Alberta Conservative Senator Doug Black worries that Canadians are illiterate when it comes to energy and he’s on a mission to educate them.

“If we don’t address the issues facing us now,” he warns, “the prosperity my generation enjoyed will not be enjoyed by the next generation.”

Black is a rarity in the Senate, one of only three senators who were elected by voters in Alberta and then appointed to the Senate by Stephen Harper. Given the discredit that august body has fallen into, though, he may not hold that seat for long.

During the first half of 2015, Black travelled from coast to coast in his quest to educate Canadians about “the development of our energy resources and to discuss ways in which Canada can responsibly maximize its energy resources to benefit all Canadians.”

But it’s an odd crusade. Instead of meeting Canadians where they mostly congregate, in malls, union halls, church basements and community centres, he’s meeting them in posh hotels like the Vancouver Four Seasons, Toronto’s One King West, Edmonton Westin, Montreal Hyatt Regency and Ottawa’s Shaw Centre.

[view:in_this_series=block_1] Black’s Energy Tour

That’s because his “energy literacy tour” isn’t aimed at ordinary Canadians, but at the elites, the people who are already well-educated about energy, at least from the industry perspective. The tour is sponsored by the Economic Club of Canada, whose “audience members are drawn from the most senior levels of Canadian business, industry and government,” the club’s web site informs us.

The site features testimonials from the president of the Canadian Gas Association, the chief lobbyist for the Toronto-Dominion Bank (also a director of the Canadian-American Business Council), and the communications director for an oil and gas service corporation.

They’re certainly up to snuff on energy literacy, which raises the suspicion that the purpose of Black’s meetings with the elite is to promote the industry and further the development of Alberta’s oilsands.

And the Economic Council of Canada has set up blue ribbon panels of industry insiders and experts to help devise strategies to achieve this goal. The Toronto session in April, for instance included executives from Enbridge and Kinder Morgan along with Brian Tobin, vice-chair of the Bank of Montreal (BMO) and former premier of oil-rich Newfoundland and Labrador.

At that meeting Tobin worried that foreign investment is moving to the United States, where the investment review regime is more “flexible” than Canada’s. And Tobin would know about the problems foreign investors face in Canada: BMO acted as an adviser to China’s state-owned CNOOC in its contentious $15.1-billion takeover of oil and gas producer Nexen in 2013.

Kinder Morgan Canada’s Ian Anderson, who was also on the speaker’s bill, said he couldn’t understand why “a couple of hundred” protestors would want to hold up his company’s plans to build a pipeline under Burnaby Mountain. “Where is this opposition coming from?” he asked his audience. “What fear is motivating it?”

But instead of addressing why so many Canadians fear growing oilsands development, the energy elite, with Black in the vanguard, pushed back.

Advancing “Dialogue” on Energy Future

Black, who is one of Canada’s top oil and gas lawyers, has been immersed in the industry for decades and has many leading oil and gas executives as clients. He’s also a senior Alberta Progressive Conservative fundraiser and the party’s former finance vice-president, and he’s not afraid to admit he represents Big Oil in the Senate.

“One of the reasons I ran for the Senate,” he states on his web site, “was to advance a national dialogue on our energy future.” But is it a monologue rather than a dialogue he’s advancing?

Black heard his clients venting their incredulity over the way the public was showing such intense opposition to energy infrastructure, as Alberta Oil magazine explains. How could the public be so ignorant as to not see the connection between energy development and prosperity, the oil executives demanded to know.

So Black set out the make the connection. In 2009 he co-founded the Energy Policy Institute of Canada (EPIC), an organization with “a singular focus on one task: to draft an energy strategy.” It was almost like a service to his clients and the industry.

This rather benign sounding goal masked the real purpose of the organization, which Linda McQuaig saw as “a lobbying vehicle for dozens of extremely wealthy, powerful fossil fuel companies … all hell-bent on developing Alberta’s tar sands.”

Members included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, Canadian Gas Association, EnCana, Imperial Oil, Shell Canada, TransCanada Corp., and many others.

Industry Drafting Legislation

The group released its strategy in 2012 after three years of discussions and meetings with various governments and industry interests. It was pooh-poohed by the corporate media, but an analysis by the ForestEthics Advocacy Association reveals that the oil industry — through EPIC — helped write the rules “that now restrict public participation on the environmental impacts of tar sands expansion projects.” ForestEthics documents the profound impact the EPIC report had in at least one crucial area of energy development — government regulation.

EPIC recommended that the “federal government must develop regulations that restrict participation in federal environmental assessment reviews to those parties that are ‘directly and adversely affected’ by the proposal in question.”

It also recommended that “the relevance and credibility of evidence presented for environmental assessments must be explained.” This precise language is now found in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012, on the National Energy Board’s website, and on the National Energy Board Application to Participate Form, ForestEthics notes. It’s just one example of many in the report.

Such a cooperative government response could be due to the efforts of EPIC’s co-chair, Bruce Carson, a long-time Tory insider who had been a senior aide in Harper’s PMO. Carson brought EPIC’s’ document to Nigel Wright, Harper’s chief of staff, who promised to read it “over the weekend” and urged Carson to “feel free to give me a call at any time.”

Carson reported back to Black that he’d briefed Wright, who “seemed generally supportive.”

“Excellent, Need Nigel on side,” Black responded.

A year later, Carson, who earned a $120,000 annual honorarium for his work, was charged with engaging in illegal lobbying and influence peddling, because he broke the five-year ban on lobbying after leaving the government’s employ, among other charges. Meanwhile Black became a senator and took his seat on the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, where he could continue his work.

He outlined his mission in his maiden speech to the Senate:

All interested parties now agree that on an urgent basis we must find ways to export our energy products and to help educate Canadians about the importance of market access. For success, we need Canadians to accept that their future prosperity depends on our solving this problem. We must ensure that governments and energy producers have the social licence needed to make the critical infrastructure projects.

Black’s History of Industry Lobbying

Black has fronted for Big Oil before. In 2002 he was chief lobbyist for the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions, a group that appeared on the scene several months before the Jean Chrétien government prepared to ratify the Kyoto Accord. The CCRES was created by Burson-Marsteller, the PR giant that specializes in creating astroturf organizations.

The organization was framed as “a broad cross-section of Canadian industry,” but the money came from Black’s clients in Big Oil. CCRES pulled all the stops in its efforts to derail Kyoto, including expensive saturation TV ads in Ontario. But it couldn’t prevent Chrétien from proceeding with ratification.

Not that it mattered. A decade later, Black’s party was in charge in Ottawa, Kyoto was ancient history, and Black was still furthering Big Oil’s interests, this time by educating Canadians about the need for oil pipelines if we want continued prosperity.

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Alberta Oil Magazine just published its National Survey on Energy Literacy, the culmination of 1,396 online interviews of a representative sample of Canadians conducted by Leger.

The results are particularly interesting coming from Alberta Oil, a magazine destined for the desks of the energy sector’s senior executives and decision-makers.

Summing up the survey’s findings about “The Issues,” Alberta Oil editors write that opposition to energy projects is “not just for West Coast hippies anymore.”

Indeed. There are quite a few nuggets in the survey’s findings that are probably causing a headache or two in Calgary’s corner offices this week. We round up the Top 5.

1) Opposition to the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline is just as serious as opposition to Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline — if not more so, according to the survey. What’s more, the more highly educated citizens are, the less likely they are to support Trans Mountain or Northern Gateway. Hmph, maybe the anti-pipeline crowd isn’t all unemployed hippies after all?

2) Fewer than one-in-ten post-secondary graduates find oil and gas industry associations credible and trustworthy when it comes to carbon emissions. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise given that industry associations like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have fought new greenhouse gas regulations and successfully lobbied to weaken Canada’s environmental laws.

3) Young people aren’t super stoked on the future of the energy industry. Just 16.5 per cent of people 18-34 described it as “essential,” compared to 30.3 per cent overall. What’s more, only 9.3 per cent of respondents aged 18-34 described the oilsands as “essential” compared to 18 per cent for the broader population.

4) While British Columbia has thus far been the focal point of Canada’s pipeline debate, the strongest opposition to the oil and gas sector is actually in Quebec. That’s going to have big ramifications for the proposed Energy East pipeline that would theoretically transport bitumen across that province. When asked to think of the oil and gas sector in Canada and select words that come to mind, 51 per cent of Quebecers came up with “environmental disaster.” Time for Trans Canada's PR people to pop an Advil. (Since Edelman isn't doing their dirty work for them any more …)

Screencap of Alberta Oil Magazine's National Survey on Energy Literacy.

5) The editors at Alberta Oil do some hand-wringing about Canadians' lack of “energy literacy” … although energy literacy in this case appears to be defined as the ability to answer some pretty obscure pro-industry questions.

Take the multiple choice question on how much more carbon intensive the oil produced from Alberta’s oilsands is than the average grade of U.S. crude on a well-to-wheels basis. Only 5.6 per cent of respondents chose correctly.

Ummm hold on, hasn’t there been a raging debate going on for the past few years on oilsands’ emissions intensity?

While Alberta Oil would like you to think the “correct” answer to that question is six per cent, a comparison of oilsands emissions intensities (well-to-wheels) from seven data sources to the 2005 U.S. baseline showed that oilsands emissions range from eight to 37 per cent higher than the baseline. Really, the best answer would probably be that there's a huge amount of variation and disagreement on oilsands emissions intensity.

In good news, very few Canadians can spew out the precise answers industry wants to hear to their technical questions. Oil execs probably aren’t loving that their multi-million dollar advertising campaigns appear to be falling on deaf ears.

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The province of Alberta has recently released a development plan for public schools that enlists Suncor Energy and Syncrude Canada in the creation of future Kindergarten to grade three curriculum. Oil giant Cenovus will partner in developing curriculum for grades four to 12.

The oil and gas industry’s involvement in the province’s educational development is creating concern among opposition parties and environmental organizations.

NDP Education Critic Deron Bilous called granting partnership status to industry “appalling.”

“Kindergarten to grade three is a very formative time in a child’s education where their minds are still developing. It is outrageous and appalling to have oil and gas companies involved in any way in developing curriculum for Alberta’s youngest students,” he said.

Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema said “it’s definitely very disturbing that the Alberta government would see oil giants Syncrude and Suncor as key partners in designing Alberta’s K to three curriculum. Big oil doesn’t belong in Alberta’s schools.”

He added, “It’s time that the Alberta government realizes that what’s good for the oil industry isn’t what’s good for the rest of Alberta and especially not our children. While oil may run our cars for now it shouldn’t run our government or our schools. Ever.”

A page from the Alberta Government’s Curriculum Redesign document. Click the image to see the whole presentation.

Canada’s oil and gas industry has taken a notable interest in curriculum design and the general project of ‘energy literacy’ in recent years.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), the country’s largest oil and gas lobby body, caused uproar last year when it partnered with the Royal Canadian Geographic Society in the creation of ‘Energy IQ,’ described as “an energy education resource for all Canadians…to engage Canadian teachers and students through curriculum-linked in-class learning tools, and to increase energy knowledge among the general public and community leaders.”

The province of Alberta has recently released a development plan for public schools that enlists Suncor Energy and Syncrude Canada in the creation of future Kindergarten to grade three curriculum. Oil giant Cenovus will partner in developing curriculum for grades four to 12.

The oil and gas industry’s involvement in the province’s educational development is creating concern among opposition parties and environmental organizations.

NDP Education Critic Deron Bilous called granting partnership status to industry “appalling.”

“Kindergarten to grade three is a very formative time in a child’s education where their minds are still developing. It is outrageous and appalling to have oil and gas companies involved in any way in developing curriculum for Alberta’s youngest students,” he said.

Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema said “it’s definitely very disturbing that the Alberta government would see oil giants Syncrude and Suncor as key partners in designing Alberta’s K to three curriculum. Big oil doesn’t belong in Alberta’s schools.

He added, “It’s time that the Alberta government realizes that what’s good for the oil industry isn’t what’s good for the rest of Alberta and especially not our children. While oil may run our cars for now it shouldn’t run our government or our schools. Ever.”

Cameron Fenton, national director for the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, wrote the partnership was “dangerous” and granted CAPP access to not only young and impressionable minds, but to the credibility of a trusted educational institution like the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.

“What’s potentially more concerning is the role that Canadian Geographic is playing. As a respected educational resource and publisher, their reputation is providing political cover for CAPP to present a dangerous and disturbing narrative and vision of the future of energy and climate change in Canada. Were CAPP to be taking this project forward on their own they would be the subject of great scrutiny by teachers, students and the public, something they probably hoped to avoid by using Canadian Geographic to take their industry spin into classrooms from grade 3 on up.”

Fenton suggests Canadians should keep in mind CAPP’s “dubious distinction of being Canada’s most vocal proponent of tar sands, fracking and other fossil fuel development.” He adds the industry lobby group is the largest in the country and has been a key player in Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, eliminating environmental laws, and undermining climate legislation. They are also a big spender when it comes to oilsands advertising.

Energy IQ only tells a portion of Canada’s energy story, says Fenton, and ignores crucial parts of the conversation, like the calls from reputable energy and insurance agencies to leave 80 per cent of fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

The industry-sponsored curriculum caught its own wave of backlash from students in Vancouver who gathered more than 600 hundred signatures in protest of the materials.

“Propaganda has no place in our schools,” their open letter to Canadian Geographic read. “The content of your program appears to be highly focused on the oil and gas industry, yet it is presented as something that deals with all possible types of energy.”

They continued, “we demand that our education system continues to maintain a progressive perspective when discussing energy-related issues. As such, we, the undersigned, ask that the Energy IQ Program is not used at our school.”

CAPP has led Energy in Action programs in Alberta since 2004 to teach children about the petroleum industry and its role in environmental stewardship. In 2011 Alberta awarded CAPP the Friends of Education Award for the program. More than 59 oil and gas companies have participated in the outreach program which has run through more than 80 schools across Canada.

Image Credit: Government of Alberta via Flickr

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