Canada Action’s registration as a non-profit society reveals its board of directors. Most interestingly, Canada Action’s society documentation indicates Battershill brought in an accomplished Conservative campaigner as a director.

Matt Gelinas and the 2011 Robocall Scandal

Although he was only 26 when Canada Action was incorporated, director Matt Gelinas already had a long history of political campaigning and advocacy for conservative causes. In 2006, he supervised phone banks for the Alberta Progressive Conservative leadership campaign of the most right-wing candidate, Ted Morton.

As a University of Calgary political science student, Gelinas helped organize the visit of right-wing, incendiary speaker Ann Coulter to the university campus in 2011. In one of her more famous claims about Muslims, Coulter said, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

By the time he graduated, Gelinas was a seasoned political campaigner working closely with key conservative organizations.

Gelinas went on to work with the Manning Centre, an organization that promotes conservative ideas and politicians. In 2013, before the Alberta provincial election, he presented a workshop at the Manning Centre titled: “Do you know how to get your voters out?”

Gelinas is also an expert consultant on NationBuilder, which provides software for political campaigns, helping candidates organize their online presence. NationBuilder’s power lies in converting social media activity into datasets useful for elections campaigning and fundraising.

Gelinas studied under conservative political strategist, and Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, Tom Flanagan. In his book, Winning Power: Canadian Campaigning in the Twenty-First Century, Flanagan writes that he contracted Gelinas’ company Blue Direct to perform “auto-dialler polls and electronic town halls.”

Blue Direct is still run by Gelinas’ colleague and conservative campaigner Richard Dur who was credited for helping win the 2011 federal Conservative majority. Dur is a trainee of the Koch brothers-funded Leadership Institute, a training centre for “conservative activists” that counts many senior Canadian conservative leaders among its alumni.

According to his LinkedIn account, between 2012 and 2013, Gelinas worked for the Responsive Marketing Group, an automated call service. The company has played a key role in the history of the Conservative Party of Canada and was a central player in the 2011 robocall scandal, before Gelinas joined its ranks.

Gelinas is also listed on Yatedo.com as an owner of Alberta Blue Strategies, a company that provided fundraising, voter identification services and automated calling services to the Conservatives. The Alberta Blue Strategies web address is no longer active, but according to urlmetrics.com the only available links currently redirect to the Blue Direct website.

Alberta Blue Strategies was paid more than $5,000 in 2011 from a Conservative candidate in a riding blanketed with misleading robocalls. The calls in that riding were later traced to an automated phone service provider called RackNine, which claims it provided services to a third-party who tried to “disrupt voting.” Although there is no overt connection between RackNine and Alberta Blue Strategies, Gelinas notes in a client testimonial on the company’s website that he recommends RackNine, which he uses for all his “web solutions.” DeSmog Canada could not confirm if Gelinas was connected with Alberta Blue Strategies in 2011.

Screenshot from the RackNine website hosting Matt Gelinas’ testimonial.

Furthering the connections between Gelinas’ businesses, colleagues and the Conservative Party of Canada, Riley Braun, an employee of Alberta Blue Strategies from 2011 to 2012 went on to become a stakeholder relations assistant in the office of Stephen Harper.

Canada Action’s listed address is the same as Alberta Blue Strategies. It is also the same as Patchwork Investments, owned by Susan Gelinas, the third member of Canada Action’s board of directors. There is little information about Patchwork Investments available online, but it is described on several websites as providing investment advice. Several calls to Patchwork’s listed phone number went unanswered.

Canada Action also shares an address with Data Trek Inc., an oil and gas data service provider. According to LinkedIn, the president of Data Trek is Dave Gelinas, who is a Facebook friend of Matt Gelinas, Richard Dur and Cody Battershill. DeSmog Canada tried to contact Matt Gelinas through Blue Direct to clarify his relationship to Dave Gelinas, but messages were left unanswered. A publicly available phone number for Data Trek is no longer in service.

Following the Money

As a non-profit society, Canada Action’s funders are not on the public record. Battershill says his supporters are ordinary citizens volunteering their time and effort to achieve that more “balanced conversation” about responsible resource development.

When asked who funds Canada Action by Stu McNish, producer of the Conversations That Matter video series, Battershill replied, “I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket.”

“There is nothing astroturf or fake about my passion for my country,” he added. “I’ve put my money, my time and my actions where my mouth is.” McNish did not ask Battershill if he receives industry or political funds.

DeSmog Canada made several interview requests to Battershill, who declined to answer questions e-mailed to him at his request. These included questions about Canada Action’s relationship with the Conservative Party, Battershill’s relationship with Matt Gelinas and whether or not Canada Action is currently or has ever received funding from individuals or groups associated with the fossil fuel industry or the Conservative Party.

In an e-mailed statement Battershill said, “We’re strong supporters of Canada’s oilsands and the resource sector generally because we know how important these industries are to Canada’s present and future prosperity. We believe it’s critical to educate Canadians about the social and economic benefits provided by the resource sector and its commitment to world-class environmental stewardship.”

He added the organization is non-partisan.

“We accept donations from individuals and we sell Canada Action merchandise to support our campaigns,” the statement said.

Food, Shelter, Clothing and Family Vacations. This is what Canada’s resources mean to Matt from Nanaimo, #BC. pic.twitter.com/JYutrG5yws

— Canada Action (@CanadaAction) July 18, 2015

Canada Action “Oversimplifies” Oilsands Issue

Battershill says he is standing up for more balanced and inclusive conversations about Canada’s energy resources. Although to onlookers, Battershill’s shrill criticism of climate and environment advocates may be working in the wrong direction.

In addition to celebrating Canada’s strong economy and its reliance on the extractive industries, Battershill also spends ample time countering the claims of prominent environmental organizations and renewable energy advocates.

In December, Battershill attacked the credibility of the director of Clean Energy Canada, Merran Smith, calling her an “eco-activist” with a “divisive campaign to injure the oilsands in the view of the public.” He has similarly criticized climate campaigner Mike Hudema from Greenpeace, Canadian journalist and author Naomi Klein and celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Neil Young who have joined campaigns to advocate for the treaty rights of First Nations in the oilsands region.

Battershill has also taken up the narrative of blogger Vivian Krause who argues critics of the oilsands industry are merely paid protesters advancing the interests of U.S. companies (DeSmog has debunked Krause’s theory in an in-depth post).

According to Ken Chapman, former director of the Oil Sands Developers Group and proponent of triple-bottom line resource development, Battershill’s antics are not part of a constructive conversation.

“I think his intentions are sincere,” Chapman said of Battershill. “The problem is that I think he’s too much of a fan and I think he gets clouded. It’s difficult from Calgary to see the oilsands in perspective. I see lots of people have that problem. It’s also difficult from outside of Alberta to see the oilsands clearly,” he said.

Chapman said pro- and anti-oilsands groups take extreme positions, “like religious beliefs” that dominate the conversation, crowding out the facts.

“And it doesn’t matter what the facts are, it’s the belief systems that are what’s dominating. And quite frankly, they always will. What is open yet is the adult conversation, as opposed to the elementary school recess conversation.”

Chapman said that while Battershill’s “heart is in the right place…he is a little naïve.”

“This guy wants to win an argument. The thing is it’s not an argument. It’s about a design. We have to take a design approach to this thing, not an adversarial approach.”

Chapman added that while he thinks Canada will continue to develop fossil fuels for years to come, “we have a responsibility to do it better.”

He said that he owns an “I love oilsands” button that he wears in Fort McMurray. “I’m an owner of the oilsands. I want to be proud of it. I want to love the oilsands,” he said, adding, “I’m not there yet.”

“People are trying to oversimplify the issue. And people like Cody is well-intentioned on the industry side, but he’s oversimplifying the issue.”

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TransCanada has bought some unlikely support for the company’s public relations astroturf offensive aimed at winning support for the Energy East pipeline.

As first reported by Ricochet, Erin Jacobson, the recent director of communications for the NDP, Canada’s official opposition party, will be helping advise TransCanada on developing the astroturf campaign, bringing her expertise in Canadian public affairs and developing digital political campaigns.

As revealed in documents obtained by Greenpeace (reported Monday on DeSmogBlog), TransCanada hired Edelman, the world’s largest PR company, to create a “grassroots advocacy” campaign to help push the oilsands crude pipeline through the eastern provinces to New Brunswick.

A document prepared by Edelman for TransCanada, titled “Grassroots Advocacy Vision Document,” dated May 15, 2014, lists Jacobson as “Canadian program lead,” and explains that she “will join the Energy East team to provide Canadian-specific advocacy counsel.”

Jacobson started at the NDP in 2008, working first as a communications assistant and rising through the ranks to her position as director of communications. Immediately before leaving to work for Edelman, her title was “Deputy Director of strategic communications” in Tom Mulcair’s office.

According to Edelman’s blog, while at the NDP, Jacobson “was critical to developing the party’s national brand and identity in a period in which it grew from 36 elected Members of Parliament to 100…This appointment is the next step in Edelman’s ongoing efforts to play a bigger role in the Canadian public affairs marketplace, with a focus on political campaign style, digital public affairs advocacy.”

Supporters of the social democratic party, which is generally progressive on environmental and social issues, will likely be surprised to learn that the mind that created the NDP’s iPhone app and designed the website template used by most of the party’s members of parliament is now thinking of ways to convince Canadians that a pipeline, carrying oilsands destined primarily for export, is in their best interest. 

Examples of TransCanada's social media strategy. 

Edelman’s plan, according to the leaked documents, includes “[adding] layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources,” and argues for developing “supportive third parties, who can in turn put the pressure on, especially when TransCanada can’t.”

The timing of Jacobson’s hire also raises some questions. The Edelman document says that Jacobson would start work on Energy East on June 1, mere weeks after she left the NDP. On June 19th, Edelman officially announced Jacobson’s hire.

Only weeks removed from her position inside Opposition leader Mulcair’s office when officially joining Edelman (and, no doubt, in close communication with the Energy East team no later than May 15th, the date of the “Grassroots Advocacy Vision Document”), Canadians are left to wonder what sort of privileged Parliamentary information could have been passed along to the Edelman and TransCanada teams. Mulcair recently re-emphasized his support for Energy East — though with rigorous environmental review and “transparent, credible process."

According to Ricochet, current NDP Deputy Director of Strategic Communications Valérie Dufour said that Jacobson "was never involved in developing the party’s policy on energy and that she had not contacted any former colleagues on official business since her departure for Edelman." DeSmogBlog reached out to multiple members of the NDP for comment by phone and e-mail, including the office of Mulcair, but none responded by time of publication.  

Edelman did not respond to requests for comment. 

On the Energy East project, Jacobson will be reporting to Edelman Senior Counsel Michael Krempasky, an outspoken right-wing activist with a long history of shady digital PR tactics. Krempasky was a prolific blogger at RedState.org, which he co-founded, and has been tied to many Koch-funded groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Leadership Institute. Krempasky will, according to the documents, be spending a quarter of his full-time schedule on Energy East.

Krempasky put his firm in hot water when it was revealed that he was using fake "grassroots" bloggers for a digital astroturfing campaign that he created for Walmart, a tactic for which Edelman had to apologize. Jacobson will also be working with Nate Bailey out of Edelman's DC office, a self-described "ex-flack and GOP hack," who will be spending between one-quarter and half of his time on Energy East. 

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Documents obtained by Greenpeace detail a desperate astroturf PR strategy designed by Edelman for TransCanada to win public support for its Energy East tar sands export pipeline. TransCanada has failed for years to win approval of the controversial border-crossing Keystone XL pipeline, so apparently the company has decided to "win ugly or lose pretty" with an aggressive public relations attack on its opponents.

The Edelman strategy documents and work proposals outline a “grassroots advocacy” campaign plan to build support for TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline as well as to undermine public opposition to oil and pipelines generally.

The documents should cause well-deserved embarrassment for Edelman, the largest PR company in the world, as well as TransCanada. 

But this is not just a temporary black eye for a PR firm and its corporate client. The Edelman documents reveal a broader industry campaign to undermine the public interest and attack the oil industry’s critics across the board. 

In one of the files, titled Grassroots Advocacy Vision Document, Edelman emphasizes that TransCanada would not be alone in adopting this kind of aggressive strategy. 

The document notes the oil industry’s other extensive astroturf campaigns (including Edelman’s $52 million campaign for the American Petroleum Institute) to promote the Keystone XL pipeline and fracking, defeat climate legislation and attack renewable energy:

“Companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and Halliburton (and many more) have all made key investments in building permanent advocacy assets and programs to support their lobbying, outreach, and policy efforts. In launching a program like this, TransCanada will be in good company with a strong roadmap to follow.” (Grassroots Advocacy Vision p. 5-6)

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The Edelman TransCanada documents once again confirm the fossil fuel industry’s desperate and expensive “permanent advocacy assets and programs” designed to attack grassroots organizers, nonprofits and charities, and ordinary citizens who are concerned about further fossil fuel infrastructure investments in an era of increasingly dangerous climate change.

The Globe and Mail, which broke the story of Edelman’s TransCanada plan, notes that the elaborate PR campaign plan is one more befitting the U.S. where aggressive PR has a longer history.

The Globe describes Edelman’s “reputation for aggressive tactics in the United States,” and quotes Greenpeace campaigner Keith Stewart expressing concern about TransCanada hiring Edelman’s services for "dirty tricks" PR:

“They’re bringing a much more aggressive, U.S.-style politics here,” Mr. Stewart said. “They’re employing pressure tactics that I would characterize as dirty tricks.”

But what I find particularly revealing about this story is how TransCanada has responded. From the Globe:

TransCanada spokesman James Millar said Monday the company learned valuable lessons in its battle over the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S., and is eager to enlist supporters and blunt the impact of opponents as the Energy East debate heats up. But he said it opted against pursuing some of Edelman’s more controversial proposals, such as quietly providing support to nominally independent pro-pipeline citizens’ groups.

TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline would ship 1.1 million barrels per day of tar sands and other western Canadian crude to refineries and export terminals along the Canadian Atlantic coast. The project faces stiff public opposition on both sides of the border, most significantly in Quebec.

Edelman isn’t coaching TransCanada on anything new in its PR arsenal. Most of the tactics described in the campaign plan originate with the PR industry’s lengthy and desperate efforts to protect the tobacco industry from accountability for its own dangerous product.

For example, the Edelman documents discuss efforts to put pressure on industry opponents by “distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources.”

Edelman suggests working with “supportive third parties who can in turn put the pressure on, particularly when TransCanada can’t.”

As anyone familiar with the tobacco industry PR playbook knows, these buzzwords such as “supportive third parties” are old techniques designed to help companies that, like the tobacco industry, don’t have much credibility with the public.

The idea is to get “independent experts” and credible-sounding front groups like the “Global Climate Coalition” or the “Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide” to parrot your message and play defense on your behalf because the public doesn’t trust you. You’re an oil company that makes money off pollution. You have zero credibility. So you follow the shady PR advice, "Put your words in someone else's mouth."  

"Think of this as an endless war"

The story of this dirty PR approach is sadly one with a long history. There are scores of books written on the subject, including Climate Cover-Up by DeSmog co-founder Jim Hoggan and Richard Littlemore.

Just last month, Richard Berman — known as “Dr Evil” for his many iniquitous public relations campaigns — was caught on tape coaching oil industry executives to “win ugly or lose pretty” and to “Think of this as an endless war…. And you have to budget for it.”

It seems the oil industry is content to continue pumping tens of millions of dollars into deceiving the public and attacking its critics with the help of notoriously sketchy PR companies.

Rather than do the right thing, this industry is clearly more interested in fighting dirty.  

Read the Edelman TransCanada Energy East campaign documents:

• Energy East Campaign Organization: Promote, Respond Pressure (August 5, 2014) • Digital Grassroots Advocacy Implementation Plan (May 20, 2014) • Grassroots Advocacy Vision Document (May 15, 2014) • Strategic Plan: Quebec (May 20, 2014) • Research Synthesis (no date)

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If the pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. is content to cower behind a 20-something blog manager rather than acknowledge its role in the recent attack on the patriotism of Canadian environmentalists, what hope have we that the company would ever stand accountable for the accidents that will occur – inevitably – if Northern Gateway ever gets built?

That’s a rhetorical question, but a pressing one, given the environmental time-bomb that Enbridge proposes to lay out between the Canadian tar sands and the pristine B.C. coastline.

We actually don’t know for sure that Enbridge is behind the so-called Ethical Oil Institute, a phony grassroots organization that was established by Ezra Levant and run for most of its first year by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s current Director of Planning, Alykhan Velshi. But you might come to your own conclusions by watching this clip or reading the transcript below.

It comes from an interview on the CBC show Power and Politics, in which the host, Evan Solomon, asks current EthicalOil.org manager Kathryn Marshall a question she just can’t bring herself to answer:

Solomon: Some have said that Enbridge, which is building the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, is a funder of Ethical Oil and that they’re using your group to disempower environmentalists that oppose this. Does Enbridge support or give your organization money?

Marshall: Look, we’re a small grassroots advocacy organization. This is about foreign special interests and their puppet groups who are trying to hijack a Canadian process. … This isn’t about our money, this is about foreign special interests who are trying to hijack the process.

We don’t take any foreign money. We take no foreign money. We are 100 per cent Canadian.

Solomon: Are you taking money from Enbridge?

Marshall: We’re a small grassroots organization. Our average donor is a regular hard-working Canadian who gives us 20 or 30 dollars through our website.

Solomon: I am not trying to disparage your donors. I’m trying to understand if the company that is building the pipeline is also funding you. If we’re talking about who is funding and the influence of that, I think it’s fair to be transparent about that.

Marshall: This is about foreign influence. EthicalOil.org is 100 per cent Canadian. Let’s talk about foreign money.”

[Minutes later, the host asks again.]

Solomon: You keep calling these other groups puppet groups. People will ask, are you a puppet group of Enbridge? Let me ask you again. Does Enbridge fund you to have a campaign against these other groups? Does Enbridge give your organization money?

Marshall: Look Evan, I am not going to respond to conspiracy theories, we are a small grassroots organization.  (Garbled by interruptions)

Solomon: Just to be fair. It’s not a conspiracy theory. If they don’t give you money, you could say they don’t. If they do, fine.

Marshall: I don’t respond to conspiracy theories. But look, this is about foreign interests trying to hijack a Canadian process.

Solomon: Ok, I can’t get an answer. I don’t know why that’s a conspiratorial question. If Enbridge funds Ethical Oil, I’d love to know.

Is this the kind of transparency that would give you confidence in how Enbridge might account for itself in the wake of an out-of-sight oil spill?

For that matter, do Marshall’s well-rehearsed talking points even make sense? The portion of income that any large Canadian environmental groups receive from foreign sources seldom changes – and seldom tops about 10 per cent. Yet Enbridge, which reports more than double that level of foreign ownership (23%) appears to be accusing others of having “special interests” or “foreign influence.”

Here you have a PR person who is prepared to embarrass herself, painfully and repeatedly on national TV rather than answer a simple question about Enbridge funding. We have a $5.5-billion project that has already attracted huge offshore support; we have a tar sand scar across northern Alberta that is increasingly owned by Chinese buyers (who really want this pipeline). And yet everyone from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to this hapless PR professional is saying it’s the Canadian environmental community that is somehow biased by its diversity of support.

Does this conform to your definition of “ethical”?

Take one more moment to think about what Enbridge is proposing. Northern Gateway would stretch 1,172 kilometres through some of the last untouched temperate rainforest in the world. Bearing in mind that Enbridge pipelines have leaked a recorded 132,000 barrels of hydrocarbons in 610 recorded spills between 1999 and 2008, are we convinced that Enbridge would account for every “little oops” that occurs deep in the BC wilderness? Or, after this incident, do you think they might rather hire Kathryn Marshall to tell us that she had no personal evidence of any spill – and that anyone who says different is probably being put up to it by foreigners?

Worse, what would Enbridge or their PR team say when the first oil tanker does an Exxon Valdez in Hecate Strait?

This whole Ethical Oil dodge is just one more reason to slam the door on this whole project.

Image credit: Henrik Lehnerer | Shutterstock

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