A complaint filed with Alberta’s Office of the Ethics Commissioner on Tuesday argues that the president of the Coal Association of Canada contravened the Conflict of Interest Act by lobbying for the coal industry shortly after leaving his post as an Alberta cabinet minister.

Until six months ago, coal lobbyist Robin Campbell served as Alberta’s finance minister. He previously held positions as minister of aboriginal relations and minister of environment and sustainable resource development.

The Conflicts of Interest Act bars a former minister from lobbying any public office holder for 12 months after their last day in office.

Progress Alberta, a non-profit progressive advocacy group, filed the ethics complaint, arguing that Campbell’s activity on behalf of the coal industry may contravene rules in the Lobbyist Act designed to prevent the use of “grassroots communication” to persuade members of the public to pressure public office holders.

Since his controversial appointment as Coal Association president, Campbell has visited communities across Alberta and spoken with media about the lobby group’s positions. At least one media report indicates Campbell called on audiences to get in touch with their elected officials.

The Lobbyist Act defines “grassroots communication” as “appeals to members of the public through the mass media or by direct communication that seek to persuade members of the public to communicate directly with a public office holder in an attempt to place pressure on the public office holder to endorse a particular opinion.”

The Coal Association of Canada website states Campbell “is leveraging his decades of experience to help preserve jobs and ensure the coal industry remains an important part of our economy.”

In its complaint, Progress Alberta argues that Campbell may have used his position to influence Albertans to advocate for investments that would benefit the coal industry and against the province’s plan to phase out coal.  

Coal Association Targets Coal Phase-out

The complaint has arrived on the desk of the Ethics Commissioner of Alberta at a rather noteworthy time for the Coal Association, which has recently kicked off its rather comically named Act for the Future campaign.

On its campaign website, the Coal Association states Alberta’s Climate Action Plan, which involves a province-wide phase out of coal-fired power by 2030, “will have significant impacts on every Albertan and jeopardize the economic advantage coal-fired generation provides Alberta industries.”

Last week, the lobby group confidently declared that electricity bills may triple in Alberta by 2021.

Two days later, Campbell penned a column for the Calgary Herald stating that “we do know power prices, part of Alberta’s competitive advantage, are going up.”

Experts critical of the Coal Association’s campaigning say Campbell’s argument that a plan to phase out coal is to blame for the imminent spike in power prices is complete rubbish.

“There’s absolutely no analysis that supports the contention … that the coal phase-out will triple power bills,” Ben Thibault, electricity program director at the Pembina Institute, said.

Duncan Kinney, executive director of Progress Alberta, added that Campbell’s argument “borders on ridiculous.”  

Plummeting Prices too Low for “Market to Work”

Although predicting the fate of any energy market is difficult, a dramatic drop in Alberta’s electricity prices in recent years has onlookers saying a price rise is warranted.  

Alberta’s average pool price for electricity plummeted in recent years, from an average of $80 per megawatt hour ($/MWh) in 2006 to $33/MWh in 2015.

According to the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), the average pool price for March was a stunningly low $14.79/MWh. The wholesale price of electricity hit zero in February.

Thibault, who works on electricity policy design and analysis, says prices must rise in the years to come regardless of the policy instruments in place, as current power pool prices are far too low to support necessary investments in the electricity system.

Prices are currently low because of rock-bottom prices for natural gas and coal, another balmy winter and the ongoing recession.

“One way or another you need new investment in combined cycle [natural gas generation facilities] and wind, the cheapest new generating options, and in order to get there we need the MWh to be $80,” Thibault told DeSmog Canada. “It’s too low right now for this market to work.”

In other words, the power pool price could triple or quadruple in coming years even if the Alberta government sat on its hands.

But such a reality isn’t convenient for Campbell, who has been criticized for flip-flopping on the issue after formally backing former premier Jim Prentice’s call for a coal phase-out.

Neither is the reality that low electricity prices are causing coal-fired power plants to flee the energy market early.

In January utility provider Enmax cancelled its power purchase agreement with the coal-fired Battle River power plant, saying low electricity prices, combined with emissions regulations from last summer, have made the enterprise unprofitable.

In March, TransCanada did the same, citing unprofitability as the main cause.

But Campbell seized upon the opportunity to blame the climate plan.

In a column for the Calgary Herald, Campbell suggested the government’s climate change plan will “prematurely close baseload coal” and “void power purchase agreements.”

In another article in the same paper Campbell said he “believes coal-fired power plants will start shutting down in 2018 as owners try to avoid the higher levies."

But once again, this reading of the coal industry’s trouble seems to be an instance of intentional obfuscation.

For one, 12 of the 18 coal-fired plants in Alberta would have been shuttered by 2030 anyways (with four planned for closure by 2019).

Even more important is the reality that a backdoor escape valve was bizarrely written into power purchase agreement contracts by the province’s deregulation apparatus nearly 15 years ago. This happened when the agreements were first auctioned off to allow buyers to get rid of their agreements if laws were changed making their business “unprofitable.”

“They’re trying to get out of these things because they’re losing money on them because of the power pool prices, but in order to get out of them they need to blame the climate plan,” Thibault says.

Kinney says such “very generous out-clauses” mean that large companies have “privatized profits and socialized losses.”

As mentioned, power prices are exceedingly low at the moment, rendering many agreements only marginally profitable (if at all).

But thanks to ongoing tweaks to the carbon pricing for large emitters — which requires an annual emissions intensity reduction of 15 per cent in 2016 and 20 per cent in 2017 — companies can claim the government adjustments have resulted in “unprofitability” even though they’re likely attempting to get out of the agreements because of low returns.

Media Coverage of Alberta’s Complex Electricity Market “Sucks”

Campbell’s recent campaign efforts have often been facilitated by media outlets that present only one side of the issue (for example: using Campbell as a single source in multiple articles that feature intensely controversial claims).

“The electricity market in Alberta is complex,” Kinney said. “Because it’s complex, reporting on it — how do I put this delicately? — sucks.”

“It seems anyone can go out and say anything about the electricity system now and it’ll get reprinted simply because no-one really knows what’s going to happen,” he added.

According to iNews880, “Campbell declined comment” on the potential conflict of interest “due to the fact Progress Alberta filed the complaint with the ethics commissioner.”

Reports by the ethics commissioner often take months to be written and published.

Image: Government of Alberta/Flickr

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Public interest group Democracy Watch released a letter (link to pdf) to ethics commissioner Mary Dawson Friday, requesting she launch an inquiry into former Conservative cabinet minister Chuck Strahl in the wake of revelations that he's working as an Enbridge lobbyist while also serving as Canada’s top spy watchdog.

The letter points to rules in the Conflict of Interest Act that require public office holders to manage their private life to avoid conflicts of interest. Strahl’s work as a lobbyist, Democracy Watch suggests, invites conflicts of interest, rather than prevents them.

Recently the Vancouver Observer revealed Strahl had registered in B.C. as an Enbridge lobbyist. As the chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), some questioned Strahl’s suitability to judiciously oversee the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the spy agency involved in the monitoring of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline hearings.

Democracy Watch also notes that Strahl violated the waiting period meant to prevent former public office holders from using their government contacts to advance private corporate interests.

Enbridge met with Strahl in his role as a cabinet minister on April 29, 2010. Strahl left his position on May 17, 2011. Five months later, in October 2011, Strahl signed an open letter in support of Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline. In December of 2013, Strahl registered as a B.C. lobbyist listing Northern Gateway Pipelines L.P. as his client.

According to Duff Conacher, board member of Democracy Watch and adjunct professor with the University of Toronto faculty of law, Strahl is allowing his work with government departments and Enbridge to overlap in illegal ways.

“There’s a rule that you cannot work for any entity, or any organization, or anyone, that you had significant dealings with during your last year in office… And therefore Strahl should not have been dealing with Enbridge until May 18, 2013, which would have been two years after he left office,” he told DeSmog Canada.

"The open letter Strahl signed on to was illegal,” Conacher said. “You’re not allowed to make representations to anyone for any entity that you had significant official dealings with during your last year in office.”

Yet signing an open letter in favour of Enbridge projects is just the beginning of Strahl’s misdeeds, according to Conacher. Far more serious is Strahl’s position with the oversight committee tasked with protecting citizen rights from CSIS.

“Beyond that though there is a general rule about preventing conflicts of interest…so I don’t think he can work for Enbridge as chair of SIRC because that causes conflicts; it does not prevent them.”

In addition, Conacher worries Strahl’s cabinet position may have exposed him to government information that could be used to benefit Enbridge’s push for the Northern Gateway pipeline.

“There is another rule, that never ever in your entire life after you leave cabinet can you give advice using secret information that you’ve learned on the job,” he said.

“It’s not only that your not allowed to share the secret information; you’re not allowed to do that. But you’re not allowed to even give advice using the secret information. He can’t un-know what he knows and so his advice is based on what he knows. What he knows is secret information, therefore he’s prohibited from giving that advice.”

Canada’s ethics commissioner Mary Dawson has been politely side-stepping the issue, Conacher says. Her track record shows she tends to avoid controversy as well, with over 80 former ethics rulings made in secret. Conacher’s concern is that Dawson, a Conservative-appointed commissioner, is avoiding the hard questions — questions Democracy Watch details in its eight-page letter to her.

“It’s beyond conflict of interest. It’s also these other rules that apply and it’s not resolved by Strahl just recusing himself if a complaint comes forward about CSIS and Enbridge," he said. “And that’s what Mary Dawson has been dodging.”

Dawson is not required to investigate ethics complaints filed by members of the public. She would be required to investigate, however, if a member of parliament made the same complaint.

Strahl’s behaviour, Conacher says, is “very dangerously undemocratic” and “unethical” because it places “the interests of a few private companies way above the public interest.”

“That’s why it’s illegal,” he says. “Thankfully, it’s illegal.”

The Conflict of Interests Act has been reviewed over the past year by the House of Commons ethics committee. A full report outlining the position of each federal party on ethics issues is due out this week or when parliament resumes.

“You don’t have democracy if these rules are not strict, strong and enforced. As everyone knows: if you allow private interests to trump public interests then you don’t have democracy,” Conacher said. 

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What is ethical public relations? Where do you draw the line and what should your boundaries be when influencing public perceptions and opinions? As president of a Canadian public relations firm my colleagues and I face this question all the time. Some days the answer is more obvious than others, so I asked Rutgers University philosopher Jason Stanley how to maintain a principled position.

It’s a question that floats to the surface like a greasy slick these days because during the last 12 to 18 months, Canadians have been subjected to one of the most expensive and extensive PR campaigns in history, in an attempt to nudge public attention away from the environmental impacts of tankers, pipelines and oil sands mining, and redirect it towards economic benefits.

Whether it has been Enbridge ads regarding the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline — “A path to prosperity … a path to thriving communities” — or Canada’s own federal government talking about creating “more than a million jobs from coast to coast to coast,” the tactic has been relentless.

Harper’s federal government spent more than $55 million on advertising last year and conducted hundreds of polls, to not just reflect public opinion but also shape it. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) featured greenwashing, pro oil-sands ads that showed scientists and workers standing in pristine wilderness expounding their concern for the environment.

I asked Stanley what the communication ground rules are: Should the touchstone be whether you are increasing people’s understanding, or decreasing it? Or is that too naïve a distinction?

That’s an excellent distinction, he told me, except it’s unworkable. That's an intuitive guideline that people use, but facts are difficult things to nail down. It isn't that someone wants to make obviously false statements but people are constantly negotiating with the “boundary" of truth.[view:in_this_series=block_1]

Stanley, who specializes in the philosophy of language and epistemology, believes such boundaries are disappearing because scientific objectivity is either being eroded, or left completely out of conversations in the public square.

People today express opinions, not facts.

“Everyone is under the grip of an ideology, so what we’re doing is comparing ideological frameworks now.” He adds the right-wing media adds to the turmoil by saying whenever anyone asserts something you cannot believe them because they’re just trying to manipulate you for their own interests.

“Fox News is saying you can’t believe anything you hear because everyone is just trying to get you to accept their own ideology.”

For instance, the National Academy of Science and the Royal Society, which comprise many of the world’s most distinguished scientists, agree climate change is a serious problem. The American Petroleum Institute and the Fraser Institute, however, are two non-scientific organizations that do not.

How do you participate in debates about climate change and science when you’re not a scientist? How does the public benefit from this lop-sided debate, or draw any usable and meaningful conclusions?

The issues started to come into focus for me when I was doing a book tour soon after writing Climate Cover-Up in 2009. I was invited to speak at Yale Universities’ debate society, the Yale Political Union. After a nearly three-hour debate I decided to leave students with this thought:

When I was in first year law school a lot of us asked how you justify defending a rapist or serial killer. We were told the legal system was set up to be adversarial. It is based on the prosecution arguing a case, the defence arguing a case, and then a judge or jury deciding.

Everybody has a job and everyone puts faith in the process. When I got involved in the PR business I heard a similar argument about getting a client’s information into the court of public opinion. It wasn’t up to the PR firm to pass judgment.

But I see two big flaws in that thinking. First, there are no rules of evidence in the court of public opinion. When you talk about climate change especially, the public can be misled because there are no charges for perjury, no one is held accountable for tampering with evidence. And second, there is little distinction between an expert witness and a charlatan.

So how does the public judge?

Stanley says it makes sense that a scientific debate should take place in a “scientific way” through journals and conferences. When the public is involved, we can choose to believe and listen to those who are reliable, and tune out those who are not.

We may not all be experts in climate change but we can educate ourselves to understand what they're talking about to a certain degree. To continually listen to a debate among scientific illiterates adds little to the public discourse. 


When trying to judge where the truth lies, he warns there are two important tactics to be aware of:  One is the undermining of sincerity by special interest groups who know how to exploit a strategy that throws into question the credibility of public figures, and the second is to suggest that no one has special access to the facts about any domain.

People who claim the mantle of science are trying to say: “We’re the experts, you have to believe us because we are scientists.” In certain respects this latter point is right, says Stanley. But “We don't want Milton Friedman telling us economics is a science, and he's an expert, and we're not and we have to listen to him because there's competing models.”

There's a significant difference between economics and climate science. For one thing, economics is more akin to history and is an interpretive discipline rather than a predictive one. But the critical gulf between the two is: In economics there are many different views among experts whereas in climate science there are not.

When there are “wildly” different views, he says it’s inappropriate to feature only one expert’s view and hold them up as the single person to believe, “and let them boss you around.”

That's a clearly illegitimate use of a scientific expert. There are areas of science where there is genuine controversy, and where experts disagree. When such scientific disputes are present, then no expert should be allowed to claim their view is unchallenged.


But when it comes to climate science, this is clearly not the case.

There is overwhelming agreement and that’s what must be conveyed to the public.

Among climate scientists, the debate was settled years ago after an overwhelming consensus emerged in the literature. A review of the published research by James Lawrence Powell found that out of 13,950 peer-reviewed articles, published between 1991 and 2012, only 24 reject human-caused global warming. 

So, in fact, all that remains is a political debate about what to do to address it. Of course, scientists remain involved in the discussion, so they remain targets for attack and obfuscation.

What's happening in the climate debate is similar to what's happening in the case of evolution with the Discovery Institute, an American public policy think tank. “You have a whole industry of fake science being created, to create the illusion of controversy,” Stanley told me.

He said this is exacerbated when PR firms and news media create a “din” — where the facts are unclear, there is no uniformity to facts, no one is believable and everyone has a different agenda. That’s when people stop listening.

The engine driving this din is the turbine of powerful moneyed interests, whether oil and coal companies, or the people whose livelihoods depend on those industries, whether or not the industries are good for their country, their community, or for their children and grandchildren. 

The prison industrial complex is a staggering example of this. Massively important in the United States and becoming more so in Canada, Stanley explains the system does not make sense since imprisoning huge portions of a population is not an economically sound way to run a country.

“We in the U.S. imprison 25% of the world's prisoners, and have by far the largest prison population in the world … We shouldn't have a prison industry, but there are so many prison guards and so many lawyers, so many people whose livelihood depends on a steady influx. That's their job.” 

Such policies are promoted because of financial self-interest.

People are employed in industries that are clearly bad for the country and the world, yet people align their views with whatever is going to keep their paychecks coming every month.

We live in a complicated world with confusing debates and motivations churning on all sides.

We started DeSmog Canada because we wanted to clean up the PR pollution that swirls around issues of the environment, social justice and the economy. My interview with Stanley helped me understand how we accomplish that, by not only telling the truth and increasing people’s understanding, but also by encouraging people to look at issues in a different way and rely on trustworthy experts.

Without being an expert it’s very challenging to get to the bottom of things, but we have an obligation to try. There is no way we can all become authorities on climate science —— I don’t personally know anyone who’s taken an ice core sample from Greenland lately —— but part of being a good citizen is informing ourselves, figuring out who to trust, seeking those with proper credentials and keeping the discussion healthy.

We need to ask the right questions, and encourage the media to do the same, so we can detect the difference between fake and real debate.

Post image from Enbridge's Northern Gateway "Safety & Environment" web page.

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