If the recent frufrah over NDP candidate Linda McQuaig’s comment that “a lot of the oilsands oil may have to stay in the ground” is indicative of anything, it’s that Canada’s election cycle is in full spin. May all reasonableness and sensible dialogue and accountability be damned.

Perhaps that’s the blunt and singular reason behind the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s outrage at McQuaig’s entirely non-contentious assertion that, because of our international commitments to curtail global climate change, Canada won’t exploit the entirety of its oil reserves.

Harper accused the NDP of having a “not-so hidden agenda,” saying the party “is consistently against the development of our resources and our economy.”

“That’s why they…would wreck this economy if they ever got in, and why they must never get into power in this country.”

But Harper’s reaction seems conspicuously overwrought given the Prime Minister’s own pledge, along with the other G7 nations, to phase out the use of fossil fuels by 2100.

At the time of signing — a whole two months ago — Harper said the plan would “require a transformation in our energy sectors.”

He added: “Nobody’s going to start to shut down their industries or turn off the lights. We’ve simply got to find a way to create lower-carbon emitting sources of energy — and that work is ongoing.”

Harper may have been diplomatically coerced into signing the G7 leader’s declaration. After all, an inside source did come forward at the time to say Canada and Japan were “the most concerned” about the agreement and according to federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May Canada played a role in delaying the pledge's original 2050 target date. At the very least, the declaration runs contrary to the Prime Minister’s own energy superpower ambitions.

Yet the decarbonization pledge wasn’t exactly out of left field, either.

Several major institutions had already come forward to raise concern about the risk of stranded assets in a carbon-constrained world.

Already in 2012 the International Energy Agency (which Bloomberg concedes “is no den of Greenpeace radicals”) concluded that to stay within the 2 degrees Celsius limit for global temperature rise, two-thirds of the world’s known fossil fuels must remain underground. 

Then in the fall of 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its calculations on the world’s “carbon budget” and warned more than half of the global carbon dioxide allowance had already been used up. The scientific body warned “substantial and sustained” reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were immediate necessary to avoid passing that 2 degree Celsius target.

In 2013 a study led by Lord Nicholas Stern from the London School of Economics along with Carbon Tracker identified trillions of dollars dangerously reliant on inflated fossil fuel reserves. The so-called “carbon bubble” could trigger a major economic crisis, the report warned.

In 2014 the Bank of England warned insurance companies of the risk of potentially worthless fossil fuel investments, after its head Mark Carney cautioned the “vast majority of [fossil fuel] reserves are unburnable.”

Around the same time President Barak Obama bluntly stated: “We’re not going to be able to burn it all.”

“Well, science is science,” the president said. “And there is no doubt that if we burned all the fossil fuel that’s in the ground right now, that the planet’s going to get too hot and the consequences could be dire.”

A study published in the journal Nature in early 2015 took the stranded assets research further and identified those high-cost, high-carbon fossil fuel reserves that should remain unused given a global carbon budget. The study concluded production in Canada’s oilsands should drop to “negligible” levels by 2020 to remain within that 2 degree Celsius target.

That report was followed by a call to divest from fossil fuels from World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and reports from HSBC, Citibank and Standard & Poor, some of the world’s major financiers, on the financial risk of unburnable fossil fuels.

More recently a group of prominent scientists publicly called for a stop to further growth in Canada’s oilsands. The group argued adding new development in the oilsands goes against the recommendations of the scientific community when it comes to climate, ecosystems, species protection and indigenous rights.

So it appears on the issue of decarbonization, the Prime Minister doesn’t agree with anybody. Not even, erm, himself. 

Keith Stewart, Greenpeace energy and climate campaigner, and part-time faculty member at the University of Toronto where he teaches a course on energy and the environment, suggests this comes down to Canada’s “disconnect.”

“We want to do something on climate change but the minute you look at what that means, people say not that, not that,” Stewart said on the CBC’s The Current.

“There’s a fundamental dishonesty here, to tell the world Canada will play its role on climate change and then tell Canadians there will be absolutely no limit on the expansion of [the oilsands] sector,” he said.

“Nobody is talking about shutting it down tomorrow. This is about how much is it going to expand, what are we going to do over time and how are we going to phase this out over the coming decades because that is what Canada has committed to.”

Image Credit: Stephen Harper via Flickr

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After a rough year of collapsing oil prices and the embarrassing dethroning of Alberta’s longtime Progressive Conservative government, the oil and gas industry could use a win. The latest campaign from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) was probably designed to be one.

Alas.

Developed as part of CAPP's ‘Energy Citizens’ movement, the ‘Raise your Hand’ campaign is well-designed and clearly expensive. Online and off, it features smiling multiracial faces with hands raised — overlayed with hand-drawn outlines of patriotic maple leaves. There are cheerful videos, interactive bus shelter ads and an online submission form to stay connected. It even has a hashtag (#ryhcanada), the extremely limited Twitter impact of which must be giving at least one advertising executive an ulcer right now.

As Mark Hume noted in the Globe and Mail this weekend, an ad campaign that attempts to co-opt patriotism for its own ends is hardly something new. NGOs have done it for years. So have McDonalds, Molson's beer and Roots. And yet, as Hume says, “CAPP’s slogan — 'Raise your hand because you are proud of Canada’s oil and natural gas' — doesn’t quite have the same ring as one that urges you to raise your hand against racism, ignorance or disease.”

Hume writes that the campaign could have been more successful, had it not been launched in the same week as a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, which reminded “Canadians — and especially British Columbians where two new oil pipelines are proposed — what happens when one of those .001-per-cent accidents happen.”

I’m not so sure.

While the campaign is not a failure on par with the spectacular collapse of BC Ferries ‘#NameAFerry’ contest, its inability to spark public enthusiasm is not surprising. Even without the Santa Barbara oil spill, it’s reasonable to wonder if pipelines and patriotism fit together as naturally as the industry would have us believe. After all, it’s hard to raise our hands in blind allegiance when the failures and questionable behaviour of industry executives are so hard to ignore.

• Raise your hand if you remember that two years after it became public, CNRL is still unable to stop a slow leak at its Cold Lake in-situ drill site.
• Raise your hand if you recall how Plains Midstream — the Canadian analogue of Plains All American (the company whose failed pipeline spilled all that oil in Santa Barbara) — was fined $1.3 million for two giant pipeline spills in Alberta and was recently ordered to undergo an independent review of their safety procedures?
• Raise your hand if you remember how the industry leaders in oil and gas fought hard to keep employing temporary foreign workers, limiting opportunities for those smiley Canadians featured so prominently in their advertising?
• Raise your hand if you’re doubtful of the capabilities of Western Canada Marine Response Corporation touted by CAPP in the campaign after its slow response to Vancouver's relatively minor English Bay oil spill?
• Raise your hand if you saw the news this week that federal Industry Minister Greg Rickford spoke to an October 21, 2014 closed-door meeting of CAPP executives encouraging them to "work harder and spread the message of the oil industry?"

I could go on.

If recent polling is correct, 72 per cent of Canadians want to see more jobs created in the renewable energy industry. Fifty-eight per cent of Canadians go even further, wanting to see oil and gas use phased out in favour of renewable solutions. And even the Harper government has publicly acknowledged that climate change demands at least a little immediate attention.

So to the folks at CAPP and their marketing agency of record, may I humbly suggest an edit to your ask? Something a little more measured, a little more Canadian.

Raise your hand if you acknowledge that while oil and gas and other extractive industries are a big part of the Canadian energy mix now, they don’t have to be forever. That pipelines fail and transporting oil and gas is inherently dangerous. That if Canadians want to meet our climate goals without having to buy carbon credits from other countries, we need to start investing more in renewables.

Raise your hand if you agree we all deserve a more nuanced conversation about Canada's energy future.

Image Credit: CAPP

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Last week internal documents from Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm, were leaked to Greenpeace, exposing an aggressive strategy to target opponents of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline.

The release of the documents brought TransCanada under fire for using dirty public relations tricks to manipulate public opinion and divide communities on the issue of the company’s 4,600 km Energy East pipeline that will carry 1.1 million barrels a day of Alberta oilsands crude to one small refinery and to export facilities on the east coast.

Today a press release from Edelman confirms the firm is parting ways with TransCanada after “attention…moved away from the merits of TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline project.”

According to the release, “Edelman and TransCanada have mutually agreed not to extend Edelman’s contract beyond its current term,” which completes at the end of December.

The release also states the communications strategy Edelman devised was meant to “drive an active public discussion that gives Canadians reason to affirmatively support the project.”

But critics have been quick to point out that Edelman has a reputation for dirty corporate campaign strategies.

The leaked documents show the TransCanada strategy included tactics for undermining opponents of the Energy East pipeline and for manufacturing fake grassroots groups, or astroturf groups, that would give the public the impression of genuine community support for the pipeline.

Edelman recommended TransCanada target Energy East opponents by “distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources.”

The firm also suggested the pipeline company work with “supportive third parties who can in turn put the pressure on, particularly when TransCanada can’t.”

Edelman makes reference to other major oil companies, such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and Halliburton, that employ similar PR tricks.

The firm also noted its work with other major oil industry lobby groups, such as the American Petroleum Institute to promote the Keystone XL pipeline, malign opponents of fracking and fight climate legislation and renewable energy.

The revelation of Edelman’s TransCanada strategy came on the heels of another major leak that casts a shadow over oil industry PR.

Earlier this month an industry executive leaked a secret audio recording of PR veteran Richard Berman candidly outlining aggressive, high-pressure tactics for manipulating public opinion surrounding environmental and conservation groups.

Berman’s strategy — to “win ugly or lose pretty” — targeted opponents of fracking as well as other climate and anti-pipeline activists.

Berman, who was referred to as Dr. Evil in a 60 Minutes segment, told industry executives to think of the anti-environment battle “as an endless war” that industry must be prepared to pay for.

In light of Edelman’s leaked documents, TransCanada told the Globe and Mail the company was wary of pipeline opponents who have successfully stalled the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S.

TransCanada spokesman James Millar told the Globe that, with Energy East, the company was eager to gain supporters and limit the impact of opponents. Millar also noted TransCanada opted out of some of Edelman’s strategy suggestions, such as secretly funding pro-pipeline citizen groups.

Public opposition to Energy East recently escalated after author and activist Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois donated his $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award to an anti-pipeline online fundraiser. The crowdfunding site has now received more than $330,000 in donations to fight Energy East.

In today’s press release Edelman stated, “We stand by our strategy. It was both ethical and moral, and any suggestion to the contrary is untrue.”

The release concluded: “Unfortunately, the conversation about our efforts has become so loud in certain areas that it is impossible to have an open and honest conversation about the pipeline project. The project is too important and a thoughtful, deliberative conversation is needed more than ever. For that reason we feel that selection of a new partner for the project is necessary at this time so a new conversation on the merits of the project can begin.”

Update: TransCanada also released a statement about the break-up, which you can read in full below: 

The Energy East project makes sense for Canada. For the first time, western Canadian oil will be able to travel safely by pipeline all the way to Quebec and beyond to the east coast, strengthening Canadian energy security and offering direct local economic benefit all along the pipeline route.

Regrettably, recent controversy around our communications strategy has created distraction most notably in Quebec. Media reports have incorrectly suggested that TransCanada’s communications practices are unacceptable. The conversation about Energy East has turned into a debate about our choice of agency partner. We need to get back to a conversation about the project itself and as a result we have agreed that it is in the best interests of the project that we do not extend our contract with Edelman.

In the current environment, we can’t have the respectful conversation that we want to have with Canadians and Quebecers about Energy East. We need to discuss the project on its merits, responding to valid concerns such as how we will protect water and marine life, instead of talking about communications tactics.

We are therefore starting a fresh conversation with all stakeholders. We want to be part of eastern Canadian communities for decades to come, and we want to do everything that will enable us to earn the trust of Canadians for the long-term.

You can also view our statement on the Energy East blog in English or French.

Thank you,

Tim Duboyce

Spokesperson,

Energy East Pipeline Project

Image Credit: TransCanada

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In an absolutely unprecedented move Canada’s Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) announced it will engage in political activity in the lead-up to and during the next federal election.

“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary actions,” PIPSC president Debi Daviau said in a press release.

“This government has forced non-partisan organizations such as ours to make a very difficult choice: to remain silent or to speak out. We have chosen to speak out,” added Daviau.

PIPSC, Canada’s largest union of federal government scientists and professionals, represents some 55,000 public sector employees across the country.

The organization says the Harper government’s harsh treatment of union employees is damaging the public sector and the nation’s democracy.

In a recent annual general meeting the group pledged to “take all necessary action to ensure that Canadians are aware of what is at stake in federal public service collective bargaining.”

The group also agreed to “energetically defend and promote federal public services and expose the damage this Conservative government has done to these.”

In addition, the organization is preparing for potential “job action.”

“This government is driving our members down the path to job action,” Daviau said.

“It has launched an unprecedented assault on unions, and other democratically elected organizations in this country. It has cut thousands of federal public service jobs, programs and services. It has targeted, through bills such as C-377, C-525 and last year’s C-4, the very existence of unions and collective bargaining.”

In 2013 PIPSC released a study called The Big Chill that revealed the degree to which federal researchers and scientists were prevented from speaking about their work under the Harper government’s strict communications protocols.

Ninety per cent of federal scientists said they were prevented from speaking freely to the media about their work. Eighty-six per cent said they feared reprimand if they were to speak out against a department decision they found to go against public interest.

In addition, 50 per cent of respondents said they were aware of political interference in the communication of scientific research to the public.

“Canadians deserve to know the damage this government is inflicting – unnecessarily and often underhandedly – to their services, programs and even to their democracy,” concluded Daviau.

Image Credit: Prime Minister Stephen Harper Photo Gallery

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