When you cover energy and environment issues day in and day out, you’re prone to having some pretty geeky fantasies.

Case in point: over the holidays, my mind wandered to considering what advancements in Canadian energy policy I’d put on my wish list for 2015. I could have rattled off five or 10 things, but one kept rising to the top.

If I could wave my magic wand and make just one thing happen on the energy and environment front, what would it be? I’d like Alberta to start managing its oil wealth more responsibly.

The context: as 2014 draws to a close, Calgary public-school officials are asking the province to cough up the funding required to complete eight new schools and two modernization projects on time.

Right now, one-third of Calgary’s schools are running at more than 90 per cent capacity. All of the projects that require funding have been announced by Alberta Premier Jim Prentice since he took office in September.

“With the recent fluctuation in oil prices, we’re concerned,” Calgary Board of Education trustee Amber Stewart told Metro Calgary.

Let’s take a pause and reflect on how totally absurd this is for a moment.

Alberta has been developing one of the world’s largest sources of oil for more than 40 years and yet Calgary’s schools are nearly overflowing and the province doesn’t know if it’ll be able to locate the cash to build new ones because — surprise! — the price of oil changed.

So what’s wrong here? For starters, new infrastructure shouldn’t be tied to the price of oil. Even the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives can agree that the Alberta government shouldn’t rely on non-renewable resource revenue to fund its operating expenses. (For the best run-down on this topic, read Money for Nothing: The Province vs. Non-Renewable Resource Revenue by Alberta Oil editor Max Fawcett.)

Fawcett references a 2013 Fraser Institute report that said to treat oil revenues as “analogous to sales tax receipts, and to spend them on projects that provide a flow of present services, would be to engage in unwise capital consumption, a drawing down of principal. Intuitively, the present generation would be selfishly eating away at a finite stock pile of wealth, rather than acting as custodians of ­nature’s gifts on behalf of all future generations.”

Another report by former Premier Ed Stelmach’s Council for Economic Strategy noted: “The true Alberta advantage is not the ability to create a low-tax environment by underwriting a significant proportion of government services with funds received from the sale of energy assets.”

Despite generating almost $190 billion in non-renewable resource revenues since 1980, the value of Alberta’s Heritage Fund was just $17.3 billion at the end of 2013 — paling in comparison to both Norway and Alaska’s non-renewable resource savings.

So here we are digging up two millions barrels of oilsands per day, and Prentice is warning that tough times could lie ahead as oil prices plunge below $75 U.S. per barrel. The province has projected that there could be a $7 billion shortfall in revenues next year as a result of the price crash.

Could these fiscal woes offer the window of opportunity needed for Albertans to wake up and see how poorly their oil wealth is being managed?

It took millions of years for all of that oil to end up trapped in sand in northern Alberta. We only get one shot at digging it up. It’s high time we start getting that right (and getting that right would inevitably mean going slower and collecting higher royalties).

The first step in changing the way Alberta manages (or mismanages) the oilsands is to untether government spending from oil revenues, thus starting to dismantle the government’s reluctance to fairly regulate industry. Right now you have a situation in which the Alberta government is reluctant to bite the hand that feeds it.

As an added bonus, keeping one-time resource wealth out of the province’s operating budget could weaken the government’s chokehold over its citizens (pretty easy to stay in power when you’re dishing out $400 “prosperity cheques”) — not to mention actually creating a savings fund for the future.

In an interview with The Tyee, Terry Lynn Karl, one of North America's foremost experts on the politics of oil, offered some wise words on the impact of oil revenue on governments. 

"Let me be clear: the commodity itself is neither good nor bad,” she said. “But the excessive profit involved from what Adam Smith called 'reaping what has not been sown' has led to a concentration of power and influence that makes it exceptionally difficult to fight the negative consequences of hydrocarbon dependence.”

The first step to breaking up that concentration of power and influence? Stop borrowing from the future and spending oil revenue like it's going out of style.

So here’s a little new year’s resolution suggestion for Prentice and the Alberta government: show your commitment to managing the oilsands responsibly by weaning yourselves off relying on one-time oil revenues to provide government services. If you showed that kind of courage, there may be short-term pain, but Albertans 50 years from now would still be clinking their glasses in your honour.

Photo: Jim Prentice by Connect 2 Canada

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Good public policy improves the lives of Canadians, and contributions from civil society groups can significantly improve the public policy that governments make. Despite the benefits of working well together — to both sides, and to Canadians overall — relationships between the sector and governments are not without challenges.

Note: the term "civil society groups" includes both nonprofits, which have no limits on their political activities, and charities, which have well-defined limits on their “political activities,” as described below.

In the last three years, many within the charitable sector have become concerned about Canada Revenue Agency audits focused on political activities, but few realize that controversy over the regulation of charities dates back decades in our country.

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The current controversy revolves around 52 charites being audited in a $13.4 million program launched by the federal government in 2012 to determine whether any are violating a rule that limits spending on political activities to 10 per cent of resources. Some of those charities, including Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation, Canada Without Poverty, Ecology Action Centre and Equiterre, have gone public with the fact they are undergoing audits.

On February 6, 2014, CBC reporter Evan Solomon published a story and aired a segment on the television program Power and Politics about these audits. The news story raised the question of whether environmental charities critical of the government are being unfairly targeted for their “political activities” as defined by Canada Revenue Agency.

In October 2014, the Broadbent Institute further interrogated that question by releasing a report called Stephen Harper’s CRA: Selective audits, “political” activity, and right-leaning charities.

The Broadbent report examined publicly available CRA tax filings of 10 “right-wing” charities and cross-referenced these with their publicly available work. In each case, the charities had reported they had conducted no political activity between 2011 and 2013.

The Broadbent Institute’s report, which includes the Fraser Institute, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and Focus on the Family, provides examples of activity for each of the charities that the report’s authors argue meet the CRA’s definition of “political activity.” It’s unknown whether any of these charities are currently under audit.

Flashback to 1978: Trudeau Government Accused of “Muzzling Charities”

Controversy around charities undertaking “political activities” is anything but new. Thirty-six years ago, in February of 1978, the Trudeau government issued Information Circular 78-3. It warned charities that any political objects or activities would be understood as contravening the Income Tax Act, and could result in the revocation of an organization’s charitable status. The document took a broad view on what constituted political activities, and clarified that none of a charity’s resources could be devoted to them.

Charities, the federal opposition parties and the press reacted strongly to Information Circular 78-3, arguing it contravened the right of free speech, unduly constrained charities in their pursuit of improving society and ran against the democratic values of Canadians. 

An editorial in the Toronto Star from April 18, 1978, captures the tone of the response, calling it “outrageous” for the Trudeau government to “muzzle charities” with guidelines that “take the narrow view that while charities can directly aid the needy, for example, they can’t advocate changes in public policy that might benefit the needy [because] this is considered political activity.”

The Trudeau government defended its actions by claiming the information circular wasn’t a shift in policy, but rather only a reflection of the imperfect case law according to which purposes and activities of charities must be interpreted. Under ongoing pressure, the Trudeau government eventually suspended the circular. 

In 1987, the Mulroney government released Information Circular 87-1, which advanced the now familiar approach of allowing charities to undertake ancillary and incidental political activities that are not partisan and limited to expenditures of 10 per cent of a charity’s resources. The 1987 policy statement also required that charities report on both exempt and political activities in their annual information returns.

The mid-1990s to early 2000s saw an unprecedented amount of activity oriented to improving the relationship between the federal government and the charitable sector. It culminated in June of 2000, when the Chrétien government announced the Voluntary Sector Initiative, a five-year joint initiative between the sector and the government set up to improve their working relationship. Among the many outcomes of the initiative was a Code of Good Practice on Policy Dialogue (2002), which makes explicit why and how the federal government and the sector should work together on public policy.

In 2003, based in large measure on the work described above, and after open consultation with the sector, the Charities Directorate of Canada Revenue Agency updated its guidance on political activities with the release of CPS-022, which is still in effect today. It is substantially the same as Information Circular 87-1, but is more explicit and makes greater use of examples than previous guidance.

A close reading of the guidance reveals that Canada Revenue Agency permits more latitude in terms of political activities than many in the sector appear to believe (see: 10 Ways Charities Have Improved Canadians' Daily Lives). It would seem that at least some of the purported “advocacy chill” often cited in the sector flows from charities themselves not fully understanding the range of activities permitted by the regulator.

While some of the “chill” may be caused by charities’ own lack of understanding of the law, there’s no doubt part of it can also be attributed to the perception of a crackdown on the environmental sector.

While a robust regulator that conducts regular audits is an essential element of a well-functioning charitable sector, being audited is a stressful, time-consuming exercise that distracts from a charity fulfilling its mission. And when you have a government that has openly accused Canadian environmental groups of  “money laundering,” it’s little wonder environmental charities are feeling a little on edge at the moment. Only time will tell how the current audits will go down in the history books.

Obviously, the challenges presented by imperfect case law and an arcane regulatory regime around charities persist today. The Charities Directorate has recently launched a series of tools to help charities understand the rules. And the Pemsel Case Foundation was recently founded with a mission to foster better knowledge and understanding of charity law and regulation by the Canadian public and voluntary sector organizations.

A number of funders, including Max Bell Foundation, have taken an active interest in supporting charities who do public policy advocacy. I would hope these initiatives and others like them will help warm Canadian charities to the idea of doing public policy advocacy — because the potential rewards for all of us are enormous.

This article originally appeared in The Philanthropist.

Photo: Obert Madondo via Flickr

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A new report from the Broadbent Institute raises fresh questions about whether Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) audits are being used as a politicized tool to pressure critics of the federal government. 

The report, Stephen Harper’s CRA: Selective audits, “political” activity, and right-leaning charities, says several right-leaning charities are reporting zero “political” activity while engaging in work that appears to meet the CRA’s definition.

“We know charities that have been critical of policies of the Harper government are being audited by the Canada Revenue Agency. With mounting evidence suggesting bias in auditing decisions, we need to find out what’s going on here,” said Rick Smith, executive director of Broadbent Institute, a non-partisan organization founded by former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent.

Fifty-two charities are being targeted in a $13.4 million audit program launched by the federal government in 2012 to determine whether any are violating a rule that limits spending on political activities to 10 per cent of resources. Those charities include Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation, Canada Without Poverty, Ecology Action Centre and Equiterre.

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The Broadbent report examined publicly available CRA tax filings of 10 charities and cross-referenced these with their publicly available work. In each case, the charities had reported that they had conducted no political activity between 2011 and 2013.

The Broadbent Institute’s review, which includes the Fraser Institute, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and Focus on the Family, provides examples of activity for each of the charities that appear to meet the CRA’s definition of “political.”

For example, on Oct. 22, 2012, the Fraser Institute released a report calling for the B.C. government to lift its moratorium on offshore oil and gas exploration, which appears to fall under the CRA’s guideline on what constitutes political activity, which states an activity is political if “the intention of the activity is to incite, or organize to put pressure on, an elected representative or public official to retain, oppose, or change the law, policy, or decision of any level of government in Canada or a foreign country.”

The report raises fresh questions about the CRA’s selection process for determining which charities are targeted for political-activity audits.

Other groups scrutinized in the Broadbent report are: Macdonald-Laurier Institute, C.D. Howe Institute, the Montreal Economic Institute, Canadian Constitution Foundation, Energy Probe Research Foundation, Frontier Centre for Public Policy and Institute for Canadian Values.

It’s unknown whether any of these groups are currently under audit.

The Broadbent Institute is calling for the establishment of an independent inquiry to examine CRA processes to ensure transparency and fairness in its decision-making criteria around political-activity audits and interpretations of “political” activity, and to ensure such processes are not subject to political pressures or interference. 

“Political activity is a critical part of many charities’ work. Progressive or conservative, blunting the ability of civil society to advocate and to engage in debate and, occasionally, dissent should concern us all,” Smith said.

Photo: Obert Madondo via Flickr

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This is Part 1 in a four-part series outlining the attack on Canadian charities and the consequences of that attack. Read Part 2, Charities and Self-Censorship: Is Canada Going the Way of the UK?

In testifying before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance to deal with charity provisions in the 2012 Federal Budget, Jamie Ellerton, the Executive Director of Ethical Oil, offered a succinct definition of charity. “If you need to debate whether or not something is charitable,” he told the House, “it is not.”

Ellertonʼs definition of charity, takes 400 years worth of legal debate on the definition of charity, and wraps it up so tightly, makes it so simple, that one would wonder why it ever need be debated at all. If his were the working definition, charitable work would be limited to such tasks as feeding the hungry and planting trees.

Charities would have no say in making change to end hunger or protecting trees that are already standing. They would be mute players, picking up the pieces when government fails to protect the public interest. It is all too clear that the simple definition might be preferred by a government intent on ending conversations – or at least controlling them.

The 2003 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) policy statement on charities and political activity, CPS-022, was born out of the complexity of the subject matter it deals with. The statement was formulated after years of research, panels and studies to increase both the effectiveness and the accountability of Canadaʼs voluntary sector. It clarified the definition of political activity, and expanded the types of political activities charitable organizations can undertake. The new rules proposed in the 2012 budget once again tightened the restrictions on political activities and gave the Minister of National Revenue new powers to suspend charitable privileges. The government justified these changes in part because of Ethical Oilʼs complaints about various environmental charities engaging in political activity.

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Whatʼs the problem with a charity taking political action? As Ellerton stated in his testimony to the House:

"The main reason why the courts rule out political purposes for charity is, is the result of the requirement that a purpose is only charitable if it generates a public benefit."

If a charitable purpose needs to generate public benefit, what is public benefit, and who decides? In 2012, the Canadaʼs Conservative government looked to its friends at Ethical Oil to decide. If the the Council of Canadians had lodged a complaint against the Fraser Institute on the same basis – would the government have moved to change the regulations on charities and political activities?

What was it about Ethical Oil that launched them into such a privilege position? Perhaps it was the organizationʼs ties to the Conservative Party of Canada – Ellerton, for one, was an aide to Minister Jason Kenney prior to taking the helm at Ethical Oil. Or maybe, the Government was in fact happy to hear from a group of concerned citizens.

The government knows, however, that most Canadians donʼt share Ethical Oilʼs un-critical faith in the oil industry. Recent polling shows that Canadians value environmental sustainability, and would like to see their leaders do more to address problems such as climate change. A poll conducted by Natural Resources Canada expressed Canadian values this way: Foremost, participants saw the Governmentʼs primary role as guarding against negative outcomes or undue environmental or public health impacts of energy sector activity. These relate to activities such as extracting, processing, using and transporting resources. Participants identified actions such as establishing and enforcing regulations and laws and providing oversight.

Public opinion, as Justice Robert Décary stated in the case, Everywomanʼs Healthcare vs. MNR (1988), is a “fragile and volatile concept.” If it were left to the public to decide on the meaning of charity, or whether an act was beneficial to the public, that judgement could well become “a battle between the pollsters.” In his decision, Judge Décary explains that the decision has been one that has been left to the courts, so as to prevent it from becoming a political football. In 2012, the courts were not called to weigh in, and the term public benefit was merely tossed around.

Canadian environmental charities exist for the purpose of promoting the publicʼs interest in a healthy environment. The act of holding the government accountable for environmental protection in the Alberta tar sands, the largest industrial project in human history, is a charitable act. This fact is outlined in CPS-022, and asserted in its preceding document, An Accord Between the Government of Canada and the Voluntary Sector. The Accord states, on page 17:

The independence of voluntary sector organizations includes their right within the law to challenge public policies, programs and legislation and to advocate for change.

In complaining, publicly, about these actions as conducted by Environmental Defense, The David Suzuki Foundation and Tides Canada, Ethical Oil turned the legitimate issue of government accountability into a false debate about the definition of charity. The purpose of these organizations was, and remains, well accepted as a public benefit, but Ethical Oil found a way to make that purpose vulnerable to political attack.

Canadaʼs current government sees its top priority as economic development, and has in the last four years has met more with representatives of the oil and gas industry than members of any other interest group. This government has chosen a strategy of censorship and obfuscation, as opposed to democratic engagement and dialogue.

When it comes to environmental charities, the government has attempted to poison the strong relationship they have with Canadians and create a legal climate which makes acts of environmental protection criminal. Labeling them “foreign radicals” was shocking and absurd, but including them as a potential threat in their Counter Terrorism Strategy? As charity and non-profit lawyer Terrance S. Carter writes in his article, Canadaʼs Counter Terrorism Strategy Targets Environmentalism, it is unclear why environmentalists were singled out or how they are logically connected to white supremacists or other recent examples of domestic terrorism: "Likening environmentalists and animal rights groups to home-grown terrorists and mass murderers raises the question of whether the government is blurring the lines of counter-terrorism in order to target otherwise legitimate opponents and justify questionable surveillance campaigns."

Marco Navarro-Genie, a political scientist from the right-wing think-tank, Frontier Centre, told the Vancouver Sun he was not surprised the government put a halt to some environmental groupʼs “incendiary” influence on the public policy debate.

"There seems to have been a greater deal of sympathy among the public and media for a little bit of the radical edge [of environmentalism]. It seems to be based on the notion that you have to push the envelope to get somewhere. That basically throws out the window any kind of [common sense] conversation about the environment."

Which brings us back to Ethical Oil – the perfect foil in a debate thatʼs been twisted. Healthy democratic debate on any matter of public interest is a good thing. We should welcome the opportunity to discuss the idea of public benefit, and to question the role of charitable organizations in our political landscape – but not as a distraction from other important conversations.

Other countries are debating the meaning of charity as well, and many leaders in Canadaʼs voluntary sector were not satisfied with the 2003 policy changes. They felt the statement hadnʼt done enough to bring Canadian charities freedoms comparable to their counterparts in the US, the UK and elsewhere.

This series will aim to unravel all the complicated threads of what political powers charities have, and what powers charities are barred from, and how the debate over those is playing out elsewhere. We can add to our own conversation, and hopefully find a way forward with a wider perspective.

Image Credit: Jamie Ellerton testifying before the House of Commons Committee.

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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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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.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

EthicalOil.org’s new spokesperson, Kathryn Marshall, authored an insulting piece this week on the Huffington Post titled "Care About Women's Rights? Support Ethical Oil". Marshall’s piece is a response to the October 11 article by Maryam Adrangi at It’s Getting Hot In Here.  Adrangi argues that the underlying motive of the "ethical oil" campaign is to deflect negative attention from the tar sands, not to actually engage in a conversation about women’s liberation.

“If women’s rights were of genuine concern to EthicalOil.org” writes Adrangi, “then there would be a conversation about the impacts that tar sands extraction has on women”.

You’ll notice that Marshall’s attempted rebuttal fails to actually address the substantive criticisms made in Adrangi’s piece – Marshall never mentions the impacts of Alberta’s tar sands development on women, but instead repeats the same arguments and general hand-waving that sparked Adrangi’s criticism of EthicalOil.org's conservative pundits in the first place.

Marshall’s promotion of tar sands oil is framed around a central argument that if we care about women’s rights then we must support tar sands expansion, and by extension the Keystone XL pipeline, because Canadian women fare far better than women in petrocracies, such as Saudi Arabia.  But Marshall’s argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny for three major reasons.

The first is that increasing tar sands output will not hurt the Saudi sheiks' coffers. TransCanada’s own research proves that the Keystone XL pipeline was never meant to decrease our reliance on foreign oil, just to keep Gulf Coast refineries at capacity. As global demand for oil keeps going up, a marginal shift in Canadian and US consumption will be offset by growing demand from other countries, keeping prices high and continuing to enrich the oppressive Saudi regime. Expanding the tar sands just buys Saudi Arabia a bit more time to profit before we are compelled to shift away from oil addiction towards a clean energy future – the real 'ethical' choice.

This leads to the second major flaw in Ethicaloil.org’s argument: it presents the reader with a false choice. Marshall’s bait-and-switch suggests that we must make a choice between “conflict oil” and “ethical oil”. On the contrary, you can simultaneously support women’s rights and oppose Alberta’s tar sands. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, to say the least. If we really want to hurt the regimes of oppressive petrocracies, then the wise choice is to end our addiction to fossil fuels and move rapidly towards a clean energy economy, setting a model that the rest of the world can follow. EthicalOil.org's entire line of reasoning is a diversionary tactic designed to obscure this hard reality. It's a red herring, and a dangerous one at that.

Third, Marshall’s emotional appeal tells readers that because women’s rights are worse in petrocracries, then we needn’t concern ourselves with what’s happening in Canada. In Canada, we have female mayors and premiers. We are a liberal democratic nation that respects human rights. I agree that the plight of women in many petrocracies is grave, but that does not mean that the plight of many women in Canada deserves less consideration from Canadians. 

We can and should engage in critical discussions on women’s rights in Canada. And tar sands expansion forces us to explore some of these issues head-on.

In Alberta’s tar sands region in particular, rates of sexual violence towards women have increased and women working in the industry have reported sexual harassment and gender discrimination. With expansion of the tar sands industry, instances of domestic violence in Fort McMurray have spiralled upwards, and few women have safe places to go, forcing many to return home to their abusers.

Instead of pretending that expanding the tar sands will somehow help women in Saudi Arabia, let's talk about how we can help Canadian women impacted right here at home by tar sands expansion. 

Marshall boldly demands to know where Canadian women’s groups have been in speaking out against Saudi women’s oppression. Did she ever think to ask these groups? I did. For one, Jan Slakov, the National Secretary for Canadian Voices of Women for Peace, the organization that Marshall attacks in her piece, told me, 

"The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace has worked to support women's rights and well-being, not just in Canada, but around the world. Groups have raised funds to support programs in countires where women face systematic human rights abuses. We also work at the international level to support women's rights through the UN."

As a Women’s Studies graduate, Marshall should know that Canadian women's rights groups are engaged in this fight directly. Instead, Marshall, while claiming to be an advocate of women’s rights, erases the history of the women’s rights movement in Canada and its work in global solidarity with women living under oppressive regimes. I can’t speak for women’s groups, but I think it’s telling that we haven’t heard any credible organizations supporting EthicalOil.org’s message. I suspect they see right through EthicalOil.org’s insincere issue hijacking. 

"We recognize that extreme weather events associated with climate change disproportionately affect women, especially in the world's poorest countries.  This is one of the many reasons why we feel it is essential that Canada do its part to cut GHG emissions to the earth's atmosphere."

Marshall's attempts to disparage Canadian women's rights groups proves Maryam Adrangi’s point: “When we get attention, they get defensive and they look silly.” 

And what else frankly looks silly is Kathryn Marshall's connections to the oil lobby. Marshall learned her pro-oil talking points as an intern with the fossil fuel-funded Fraser Institute. Their internship program is funded in part by oil and gas money, including Gwyn Morgan of Encana and R.J. Pirie of Sabre Energy. Until July 2009, Marshall worked as Fraser's Development Manager and raised over $125,000 to promote pro-oil, free market thinking.

Given this, it's clear whose interests she's chiefly representing, and it isn't women's rights. It's the oil industry and its status quo profiteering without regard to the impacts of pollution on our planet, our familes and especially our women.

Ethicaloil.org,  if you really care about women’s rights, how about engaging in a real discussion of the impacts of the tar sands on First Nations communities and women? Prove you’re engaged in the advancement of women’s rights by joining the conversation about how to actually challenge oppressive Saudi sheiks –through a transition to a clean energy future. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.