"Like any other tool, language can be abused, used not to build but to destroy, not to communicate but to confuse, not to clarify but to obscure, not to lead but to mislead." 
- William Lutz⁠

Retired American linguist Dr. William Lutz spent much of his career at Rutgers University studying how language is abused in public conversations. He pointed to government and industry as the worst offenders in a practice known as Doublespeak, which Lutz described as “language designed to evade responsibility, to make the unpleasant appear pleasant … language that pretends to communicate but really doesn’t. Language designed to mislead while pretending it doesn’t.” 

Dr. Lutz worried that doublespeak has invaded public discourse about important issues. When killing innocent men, women and children is called 'collateral damage', torture becomes 'enhanced interrogation' and the dirtiest fossil fuel becomes 'Clean Coal', public conversations lose meaning. We struggle to make sense of things. These euphemisms sanitize language and steer important issues below the public’s radar. 

It would be rash to regard doublespeak as mere PR spin. The purpose of doublespeak isn’t to persuade but to silence and confuse. It is far more cunning than PR. Along with euphemisms, doublespeak campaigns use propaganda techniques such as demonizing dissenting views and concocting fake debates to magnify their impact.

There came a point when the tobacco industry realized they could no longer rely on PR to challenge the link between cigarettes and cancer. They turned to doublespeak to nudge the public away from a real debate about public health to a fake debate about sound science and free choice.

Those concerned about public health were labeled as zealots using junk science to promote a nanny state. In the end, the tobacco industry failed to persuade the public, but their tactics protected revenue and blocked health regulations for decades.

The U.S. has been overwhelmed with doublespeak campaigns for too long. From gun control to health care and climate change, industry front groups have confused and polarized American discourse, resulting in a state of bitter gridlock.

While its a relatively new phenomenon north of the border, the oil and gas industry and the Harper Government launched a ‘made in Canada’ doublespeak campaign early in 2012.

The campaign’s euphemism, Ethical Oil. Its message: Canada’s oil sands industry produces ‘Ethical Oil’. The world needs our ethical oil so we will crack down on these foreign-funded radical environmentalists who oppose the expansion of the oils sands via the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Within a very short timeframe, our national debate about environmental protection and the rights of First Nations shifted to a manufactured debate about protecting Canada’s national sovereignty and economic security against foreign interests and extremists.

Government and Industry Doublespeak

Here are a few of the statements made by government and industry just as the Northern Gateway pipeline public review hearings were getting under way early last year.

From the Prime Minister’s Office in January 2012:

Foreign radicals threaten further delays Today, Ecojustice attacked the independence of the Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel. ForestEthics, Living Oceans Society and Raincoast Conservation Foundation joined them in their attack on the Joint Review Panel. Here are the facts: The Northern Gateway is currently going through a careful and comprehensive review process to ensure the proposal is safe and environmentally sound.  Radical groups are trying to clog and hijack the process, rather than letting the panel do its job independently, expeditiously, and efficiently.



Then on January 8th, 2012, an oil industry front group called the Ethical Oil Institute launched a national publicity blitz targeting news outlets across Canada. Here is what their spokesperson Kathryn Marshall said on CTV's Question Period national political program:  



“The reason why the Northern Gateway Pipeline is a good project for Canada is that it will allow Canada to export more of our ethically produced oil to different countries that can reduce their dependency on conflict oil from nations like Nigeria and Saudi Arabia and Iran that have atrocious human rights records and really don’t care about the environment at all.”

“So, we have to make sure that foreign interests and their foreign-funded front groups and lobby groups … are not hijacking the hearing process and taking over or interfering with a Canadian decision.”

"If you care about ethics then support jurisdictions like Canada that have environmental laws, have human rights protections, have workers rights protections," Marshall said. 

Then came an open letter to Canadians from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver:




"Canada is on the edge of an historic choice [the Gateway pipeline approval]: Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydroelectric dams."

"These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda … they use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest."



The campaign took on a 1984 tone when Public Safety Minister Vic Toews released a report on terrorism that warned Canadians of "domestic issue-based extremism" by environmentalists. The report stated:

"Although not of the same scope and scale faced by other countries, low-level violence by domestic issue-based groups remains a reality in Canada. Such extremism tends to be based on grievances—real or perceived—revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism."

Doubling Down

Astonishingly, the federal government didn’t draw the line with this unhinged political rhetoric.

On February 28, 2012, Senator Nicole Eaton launched an inquiry into the funding of environmental charities by foreign foundations, alleging what she considered a threat to the Canadian economy.

To Eaton, the inquiry was about so-called "master manipulators who are operating under the guise of charitable organizations in an effort to manipulate our policies for their own gain." She used phrases such as "political manipulation" and "influence peddling" to describe the money being raised by charitable organizations. "This inquiry is about how billionaire foreign foundations have quietly moved into Canada and, under the guise of charitable deeds, are trying to define our domestic policies," Eaton said. "Cleverly masked as grassroots movements, these interests are audaciously treading on our domestic affairs and on Canadian sovereignty, all under the radar."

Eaton has publicly echoed the Ethical Oil jargon ever since she launched a senate inquiry into the benefits of the oil sands back in 2010 stating, "In an industry dominated by OPEC, the world needs more fair trade, conflict-free, ethical Canadian oil."

As the campaign heated up, the House Finance Committee launched a hearing into the foreign funding of environmental charities in response to complaints lodged by Ethical Oil Institute against the David Suzuki Foundation, Tides Canada and other charitable groups. At the end of April, in the midst of the Senate inquiry and Finance Committee hearings, Environment Minister Peter Kent upped the ante by accusing environmental groups of money laundering, a charge that other Ethical Oil advocates were quick to repeat.

Kent’s accusations were as follows:

"There has also been concern that some Canadian charitable agencies have been used to launder offshore foreign funds. Whether you call it money laundering, or a financial shell game or three card Monte, it's inappropriate under those organizations' charitable status."

  Clearing Doublespeak From the Public Square

Now if you think this campaign was ill conceived and not very convincing you would be right. From water cooler chats in British Columbia to kitchen table debates in the Maritimes, most Canadians didn’t buy it. Even business leaders in the boardrooms of Bay Street and Calgary shook their heads. It was a harebrained attempt at persuasion and Canadians saw right through it. On most fronts, it backfired.

Nevertheless, we should remain concerned about the ongoing Ethical Oil campaign. Not just because it paved the way for a wholesale dismantling of environmental regulations that provided protection for communities across Canada – or because it was an inexcusable attempt to demonize conservation groups – but because doublespeak campaigns like Ethical Oil undermine confidence in constructive public discourse.

Doublespeak feeds the false notions that there are no facts, just spin, and that you can’t trust anyone, so why bother. Why bother to demand that industry and government clean up their act and admit what all of us already know – that there are some things that money shouldn’t be able to buy?

Doublespeak creates public cynicism, that’s really its purpose and that’s why it is so dangerous. Recall Dr. Lutz’s description of doublespeak as "language designed to evade responsibility."

If we want to stop doublespeak pollution from clouding the public square, the public must demand better from industry and government leaders. The lack of accountability for deceptive doublespeak poses a genuine threat to Canada’s future.

Image credit: Kris Krug

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This is the third and final post in the series China-Canada Investment "Straitjacket:" Exclusive Interview with Gus Van Harten. You can access Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Canada has already begun the short countdown to the day the China-Canada Investment Deal becomes ratified in the House of Commons, although the nation has been granted no opportunity to clarify or discuss the full economic or environmental significance of the agreement – the most significant in Canada's history since NAFTA.   Prime Minister Harper, who signed the agreement in Vladivostok in September, is forcing this deal through with such force and brevity it makes the undemocratic Omnibus budget bill C-38 look like a dress rehearsal.    International investment lawyer and trade agreement expert Gus Van Harten has landed center-stage in the controversy as one of the only figures willing and qualified to speak up against the investment agreement. He told DeSmog that Canada's rush to enter into an investment deal of this sort endangers Canadian democracy, threatens Canadian sovereignty and could fracture the government's loyalty to its people.    In this post, the final segment of our interview with Van Harten, he discusses in more detail just how bad this deal is for Canada economically and how much it threatens to corrupt our way of doing business. 

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On March 25, 2012, the Compliance Division of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) received a letter from Jensen Shawa Solomon Duguid Hawkes LLP (aka JSS Barristers). In 11 detailed pages, JSS Barristers lodged a complaint against Environmental Defence, a charity registered with the CRA, on behalf of Ezra Levant’s brainchild, the Ethical Oil Institute. A month later, on April 24, the JSS-Ethical Oil team sent the CRA a second, similar letter, this one a 44-page imputation that the David Suzuki Foundation, like Environmental Defence, was “in contravention of the CRA rules surrounding registered charities and political activity.”

According to the CRA, and as echoed in the Ethical Oil Institute’s complaints against Environmental Defence and the Suzuki Foundation, a charity may not be created for a political purpose, and it can't "take part in an illegal activity or a partisan political activity." Specifically, the CRA states that charitable organizations must devote "substantially all" (i.e. 90%) of their resources to charitable activities, and that any political activity is "subordinate" to its stated purpose.

That's not to say that charities can't promote their work and educate the public about issues that have political implications. But in doing so they must ensure that public awareness campaigns aren't their "primary activity, and their information must be "well-reasoned." It goes without saying that they don't connect their views to specific political parties or candidates.

As an example, the CRA states that "a purpose such as improving the environment by reducing the sulphur content of gasoline would very likely require changes in government regulations. Generally, any purpose that suggests convincing or needing people to act in a certain way and which is contingent upon a change to law or government policy (e.g., "the abolition of" or "the total suppression of animal experimentation") is a political purpose."

Given all of this, and given the Ethical Oil Institute’s obvious concern about registered charities flouting CRA rules — namely, engaging in partisan political activity, or spending too much time and money influencing public opinion about laws, policies, or government decisions — it’s surprising that Ethical Oil didn’t send a third letter complaining about perhaps the most politically partisan of all Canadian charities — the infamous Fraser Institute.

“The problem with political ENGOs with charitable status is that they act like political advocates, and even partisans, but they expect the tax treatment of Mother Teresa,” Levant told the Vancouver Observer recently, adding that EthicalOil.org isn’t a registered charity. "We don't pretend to be in the same moral category as feeding the hungry or housing the homeless — and so we don't get an exemption from the Income Tax Act like registered charities do.”

But the Fraser Institute does. Variously described as “conservative” and “libertarian," Ethical Oil’s brother in arms works toward “a free and prosperous world where individuals benefit from greater choice, competitive markets, and personal responsibility.”

While such rhetoric sounds great on the surface, there’s much more to it than meets the eye. The Fraser Institute has spent approximately $100 million since its inception in the mid-1970s to sanctify the neo-liberal principles of Frederick Von Hayek and Milton Friedman.

At once maligned (by the political left) and celebrated (by the political right), the Fraser Institute represents a free-market libertarianism popularized by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and embraced almost wholly by Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives and the Conservative Party of Canada. Although it vehemently maintains its independence and objectivity, the Institute focuses its research on lower taxes, smaller government, less market “interference” and privatized social services — all of which benefit the corporate sector.

“The Fraser Institute is a small cog in a global wheel of reaction designed to roll back the democratic gains of the 20th century,” says Donald Gutstein, a professor at Simon Fraser University and the author of Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Uses Propaganda to Manipulate Us (Key Porter, 2009).

And that makes it inherently a political organization, writes David Climenhaga, an author, teacher, trade union communicator and former journalist with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald.  

“The Fraser Institute strives to change Canadians' political attitudes so they will place far-right political parties like Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives in power, and keep them there. It works relentlessly to restructure our political architecture in ways that will make it difficult for citizens to seize back their own country. And it fields an army of ‘former researchers — Danielle Smith, leader of the far-right Wildrose Party here in Alberta is a prominent example — who play an overtly political role.”

As Climenhaga notes, its annual report reads like a who’s who of former conservative politicians, prominent businessmen, and pro-free market academics. Not surprisingly, the energy sector is well represented. Gwyn Morgan, former president and CEO of EnCana, is a long-serving supporter and member of the board of trustees. So are Steve Snyder, president and CEO of Transalta; W. W. Siebens, president and CEO of Candor Investments Ltd. and a Petro-Canada director since 1986, and John Hagg, former chairman and CEO of Northstar Energy Corporation and principal of Tristone Capital Inc — to name but a few.

Senior fellows have included prolific Calgary Herald op-ed contributor Barry Cooper and the University of Calgary's Tom Flanagan, Stephen Harper’s former chief advisor and a key part of the Wildrose Party’s recent ascendance. Academic and former Alberta MLA Ted Morton was also a Fraser Institute fellow before he took office (and may end up back there given his loss in the recent Alberta election). Preston Manning was there, too, as was King Ralph Klein himself.

Even Ezra Levant, the political right’s unapologetic mouthpiece, cut his teeth with the Fraser Institute, writing Youthquake (a treatise arguing for smaller government, including privatization of the Canada Pension Plan) while a student intern in 1995.

Given these connections, it’s not surprising the Fraser Institute held its 30th anniversary gala at Calgary’s Hyatt Regency Imperial Ballroom, where then-Alberta premier Klein told 1,200 adoring libertarians and conservatives that, “The Government of Alberta is proud to adhere to the public policy direction of the Fraser Institute.”

But what of its purported political activity? Does the work of the Fraser Institute, a registered charity, contravene the Income Tax Act or CRA policy?

A few examples will suffice to make a case at least as compelling as Ethical Oil’s attack on Environmental Defence and the Suzuki Foundation.

First, it would seem that the Fraser Institute explicitly communicates to the public calls for laws and policies to be changed. The Fraser Institute’s recent report, Follow Indiana’s Lead: Canadian Provinces Should Give Workers Choice[PDF], urged Canadians to adopt "right-to-work" laws typical of those U.S. states south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Once Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party had won its long-sought majority, the Fraser Institute jumped into the fray to demand that he change Canada's election spending laws to "abolish" all per-vote subsidies for political parties.

Earlier this May, the Fraser Institute’s Mark Milke wrote (apparently without irony) that “Canada’s cartel-like supply management boards should be abolished,” because “they cement an undesirable nexus between politics and money,” among other reasons.

What about government policy about the Canada Pension Plan? The Fraser Institute says, change it! The Harper government obliged, increasing the age of eligibility for Old Age Security from 65 to 67, but that wasn't good enough for the Fraser Institute, which demands yet more clawbacks.

What of Bill C-323, which would allow people anywhere in the world to use the Canadian courts to hear civil cases against, say, Canadian mining companies who violate international laws or treaties to which Canada is party? The Fraser Institute says bury it, because this “reckless” bill would leave Canadian firms vulnerable to huge risks and costs (if they are found to have violated the law).

There's also the little matter of offering "well-reasoned" positions, which the CRA defines as "factual information that is methodically, objectively, fully, and fairly analyzed." To cite just one example, the Fraser Institute's research on environmental issues appears to leave much to be desired. For instance, the Fraser Institute's annual Environmental Indicators report analyzes environmental trends, routinely concluding that "contrary to public opinion, in most instances objectives for protecting human health and the environment are being met, pollution and wastes are being controlled, and resources and land are being sustainably and effectively managed.”

Hilda McKenzie and William Rees (an award-winning ecologist at the University of British Columbia) were suspicious of such claims, so they vetted the 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2004 editions of Environmental Indicators. In "Analysis of a Brownlash Report," a 2007 paper in the journal Ecological Economics, McKenzie and Rees concluded the reports were fraught with errors, including "a narrow scope," and "various problematic omissions" and "distortions," which allowed the authors to draw overly optimistic conclusions and report recommendations that fit the Institute's small government, less regulation philosophy.

Lauded in the mainstream press for presenting "good news" about the environment, and for bucking the trend of "finding environmental gloom under every rock," such disingenuous "brownlash" analyses provide the public with incomplete or downright erroneous information, hindering, rather than helping, citizens and policymakers make sound, long-term decisions about how to balance economic activity and environmental protection.

Does the Fraser Institute deserve an audit? I’m no lawyer, but if JSS Barristers feel there’s a strong enough case to be made for an audit of Environmental Defence and the Suzuki Foundation, then the evidence seems to indicate similar treatment for the Fraser Institute.

Given the Harper government’s handling of the F-35 stealth fighter fiasco, and its relentless attack on environmental groups, a little transparency would go a long way. So why not throw the Fraser Institute on the CRA Black List too?

Ed. note: We're excited to welcome Jeff to the DeSmog team. He'll be a regular contributor going forward. For more information about the Fraser Institute, read Jeff's attached article "Mind Games" [PDF] from the March 2009 edition of Alberta Views magazine.

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ForestEthics Advocacy released a game-changing research brief today documenting the massive foreign control of Alberta's tar sands oil industry. Publicly traded oil companies with active tar sands operations have a very high level of foreign ownership – 71 per cent.

Some supposedly "Canadian" oil companies including Suncor, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Imperial Oil and Husky are predominantly owned by foreign interests. More than half of Canada’s oil and gas revenue goes to companies under foreign control.

This revelation stands in stark contrast to the talking points of the Harper administration and its media echo chamber, which insist that there is too much foreign influence over Canada's resource decisions from environmental groups. In fact, the evidence shows overwhelmingly that foreign interests are influencing tar sands and other resource decisions – chiefly Chinese and other foreign oil companies. 

Cue Ezra Levant's outrage at this foreign influence in Canadian interests! Where's Vivian Krause when you need her? Surely the Ethical Oil Institute will agree that this level of foreign intervention is a dangerous threat to Canada's future? 

Recall that when the Ethical Oil Institute launched its allegedly "100% Canadian" OurDecision.ca website, this was the statement by spokesperson Kathryn Marshall:  "We’ll never take foreign money to undermine our country’s national interests." 

The group admits that it receives funding from companies active in the tar sands. Now that it's been revealed that all these companies are predominently foreign-owned, the group's claims to be 100% Canadian are highly misleading. We await their statement correcting the record.

Anticipating that someone, perhaps from the 'ethical oil' team, will quickly attempt to do damage control by claiming that this is just some ginned up report by ForestEthics, let's be crystal clear that the data underlying the report are all from independent sources including Bloomberg Professional and industry journals. 

The ForestEthics Advocacy brief concludes:

"The Conservative Harper government is increasingly ruling in favour of foreign-oil companies instead of Canadians. We need foreign investment and shareholders in this country, but it does not need to be at the cost of democracy, our environment, and future generations."

Read the full Forest Ethics Advocacy brief [PDF]: Who Benefits? An Investigation of Foreign Investment in The Tar Sands  

Update: Rick Mercer's takedown of this "foreign-owned" nationalism talking point is increasingly accurate with every passing day. (H/T AnOilMan).  

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Just over a week before the Northern Gateway Pipeline hearings began, EthicalOil.org and its allies launched a pre-emptive PR offensive on environmental and First Nations groups who oppose the pipeline. Their new website, OurDecision.ca, and ad campaign are an attempt to invalidate opposition to the pipeline by pointing to the small amount of American funding going to some environmental groups, and claiming that pipeline opponents are actually the “puppets” of “foreign interests.”

Sun News was first to promote the campaign, and by the end of the week, numerous papers across Canada were repeating the story. After mentioning last November that "significant American interests" would line up against the pipeline, Stephen Harper eagerly picked up where he left off, touting EthicalOil.org's cause, decrying the foreign influence attempting to “overload” the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Review. By Monday, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver had penned a letter to Canadians denouncing the foreign interests trying to “hijack” the review process "to achieve their radical ideological agenda". The same ominous tone and divisive talking points were parroted over and over by EthicalOil.org, Harper, Oliver and the credulous media, driving an entire week of news coverage.  

The OurDecision.ca campaign was timed to hit national news just as many Canadians were tuning into this issue for the first time, and this frame (“foreign interests” vs. a “Canadian decision”) could have a lasting impact on how people view one of the most important debates in a generation. 

So how did a small industry front group with secretive funding sources manage to have so much impact on the national conversation? Well, it looks like the Harper government, EthicalOil.org, and Sun Media have coordinated with one another to create an echo chamber that turns industry talking points into national news. We'll show how one digital communications company intimately connects EthicalOil.org, the Harper Government and Sun Media.

Ethical Oil Echo Chamber

The 'ethical oil' echo chamber was built in 2010, after the release of Ezra Levant's book of the same name. As Donald Gutstein writes, Sun papers prominently featured three excerpts from Levant's book, giving it national exposure. Through a series of articles and appearances in Sun-owned papers, the National Post and right wing talk shows, an echo chamber of voices amplified the 'ethical oil' message. Then came bloggers like Alykhan Velshi, who helped to turn Levant's book into the ethicaloil.org website, and before long it reached the mouths of politicians.

From Gutstein's perspective, ideas often take years to percolate through public opinion filters before they end up on national policy agendas. But in this case, it appears that industry and government synced up messaging very rapidly. 

Go NewClear

Last week, we reported an extensive web that connects EthicalOil.org with oil interests, the Harper government, and other conservative leaders and groups. At the centre is Go Newclear, a Vancouver-based digital communications agency with a focus on public affairs and politics. An analysis of the web server hosting of gonewclearproductions.com reveals an intricate network of over 50 websites connected primarily to the Conservative Party of Canada, the Wildrose Alliance Party, EthicalOil.org, and other right wing causes and politicians.

Go Newclear’s President and COO is Hamish Marshall, the husband of current Ethical Oil spokesperson Kathryn Marshall, and a former Conservative campaigner, former PMO staffer and Conservative strategist deeply connected to oil interests. The other two principals in the company have deep connections to the Harper government as well.

One of the principals, Brendan Jones, worked as a website administrator for the Office of the Leader of the Opposition from August 2005-February 2006. Following Harper's election, he worked as the special assistant for the Prime Minister from February 2006-November 2007. Jones then moved to the Conservative Resources Group, or Conservative Caucus Research Bureau, an agency responsible for developing political communication products, branding and marketing decisions and liaising between the federal Conservative caucus and Prime Minister’s Office, until 2009. In that role, he was a television and radio specialist. The third principal of Go Newclear, Travis Freeman, is still listed with the Conservative Resources Group.

Now that we know that EthicalOil.org and the Conservative government are deeply connected, what about the other part of the Conservative echo chamber, Sun Media?

Digital fingerprints

As Evan Leeson, the Principal of Catalyst Internet (which is DeSmogBlog's IT team) and a 19 year veteran of website development writes: 

Developers have their bag of reusable tricks to make coding efficient. In this case, all of these sites use precisely the same CSS reset – same elements, same formatting, down to the character. Many sites will use something similar to this one, but this is exact. It's even used on Newclear's own custom home page. It is highly likely the same developer did all these sites.

Connecting the Dots

Correction: **The aforementioned Sun TV News websites were registered in December of 2008 by videotron, a Quebecor company, prior to Sun Media’s application with the CRTC (the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) in 2010.** When Go Newclear moved the site onto its server in June 2010**, SunTVNews.ca was a promotional website that invited Canadians to pledge to watch the channel when it was launched. It appears that GoNewclear registered these websites while both Brendan Jones and Travis Freeman were working directly for the Conservative Caucus Research Bureau.  

At the time of the website registration, Kory Teneycke was Prime Minister Stephen Harper's director of communications. He had been the director of the Conservative Caucus Research Bureau while Jones worked there. 

On March 30, 2009, Prime Minister Stephen Harper went to New York to meet with Rupert Murdoch. The meeting did not appear on Harper's itinerary, and was intended to be secret, according to reporting by Bruce Cheadle of the Canadian Press. The pair were joined by the President of Fox News (and legendary Republican communications expert), Roger Ailes, and Kory Teneycke.

Within four months of this meeting, Kory Teneycke took a contract with Quebecor to explore the creation of a new Canadian media outlet. Then, ten months later, Quebecor launched Sun Media. Teneycke is now the vice president of the Sun News Network.

This new information sheds some new light on this meeting, and provokes a few fundamental questions. Why does a website for our new conservative-leaning media institution, dubbed "Fox News North," appear to have a direct link to government staffers? On whose orders were these websites created by Go Newclear? Were any of these orders from government? From oil companies?

It's time for the media to ask some hard questions about the relationships that are powering the EthicalOil.org echo chamber. 

Check out this funny Rick Mercer video mocking the "foreign influence" campaign:

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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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