Kinder Morgan has launched an advertising campaign pushing the company’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion that just so happens to coincide with B.C.’s municipal elections — but Elections BC says the company doesn’t need to register as a third-party advertiser.

That’s a bit of a puzzler given that Elections BC rules clearly state that anyone who runs ads on an election issue must register as a third-party advertiser and disclose costs within 90 days of the Nov. 15 election.

Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion, which would triple the amount of oilsands bitumen flowing to the B.C. coast, is certainly an election issue, with Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson staking out positions against the project.

An online survey for the Burnaby NOW found the pipeline expansion is the No. 1 concern for Burnaby voters during the civic election.

With that in mind, Burnaby-Douglas New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart asked Elections BC to look into Kinder Morgan’s advertising blitz. The Canadian Press reported that he received a response from Jodi Cook, Elections BC manager of provincial electoral finance, which said that Kinder Morgan’s advertising doesn’t meet the definition of election advertising.

Let’s look at the Elections BC definition of election advertising: “Election advertising is any transmission of a communication to the public during an election proceedings period that directly or indirectly promotes or opposes the election of a candidate or an elector organization. Election advertising includes a communication that takes a position on an issue with which a candidate or an elector organization is associated.” (Emphasis added)

Given that definition, the Dogwood Initiative, a non-profit group that opposes Trans Mountain, felt it needed to register as a third-party advertiser even though the group isn’t endorsing candidates.

“We talked to Elections BC over the summer and determined that even if we make no formal endorsements … the very fact that we are surveying candidates and differentiating candidates on an issue makes this into election advertising,” said Kai Nagata, Dogwood’s energy and democracy director. “We’re tracking the time and money that goes into communications even with our own supporters.”

Elections BC communications manager Don Main told DeSmog Canada that "the [Kinder Morgan] advertising did not appear to implicate, positively or negatively, a candidate or elector organization. The advertising brought to our attention did not tie explicitly or implicitly to the election, and did not serve the primary purpose of supporting or opposing a particular elector organization or candidate."

Nagata notes that Kinder Morgan launched its advertising campaign —which includes leaflets, bus shelter ads, television and online advertisements, robocalls and telephone townhalls — right after the nomination period for the municipal elections closed.

One of Kinder Morgan's television advertisements, which is running during B.C.'s municipal election campaigns.

According to the Elections BC third-party sponsor guide, indications that advertising may qualify as “third party advertising” include advertising specifically planned to coincide with the election proceedings period and a substantial increase in the normal volume of advertising.

“I don’t think you get very far in being a public relations or advertising executive without being able to read a calendar,” Nagata said.

“The impression that is created, especially in the municipalities where this has been an election issue … is that of a targeted ad campaign aiming to sway voters on the merits of a particular project in the middle of a municipal election where candidates have staked their positions on this issue.”

Kinder Morgan has said that the regulatory process is not currently under municipal jurisdiction and therefore can’t be a municipal election issue.

“What that ignores of course is that such a project would have immediate and tangible impacts at a local level,” Nagata said, noting that the Burnaby Fire Department is already having to plan for an oil fire.

After the Elections BC ruling, Stewart submitted additional evidence to Elections BC, alleging Kinder Morgan was focusing advertising efforts against Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, who strongly opposes the pipeline.

Stewart stated in the letter to Nola Western, the deputy chief electoral officer, that Kinder Morgan held a telephone town hall meeting in Burnaby in which 5,000 residents participated.

In a recording of the meeting posted on the project website, Stewart said Kinder Morgan president Ian Anderson describes a plan to offset Mayor Corrigan's "very public media driven campaign against the pipeline."

“Corrigan is disparaged by Anderson, who states opponents are using 'fear and emotion' to sway residents, and that information about the projects is being mischaracterized by the mayor," he said in the letter.

Elections BC responded by saying the town hall meeting has since been removed from the website.

Nagata said Dogwood Initiative could have avoided registering as a third-party advertiser and waited for a complaint to Elections BC to force a ruling on the matter, but “it didn’t even seem like it was an option not to register given the definition as we read it. This [Kinder Morgan] ruling surprised us."

So while voters will someday know how much non-profits like Dogwood Initiative spent during the election, as it stands it will forever remain a mystery how much oil giants like Kinder Morgan have pumped into advertising during this year's municipal campaign. What isn't a mystery is that oil companies certainly have a lot more to spend than organizations working in the public interest.

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A fiery CN train derailment in rural Saskatchewan has many people asking what could have happened if the accident occurred in a more populated area.

The 100-car freight train derailed Tuesday about 190 kilometres east of Saskatoon. Twenty-six cars left the track, including six carrying dangerous goods. Two cars containing petroleum distillate caught fire, sending 30-metre flames into the air. Several explosions were also confirmed.

The area around Clair, Sask., was evacuated overnight. Families were allowed to return to their homes Wednesday morning according to Harold Narfason, chief of the Wadena & District Fire Department.

The volunteer fire department was the first on the scene.

Narfason told DeSmog Canada his department has long been aware that dangerous commodities are being shipped by rail through the area.

“I’ve attended numerous meetings with CN to get informed and there are more cars moving through,” Narfason said.

On the scene of the derailment, his team quickly accessed the hazmat sheets, which indicated they were dealing with the explosive petroleum distillate.

“Everything is going as good as it can under the circumstances,” Narfason said.  

The railway industry has been in the spotlight since July 2013 when 47 people died after an oil train derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Megantic, Que.

In August, the Transportation Safety Board issued a report into the Lac-Megantic tragedy that called for improved safety measures and cited inadequate oversight by Transport Canada.

Overall shipments of oil by rail in Canada have increased by 28,000 per cent since 2009.

The surge in rail transport of petroleum products has outpaced regulatory oversight, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In an October 2013 report, CCPA executive director Bruce Campbell, wrote, “In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making.”

Adam Scott, a spokesman for the advocacy group Environmental Defence, told the Canadian Press that an accident like the one in Saskatchewan could have happened anywhere in Canada.

“The freight rail lines actually go right through the centre of almost every major urban centre in the entire country … so the risk of accidents is significant,” Scott said.

Scott said rail companies in Canada are not required to publicly disclose the types of hazardous materials being transported on trains.

ForestEthics has set up a ‘blast zone’ website, which allows users to search by address for oil train routes in Canada and the U.S.

A quick look at the blast zone map indicates CN ought to be counting its lucky stars this latest derailment happened in a town of 50 people instead of a city of 500,000.

Photo: Wadena News

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The Alberta government has barred the Oilsands Environmental Coalition from hearings on a proposed new oilsands development by Southern Pacific Resource Corp., even after a similar decision last fall was overturned by a judge.

Conservationists say the decision only makes clearer the Alberta government's tendency to shut down public dialogue on resource development. "The government hasn't learned its lesson from last time," said Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute, one of the groups in the coalition.

Dyer said the coalition will be appealing the second ruling, reports the Canadian Press.

Alberta Environment first denied the coalition standing to participate in hearings about a development on the MacKay River in northern Alberta in 2012, which would expand an existing steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) project. The expansion would result in the extraction of an additional 24,000 barrels per day (bpd) of bitumen.

The Alberta government argued that the group was not directly affected by the project, even though members of the Pembina Institute have a recreational lease in the area, and 45 others live nearby in Fort McMurray.

The coalition applied for a judicial review of the decision. During the process, a 2009 Alberta Environment memo was discovered that singled out the coalition, which includes Pembina and the Fort McMurray Environmental Association, as "not simple to work with" and as having published "negative media on the oil sands."

Justice Richard Marceau invalidated the government's decision on the basis of the 2009 memo, writing in his statement that the law does not permit the Alberta government to "reject statements of concern from those persons or groups who voice negative statements about proposed oil sands development."

"The process of identifying who is 'directly affected' should not be decided by the application of rigid rules," Marceau wrote, noting that there would be no environmentalist voices present at the Southern Pacific hearing if the coalition were barred.

Regardless, in a March 27 letter to the coalition, Alberta Environment official Kevin Wilkinson repeated the very reasoning that got the 2012 decision overturned.

Wilkinson wrote that the coalition is not a legal entity and cannot therefore be considered directly affected, saying that the recreational lease "is no more compelling than the ability for any Albertan to recreate on public land." He added that homes in Fort McMurray, 45 kilometres from the development, were too distant for residents to be considered directly affected.

Wilkinson also assured coalition members that their concerns would be "considered by the designated director, even if the person who submitted the concern is found not to be directly affected."

Dyer noted that the coalition has participated in many other provincial hearings before, and continues to be granted standing at joint federal-provincial hearings. He said that the government's decision is indicative of a pattern of tighter restrictions on who gets to voice concern to regulators about the oilsands.

Earlier this year, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) cancelled the public hearing on the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s proposed Kirby Expansion Project after none of the groups that applied to participate were allowed standing. Statements of concern were filed by the Oilsands Environmental Coalition and several First Nations, all of whom were denied. The Kirby Expansion Project, another SAGD project, was subsequently "referred by the hearing panel AER staff for further review and dispensation without hearing."

Nigel Bankes, professor of resource law at the University of Calgary, called the government's tests for deciding standing at hearings "narrow and stringent."

Spokeswoman Katrina Bluetchen said that there has been no regulatory change at Alberta Environment. "Nothing has changed," she said. "It was deemed (the coalition) was not directly affected."

The government has kept information on how many groups have been denied standing in hearings restricted. An access to information request put in by the Canadian Press has been at Alberta Environment for six months without any result.

Dyer thinks Alberta Environment's actions harm the ability of the province to evaluate the impact of resource development, saying that "the government should err on the side of allowing people to speak and collecting input" to help make responsible decisions.

Image Credit: Kris Krug via Flickr

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A joint task force announced by B.C. and Alberta premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford in July has handed in a report examining the feasibility of transporting oil by rail, according to the Canadian Press. The report is not yet available to the public.

The task force, whose mandate includes exploring the possibility of transporting crude oil from the oilsands via rail to the coast if proposed pipelines like Enbridge's Northern Gateway are denied, has been called "underhanded" by environmental group ForestEthics.

Ben West, campaign director for ForestEthics, said that the task force was a "backdoor way for industry to bring tankers to the coast without the same sort of public oversight or public process that we've had around the Enbridge pipeline or would have around the Kinder Morgan pipeline."

"Myself and other people were pretty freaked out about what happened there," West said of the recent explosions.

The joint task force was announced as a way for the two provinces to develop recommendations on opening up new export markets for oil, gas and other resources, including oilsands bitumen. Spills, fiscal and economic benefits and First Nations rights were also to be discussed.

The provincial working group was mandated to submit its report to premiers Clark and Redford by December.

"Rail can be considered a viable alternative to pipeline movement based on costs of transport," the terms of reference for the group states. "If pipelines are not developed, rail will step into the void to deliver bitumen to the West Coast."

Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline was recently approved by a federal panel, and Kinder Morgan officially submitted its application for the Trans Mountain Expansion project to the National Energy Board in December. Both projects will bring oil to the BC coast.

The provincial task force was led by Steve Carr, deputy minister of natural gas development in B.C. and Grant Sprague, deputy minister of energy in Alberta.

Neither ministry could be reached for comment. CN Rail declined to comment.

Image Credit: BC Gov Photos / Flickr

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It seems that the start of the Harper Government's $16.5 million advertising campaign to push the US to turn to Canadian energy, specifically by supporting the Keystone XL pipeline and tar sands oil production, isn't quite having the impact that the Conservatives were hoping for.

Lee-Anne Goodman writes for the Canadian Press, that "efforts by the Conservative government to sell Americans on the virtues of Canadian natural resources failed to impress those south of the border, according to a new report, and even left them puzzled over assertions that Canada is America's best friend."

The $58,000 government commissioned Harris-Decima report found that the advertising push by Natural Resources Canada left focus groups in Washington D.C. "befuddled" by the campaign's tagline, "America's best friend is America's best energy solution."

The taxpayer-funded report posted Wednesday on Library and Archives Canada found few would assume that the tagline was referring to Canada, "despite certainly considering Canada to be a good friend," further adding "some indicated that claiming you are one's best friend comes across as something one does when one is about to ask for a huge favour."

The report also observed that the focus groups were displeased with the tone of the ads, saying that the word "solution" suggested that "America had a problem that needed solving." Similarly, the report noted that "virtually all objected to the reference to Canada's ban on dirty coal as it seemed to imply that Canada is doing more than the US."

Respondents also indicated that the use of the phrase "America faces a choice" was "somewhat pushy," and didn't like the country being referred to as "America" instead of the US or the United States.

The US advertising campaign includes a website geared towards US viewers, as well as ads and promotions in influential publications that "shine a job-friendly and environmentally sensitive light on a cross-section of Canadian resource industries," reports the Canadian Press.

The campaign is part of the Harper government's plan to gain access to foreign markets for Canadian oil. The Keystone XL pipeline project would make large quantities of tar sands oil available to refineries on the US Gulf Coast. President Obama is set to make a decision on the TransCanada pipeline early next year.

The Canadian Press reports that the six focus groups in Washington D.C. told Harris-Decima researchers that "the ads, launched in the spring during the heat of the Keystone battle, could be "greatly improved" and lacked a cohesive and direct message to the American public."

Harris-Decima interviewed people in three rounds over March and April, including members of the general public and political news aficionados called "opinion elites."

"The advertising as it stands faces some challenges in conveying a consistently heard and appreciated message and could be greatly improved with some specific adjustments to tone and content," the report stated.

Respondents felt that the ads should be "less subtle" about advocating in favour of Keystone XL. The report stated that "opinion elites were fairly uniform in stating a preference for seeing mention of 'pipeline' in the copy and perhaps the imagery" based on the assumption that "the ads related to a Canadian pipeline."

"The purpose of the pre-testing was to ensure that the ads were effective. The final ads were amended based on the constructive feedback we received," said Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver.

In an email, Oliver defended the campaign, saying that it provided "specific facts about measures taken by Canada to protect the environment, and other information on responsible resource development."  

Oliver also pointed out the positive feedback from the report, which did say that "Canada is held in fairly high regard, even if it is not often considered, and that an element of that high regard relates to Canada being a competent and trustworthy neighbour/partner both in terms of industrial partnerships and acting responsibly."

The report also found that opinion elites generally felt that Canada is "more environmentally responsible" than "other oil producing countries."

But there was also more criticism stemming from confusion about the campaign's intended audience and use of "jargon" like GHG for greenhouse gases, which one focus group complained about.

Others wanted to know how exactly the Keystone XL would benefit Americans, "whether it be from increased oil imports from Canada or lower gas prices," said the report.

The government hired Leger Marketing in summer 2012 to "fine-tune" the ad campaign, reports the Canadian Press.

A similar study conducted in Canada showed that the ad campaign failed to impress Canadians in twelve focus groups across six cities. The ads were found to be lacking in "factual information" and failing to deliver "a coherent message."  After "significant modifications," a second round of focus-group testing results reportedly proved more positive.

It's uncertain whether the budget for repeated focus-group testing also comes from the $16.5 million set aside for this ad campaign. Recently Natural Resources Canada announced an additional $24-million for an international tar sands advertising campaign, designed to counter "intense and sustained public relations campaigns" against the resource.

Image Credit: Rocco Rossi / Wikimedia Commons

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This past weekend David Ellis, a CTV photo journalist with 28 years' experience, boarded a plane bound for Malaysia with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Last week Ellis was set to be banned from accompanying Stephen Harper on the upcoming trip because he asked the Prime Minister an unwelcome question during a photo op in New York.

Harper's office backed down after a backlash from the major television networks, including CBC, CTV and Global News, which questioned the role the PMO should play in journalistic coverage of Harper's travels abroad.

Harper was in New York last week for a "highly scripted public program, including a business roundtable" according to Tim Harper of the Toronto Star. Included on Prime Minister Harper's schedule was a photo op with the business leaders, a "staged event" to "make the prime minister look good," during which he "smiles and grabs the hand of whomever he is about to meet."

In 2006 Harper instituted strict rules prohibiting journalists from asking questions during photo ops in Canada and abroad. In Britain and Australia, there are no restrictions on journalists asking questions during photo ops. This rule is occasionally broken in the case of breaking news.

At the time of Harper's New York photo op, David Ellis was concerned with the charging of Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro under the Canada Elections Act for exceeding election spending and donation limits. Del Mastro was Harper's parliamentary secretary, though he's now been stripped of that title and is no longer a member of the Conservative caucus.

After clearing it with his Ottawa office, Ellis asked Harper, who has defended Del Mastro while he was being investigated, "Any comment today, sir, about Dean Del Mastro being charged?" Stephen Harper declined to answer, and all journalists were vacated from the room without incident.

Within one week CTV was notified by the PMO that Ellis would not be allowed on Harper's plane for the seven-day trip to Malaysia and Indonesia even though the journalist had received clearance to work as a pool cameraman.

According to the Canadian Press, the main networks CBC, CTV and Global "[pool] resources on prime ministerial trips in order to cut costs," with each sending its own reporter but taking turns sending camera operators, editors and technicians.

Media travelling with the prime minister pay for their own lodging and transportation.

The networks in the pool backed CTV's decision to send Ellis to board Harper's plane despite the the PMO's order.

When news of the ban became public, Jason MacDonald, the Prime Minister's communications director, issued an email, stating "no accredited Canadian media outlet is prevented from joining us for the upcoming trip to the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation Summit."

"To suggest otherwise is absolutely false," he added, declining at the time to specify whether Ellis would be allowed on the plane.

Following the backlash from the press gallery, the PMO clarified Ellis would accompany Harper after all. "I'm not going to get into the issue . . . all that matters is he will be on the trip,'' said MacDonald.

"Asking a question of an elected official shouldn't be a punishable offence," Daniel Thibeault, president of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery, told the Star.

As Tim Harper of the Star puts it, "picking and choosing who you want on your plane covering an official government foreign visit is one step short of the PMO flying to Malaysia with its own stenographer who would email back tales of the glorious leader's conquests."

Image Credit: World Economic Forum / Wikimedia Commons

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In the coming months, European Union environment ministers are set to vote on the proposed Fuel Quality Directive (FQD), which would label tar sands oil as 'dirty' because of its higher GHG emissions in comparison to other fuels, bringing the Harper government and Alberta's years-long lobbying against the law to a decisive point.

As Jason Fekete writes for Postmedia News, this is "a critical few months for the future of Canada's oilsands industry and the environmental movement that has targeted the development."

It's hardly surprising that two senior Alberta government ministers depart Saturday "for a weeklong trip to Europe to trumpet what they say is Alberta and Canada's solid environmental credentials, and have EU countries reject a proposal that would "discriminate" against oilsands-derived fuels," as Postmedia News reports.

Canada has been actively fighting the EU proposal for years now for its labelling of tar sands oil as leaving an especially high carbon footprint. A July 2011 report by environmental group Friends of the Earth Europe documented over 110 lobbying events organized by the Canadian government on the tar sands and FQD between 2009 and 2011.

For example, in October 2011, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver wrote to the EU Commissioner for Energy, Gunther Oettinger, warning that "if unjustified, discriminatory measures to implement the FQD are put in place, Canada will not hesitate to defend its interests."

In December 2011, David Plunkett, Canadian Ambassador to the EU, wrote to European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard saying that "Canada will not accept oil sands crude being singled out in the Fuel Quality Directive." He added that the Canadian government would "explore every avenue at its disposal to defend its interests, including the World Trade Organisation."

Hedegaard has called the FQD a "science-based and non-discriminatory proposal," and stressed that “studies on the lifecycle GHG intensity of various fuels have been conducted" for it, in a 2011 letter to Minister Oliver.

A 2013 briefing by Friends of the Earth Europe details more recent instances of Canada's lobbying for the tar sands in Europe, including sending two Albertan government ministers on tour in Europe this January to hand out fliers assuring the 11 countries visited that Canada was showing "global leadership in the fight against climate change" despite leaving the Kyoto Protocol and pushing for the tar sands.

The aggressive lobbying efforts by Canada and its EU supporters like the UK have continued unabated since reduction targets were decided on in 2009, forcing the European Commission to undertake an Impact Assessment on the FQD and delaying the vote on the proposal from June 2012 to later this year.

"It has got to be fair, it can't be discriminatory, and it should be based on the facts and the science – and this is not. This is my definition of bad policy," Minister Joe Oliver said of the FQD in an interview last Friday.

Oliver made a similar claim that the proposal "is not based on science and so discourages disclosures and will not achieve its stated objectives," last month in an email to the Canadian Press.

The repeated refrain from the Canadian government that the FQD is not scientific doesn't address the fact that the proposal is based on a 2011 Stanford University study commissioned by the European Commission. The study found that average lifecycle GHG emissions from tar sands oil are 23 per cent higher than conventional fossil fuels.

Image: 'Upstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Canadian oilsands as a feedstock for European refineries,' by Adam R. Brandt.

Since then, research by NGO Oil Change International has indicated that emissions from tar sands oil could be even higher than thought before, because of emissions released by the burning of tar sands refinery byproduct petroleum coke, or petcoke, which is also used as a cheap fuel.

According to the Stanford study, "GHG emissions from oil sands production is significantly different enough from conventional oil emissions that regulatory frameworks should address this discrepancy with pathway-specific emissions factors that distinguish between oil sands and conventional oil processes."

The Pembina Institute also published a June 2013 report confirming that "average oilsands production is significantly more GHG-intensive than conventional oil production," and calling tar sands GHG emissions "the fastest growing source of climate change pollution in Canada."

The FQD sets a mandatory six percent reduction in GHG emissions from transport fuel suppliers by 2020, and assigns default emission values to different fossil fuel feedstocks (the raw material from which the fuels are made).

Tar sands oil production requires more energy than conventional fossil fuels because of its extraction and refining process from bitumen. Because of this, the FQD would give tar sands oil a higher default emission value, making it unattractive to European fuel suppliers, who would be hit with financial penalties and higher carbon offsets if importing it.

The Harper government's plan of making Canada a global energy superpower by opening up the tar sands oil reserves via international trade would be adversely affected by the FQD, which guarantees that the federal government and the Albertan oil industry will continue lobbying against it, and for the tar sands, in full force in the months to come.

Postmedia News reports that EU environment ministers are set to vote on the FQD in mid-October or mid-November. If approved, the proposal would need to be ratified by the European Parliament in 2014.

Image Credit: Pembina Institute / Flickr  

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CN Rail is considering shipping crude oil by rail from Alberta to Prince Rupert, BC, for export to Asian markets in capacities matching Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

According to the Canadian Press, "internal memos obtained by Greenpeace under the Access to Information Act show the rail carrier raised the proposal last March with Natural Resources Canada."

A briefing note for the March 1 meeting reportedly states that China-based Nexen Inc. is "working with CN Rail to examine the transportation of crude oil on CN's railway to Prince Rupert, B.C., to be loaded onto tankers for export to Asia."

A CN presentation paper attached to the briefing note assures that "CN has ample capacity to run seven trains per day to match Gateway's proposed capacity."

According to a 2013 report by Malcolm Cairns, an ex-CP Rail employee, a single tanker train can carry 63,000-78,000 barrels of crude. Going by that number, seven trains per day would bring CN's proposed capacity to 441,000-546,000 bpd, matching or exceeding Northern Gateway's starting capacity.

The market for shipping crude oil by rail has been steadily growing since 2009, during which CP Rail moved 500 carloads and CN moved none. Cairns' report states that in 2013, CN anticipates moving approximately 60,000 carloads of crude oil.

If undertaken, CN's proposal to ship bitumen crude from Alberta to Prince Rupert would significantly raise the volume of crude oil shipped by rail in Canada per year.

Map of CN Rail Routes in North America. Credit: CN Rail.

Greenpeace researcher Keith Stewart reportedly said that the CN proposal seemed to be a possible "Plan B" in the case that Northern Gateway is blocked, but raises "the same or greater risks."

The risks of transporting crude by rail were put into sharp relief by the derailment and explosion of a train carrying crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, this July. The incident took a tragic toll, resulting in 47 deaths and about 5.5 million litres of oil burned or contaminating the environment of Lac-Megantic, with the fire burning for four days.

Spokesman Mark Hallman denied CN made any project proposal, telling the Canadian Press that "no specific crude-by-rail project to Prince Rupert (was) discussed" at the March meeting with Natural Resources Canada.

Hallman did say that "the company will consider concrete crude-by-rail proposals, including any specific project to move crude to Prince Rupert," though there is currently "no infrastructure in place at Prince Rupert to transfer crude oil from train tank cars to vessels."

Hallman added that Natural Resources Canada asked for the March meeting, not CN.  

The documents obtained by Greenpeace confirm the federal government's strong interest in shipping oil by rail, at least before the Lac-Megantic derailment.

Cheadle reports that an undated memo for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver says "NRCan is currently meeting with Transport Canada to mutually understand how rail could be part of a solution to current market access challenges," and calls rail an "increasingly viable option." The memo also notes that CP and CN Rail "have indicated that the potential to increase rail movements of crude oil is theoretically unlimited."

Another memo for International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Dennis Lebel, then transport minister, claims that Transport Canada "has identified no major safety concerns with the increased oil on rail capacity in Canada, nor with the safety of tank cars."

The memo observes that "transportation of oil by rail does not trigger the need for a federal environmental assessment," though "proposals to construct new infrastructure to support the activity" might, under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

The "Departmental Position" on shipping oil by rail was redacted from the memo.

"If the government or industry imagines they can use these regulatory loopholes to do an end-run around opposition to tar sands moving through those lands or waters, they will be in for a rude awakening," said Greenpeace's Stewart.

There has been strong opposition to the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines in Canada and the US. But the memo to Joe Oliver suggests that the federal government doesn't see this as too much of a threat to the industry's expansion, with "Canadian crude producers…unlikely to slow down production and [turning] to rail to ensure their product reaches market," should the pipelines meet with "difficulties."

The memo says that "there hasn't been a project to bring crude by rail to port for tanker export, however rail officials indicate that such a project is likely in future."

Top Image Credit: Rocco Rossi / Wikimedia Commons

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