The National Energy Board’s decision to grant Costco intervener status in its review of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline even though it had missed the deadline to apply is raising questions given that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was denied its request for an extension to the same deadline.

Costco submitted a late application to participate in the review of Kinder Morgan’s proposal to triple the capacity of its pipeline to Burnaby on April 9, 2015. The company argued that it received formal notice of the pipeline’s potential impacts on its Langley property on Feb. 4, 2015, when it was served with notice for land acquisition.

In a letter sent to all interveners, the National Energy Board wrote that Costco had provided sufficient reasons for the board to consider a late submission based on the fact “the project may cross Costco’s lands and it has the potential to be directly affected.”

American authorities are nervous about Kinder Morgan’s proposal to increase oil tanker traffic by a factor of seven through the shared waters off B.C.’s coast, particularly in light of the recent slow response to a small fuel spill in Vancouver Harbour.

“A catastrophic oil spill would set the Puget Sound clean-up effort back decades, and result in billions of dollars in harm to our economy and environment,” the state’s Ecology Department officials wrote to Washington Governor Jay Inslee in 2013 in documents obtained by the Globe and Mail.

The officials also raised red flags about Canada’s oil spill response capability, writing: “B.C. lacks authority over marine waters, and their federal regime is probably a couple of decades behind the system currently in place in Washington State. … When it is spilled, we are concerned that dilbit oil may be considerably more toxic and damaging, and far more difficult to clean up, than conventional crude from Alaska.”

The documents also indicate that American officials urged the U.S. to sue the NEB for barring the EPA from participating in the hearings on the grounds that it had missed the deadline to apply.

Ultimately, the EPA was granted a lower status as a “commenter,” which does not provide the same ability to provide sworn evidence or ask questions of the proponent.

Asked why Costco was granted intervener status when the EPA was not, National Energy Board Communications Officer Tara O’Donovan told DeSmog Canada that the EPA never officially asked for intervenor status — instead, they asked for an extension to the deadline to apply. The board denied that request in this ruling “as the EPA had not outlined how it would be impacted if it was not able to submit a late application.”

“This letter did not provide any information about the EPA’s mandate, why it sought participation in the hearing, or whether it sought intervenor or commenter status. The Board is required by natural justice to make each decision solely on the basis of the information filed on its record,” O’Donovan wrote via e-mail.

The EPA subsequently filed a late application to participate as a commenter, which “included further details on the agency and the relevant information or expertise it could provide to the board.” The board then granted the EPA commenter status in an April 2, 2014, ruling.

The Globe reported this week that EPA officials wrote in e-mails that the NEB’s decision was contrary to the boards’ obligations under Canadian law. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act requires the NEB to “consult and co-operate” with the EPA.

 “It does appear that NEB should have consulted with the U.S. (and, in turn, EPA and other such agencies) given the scope of the project which will increase tanker traffic in the [Puget] Sound. … NEB never actually sent out an offer to consult as contemplated by Section 18 of the CEAA,” wrote Courtney Weber of the agency’s Seattle office in the documents obtained by the Globe.

The National Energy Board is expected to make its recommendation to the federal government by January 2016.

The board has been criticized for eliminating all oral cross-examination of evidence during the Trans Mountain review. Many of the province of British Columbia's questions — including its request to see Kinder Morgan's oil spill response plan — have been refused. The City of Burnaby says only three of its last 217 questions were answered.

In late March, several B.C. mayors declared non-confidence in the National Energy Board and called on the federal government to put the current process on hold. The mayors also called  upon the Government of British Columbia to re-assert its role in environmental assessment and to establish a provincial process to assess the Trans Mountain proposal.

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Revelations from DeSmog Canada’s exclusive sit-down interview with Harry Swain, the chair of the panel that reviewed the $8.8 billion Site C dam, were raised during question period in the B.C. legislature on Thursday.

Andrew Weaver, Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA and Deputy Leader of the B.C. Green Party, asked the government about the economics of the Site C dam project in light of Swain’s unprecedented interview.

Swain, a former Deputy Minister of Industry Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, is thought to be the first review panel member in Canadian history to speak out about a project in this manner. His comments to DeSmog Canada prompted follow-up by the Globe and Mail, CBC, CKNW and CFAX.

“Mr. Swain was very clear that the government was rushed in approving Site C, and British Columbians will pay for their haste,” Weaver said during question period. “As Mr. Swain said: ‘Wisdom would have been waiting for two, three, four years to see whether the projections they’ — that’s BC Hydro — ‘were making had any basis in fact.’ That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement for the fiscal underpinning of Site C.”

The panel that reviewed Site C predicted that the dam will lose $800 million in its first four years of production while it sells excess power for a third of its cost on the export market.

“My goodness, we could use that money to build a state-of-the-art sewage system in Victoria,” Weaver quipped.

Weaver continued during question period:

“Mr. Swain is only the most recent person to suggest waiting a few years to see if electricity demand for the project materializes. We could still build Site C down the road if necessary, but we could use the additional time to properly explore cheaper alternatives like our vast geothermal potential in B.C. We have the time. LNG final investment decisions are delayed or not happening at all or somewhere down the yellow brick road or perhaps in never-never land.”

Weaver asked Bill Bennett, the Minister of Energy and Mines: “Given the massive costs associated with rushing into Site C, will he hit the pause button on construction for two to four years, as recommended by Mr. Swain, and use the time to save British Columbians money and explore viable alternatives?"

Bennett responded saying, “I categorically disagree with the premise of the question” and then went on to say: “Fair enough questions about the need for the electricity, the cost of the project. These are all legitimate issues that we should be debating in this House.”

Bennett then quoted several excerpts from the panel’s report, including that Site C “would be the least expensive of the alternatives, and its cost advantages would increase with passing decades as inflation makes alternatives more costly” and that BC Hydro “has done a responsible job in forecasting.”

The panel's report also said it did not have the information, time or resources to look at the accuracy of cost estimates and recommended that, if the project proceeds, costs and need should be examined in detail by the province’s independent regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission. The panel noted it could not conclude the dam was needed on the schedule presented and said the province had failed to investigate alternatives — something it was instructed to do 32 years ago, when the utilities commission first turned down the Site C dam on the Peace River. 

Swain called this failure to research alternatives a ‘dereliction of duty’ in his interview with DeSmog Canada.

“Those are very strong words from a very highly regarded senior official from the Canadian government,” Weaver said Thursday in the legislature. “To be even more blunt, it’s recklessness on the part of the government.”

Weaver continued:

"What we need right now is a government that is willing to show leadership on this, willing to put good policy ahead of ideological politics. My question to the minister is this. Will he listen to the call from every member of this side of the House, along with the expert opinion of the joint review panel and countless others, to send the Site C project to the British Columbia Utilities Commission for a proper regulatory review?"

Bennett continued his refusal to send the project for a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Bennett responded:

"B.C. Hydro figures that we’re going to need 1,100 megawatts of electricity in 2024. We set about, over the past two years, to determine what’s the best way to get that 1,100 megawatts of electricity. We looked at absolutely everything, and the decision that we made on this side of the House was to honour the ratepayer. We chose the option that is the fairest, lowest cost to the ratepayer, but that side of the House wants us to do something different."

But the panel that reviewed the Site C proposal found the government hadn't looked at "absolutely everything," as Bennett states.

“The panel concludes that a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs,” the panel's report read.

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA) has argued geothermal can meet all of B.C.’s future energy needs at a lower cost than Site C with fewer environmental impacts. The association has requested meetings with Minister Bennett with no success.

"We welcome him to become more informed and to engage in constructive dialogue with the association and with our members," said Alison Thompson, chair of CanGEA.

In a press release, Weaver said the minister's talking points are missing the point. “This dam didn’t make sense for B.C. thirty years ago, and it doesn’t make sense now.”

“The question that needs to be asked is what’s the rush?” Weaver added. “LNG isn’t materializing along the timeline promised by government. Even if B.C. Hydro’s current projections are true, we still have up to four years before we need to start building the dam. We should use that time to explore alternatives before embarking on the largest infrastructure project in B.C. history.”

The full official transcript of the exchange in the Legislature can be viewed on Hansard.

BC Hydro is scheduled to begin construction on the Site C dam this summer, but the project is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.  

The dam would be the third on the Peace River and would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace Valley, impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land. The project is opposed by B.C.’s Treaty 8 First Nations, several of which have filed lawsuits.

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Part 1 of DeSmog Canada’s exclusive sit-down interview with Harry Swain, the man who chaired the panel tasked with reviewing BC Hydro’s Site C dam, sparked a firestorm of activity on Tuesday.

Energy Minister Bill Bennett responded to Swain’s critique in the Globe and Mail, the B.C. NDP issued a statement on Swain’s comments and an environmental law expert called the statements “unprecedented.”

Martin Olszynski, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, said Swain’s comments are extremely rare.

“To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that a panel member has spoken about a previous report in this manner,” Olszynski, an expert in environmental assessment, said. “To my knowledge, it’s unprecedented.”

The concerns Swain raises are not unusual though, Olszynski pointed out.

“The course of actions taken by the B.C. and federal governments in this case are not atypical,” he said. “They very often will ignore, or pay only lip service to, the recommendations of their expert panels. If you talked to other people who have served on similar panels — if they were willing to talk — they might express similar frustration.”

Geothermal Recommendations for B.C. Ignored …. For 32 Years

Certainly, the issue of recommendations being ignored is a live one in the case of the 1,100-megawatt Site C dam proposed for the Peace River. The dam is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.

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But beyond that, one of the key issues the panel raised in its report was the B.C. government’s failure to follow a recommendation to investigate alternatives to the dam, particularly geothermal — a recommendation made 32 years ago by the B.C. Utilities Commission when it first turned down the Site C proposal.

“The province or the province and its wholly owned subsidiary BC Hydro should have taken to heart the admonitions of the utilities commission 32 years ago and done some of the basic work that would allow an industry to develop,” Swain told DeSmog Canada. “But they didn’t do it, so there we are.”

In speaking notes obtained by DeSmog Canada, the province prepares to deflect questions about why it hasn’t pursued geothermal.

“While geothermal energy has a role to play in British Columbia, it has been slow to develop and has not developed the track record to reliably meet today’s growing demand,” read the notes prepared for the government’s Site C announcement in December.

Asked what he makes of that statement, Swain responded: “Dereliction of duty.”

The B.C. government has the principal responsibility for lands and resources under the constitution, Swain said.

“And in that sense, the province owes — in my view — an obligation to the citizens of B.C. to do a lot of basic mapping and exploration,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a major resource industry in this country that didn’t start without governments doing some of the basic work.”

Canada is the only country around the Pacific Ring of Fire that does not produce geothermal power at a commercial scale.

Vast Amount of Data Available From Gas Drillers on Geothermal Potential

In the past three decades, technological advances have led to the discovery of even more geothermal potential in B.C. — including in the Peace Country, where the Site C dam is proposed.

“Up in the Peace, in the very strata that are being drilled for natural gas, there’s a lot of hot water,” Swain said. “Moreover, since the well logs of exploration and drilling companies are supposed to be deposited with the provincial government, there is a vast amount of information available. It was surprising to me that no attempt had been made to exploit that information.”

The challenge is that currently BC Hydro, the province’s crown energy corporation, is forbidden by law to involve itself in projects beyond big hydro and large transmission projects.

“All of the other production stuff is to come from the holy private sector,” Swain said.

To prevent future governments and panels from being “seriously uninformed” again, the panel recommended that, regardless of the decision taken on Site C, BC Hydro establish a research and development budget for the characterization of geographically diverse renewable resources.

“It’s probably fair to say that institutionally Hydro really, really wants to build this,” Swain said. “And that’s perfectly understandable. If you ask the Ford company, ‘what would you like to do?’ they’ll say ‘build cars.’ If you ask Boeing ‘what’s the solution to our transportation problems?’ they’ll say ‘airplanes.’ ”

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association has argued geothermal can meet B.C.’s future energy needs at a lower cost than Site C with fewer environmental impacts. The association has called for a one-year moratorium on Site C to allow time for further due diligence on geothermal.

The LNG Wild Card: Inconsistency in Province’s Statements

One of the B.C. government’s go-to talking points on Site C has been that the dam is needed to power the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. In a Jan. 30th letter to the Peace River Regional District, Energy Minister Bill Bennett wrote that liquefied natural gas facilities would drive more electricity demand than the Joint Review Panel accounted for in its report (due to an addition error).

Swain says that, although there was an addition error in the report, it doesn’t change the conclusion: demand for the dam wasn’t proven.

“Given skepticism about LNG and about demand elasticity, I see no reason to modify the conclusion,” Swain said. “Frankly, I think their low-demand figure was probably overstated. So far there is no evidence that even their low usage scenario is likely to take place.”

Beyond that, if the province’s original LNG dreams had come to pass as quickly as they’d stated and if the plants had relied on grid electricity (two big ifs), that power would have been needed well ahead of Site C’s in-service date of 2024. A single LNG plant can require as much as 700 megawatts of electricity to run the giant compressors required to cool gas to 163 degrees below zero; at least 10 plants are proposed for B.C.’s coast, but it’s unclear whether any will come to fruition.

“If the initial scenario took place, the power demand would arise a long time before Site C could be built,” Swain said. “There really wasn’t a compatibility between the two statements of the province if you think of one statement about the development of the LNG industry and the second about the timeframe in which Site C was to be built. By their own story, they had an inconsistency.”

Site C Dam ‘No Ordinary Project’

About 20 B.C. local governments have asked the government to send Site C to the B.C. Utilities Commission to further investigate demand and costs — a recommendation made in the panel’s report and echoed by Swain in Part 1 of his interview with DeSmog Canada.

With a price tag of $8.8 billion, Site C would constitute the largest expenditure of public money in B.C. history.

“Site C is not an ordinary project,” the panel wrote in its report.

Swain said British Columbians should pay attention because “it’s going to effect them in the pocket book,” “destroy valuable bits of landscape” and “affect the constitutionally protected rights of First Nations.”

He suggested British Columbians consider the dam in light of the alternatives.

“Have we really pushed conservation and efficiency as far as they can go? And the answer is no,” he said. “What other kinds of generation or energy production are available and what are their costs and benefits?”

Swain called B.C.’s refusal to consider its entitlement under the Columbia River Treaty “inexplicable” and noted the verdict is still out on how British Columbians will react to electricity prices going up 30 per cent in the next three years (demand could decrease, for example).

Ultimately, the way forward needs to be one that considers all the options, not just large hydro dams.

“The province has defined the role of Hydro as being very limited,” Swain said. “If this were not the BC Hydro company, but simply … the ‘energy company’ whose job it was to make sure that demand was satisfied at reasonable prices regardless of source, regardless of who got to build and own, regardless of those kinds of extraneous considerations, we might have a more balanced view.”

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“All media requests are not equal.”

Journalists from small, alternative and independent media outlets have long believed that’s why they get no response or a delayed response when they contact the government for information. That can make it more difficult for them to break stories, frustrating the public’s right to know.

But it’s also an adage you’d never, ever expect to see the government write down — until spin doctors at the federal department of citizenship and immigration did exactly that in a document I obtained via a recent access to information request.

Was it a pique of honesty that led them to put those words in black and white, an error or just plain indiscretion?

Well, according to a department representative, the document — a 16-page draft guide prepared for citizenship and immigration’s spokespeople — was never approved and doesn’t reflect how media requests are actually handled.

But, even with that caveat in mind, the guide may give us a glimpse inside the mind of a government spin doctor.

It states, “Inquiries received from major media outlets must receive greater attention and effort…than calls received from minor media sources or student journalists.”

Similarly, “calls from major international media outlets (i.e. Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times) as well as calls on sensitive issues,” demand even more attention.

In other words, according to the guide, the department should give more help to foreign reporters — and their audiences — than some Canadian reporters.

But, in an e-mail, citizenship and immigrations media relations advisor Nancy Caron used capital letters to stress the “DRAFT” nature of that document.

The first page of the document stresses the same thing, adding “procedures are constantly evolving to meet changing circumstance.”

It then goes on to state that the guide is simply meant to provide “a snapshot of where we are today. It reflects how the DG of communications, the Director of Ministerial Events and Media Relations and the Minister’s Office wish us to process media calls.”

Nevertheless, according to Caron, the document was “never presented to, nor approved by CIC’s management.”

Indeed, she stated her department “provides all media outlets with the same service level and attention. Media requests are triaged and addressed based on deadlines for publication…In fact, in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, 90.7% of journalists’ deadlines were met, regardless of their outlet.”

But journalists I spoke with say the “all media requests are not equal” approach matches their own dealings with the federal government.

Jeremy Nuttall, national reporter for the online magazine The Tyee, has said that, “Forget about the back burner, it feels like you’re not even on the stove.”

An example: back in 2012, when Nuttall was reelancing for The Tyee and covering the government’s controversial decision to approve the use of temporary foreign workers by HD Mining International Ltd. in British Columbia.

He said the citizenship and immigration “answered at first…then darkness” when the story “heated up.”

“I’ve worked for larger places and there is more of an effort [by government] to get your replies,” said Nuttall, who has also reported for the Canadian Press, CBC News and the Globe and Mail.

Parliament Hill freelancer Justin Ling said he’s had similar experiences. “I’ve been doing a lot of stories for Vice News recently and I can tell you the departments don’t care about Vice News,” he said. “It’s not their demographic, they just don’t give a shit.”

“The departments definitely have targeted approaches based on who you are calling from and who you are,” continued Ling, who has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post and Maclean’s.

“The consequence is that it reinforces the consortium of news outlets that people go to for news. It’s unfortunate.”

It is — especially at a time when those outlets are on the decline, with journalists outside the “consortium” trying to investigate stories the mainstream no longer can.

By treating those journalists as second-class reporters — either in policy or in practice — the government is once again frustrating the public’s right to know.

Because if members of the fourth estate can’t get the information they need from the government, neither can Canadians — keeping voters in the dark and their elected officials unaccountable.

This post originally appeared on Sean Holman's Unknowable Country.

The Media Call Process at Citizenship and Immigration

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Postmedia has struck a $316 million deal to buy 175 of Quebecor’s English-language newspapers, specialty publications and digital properties, including the Sun chain of papers, according to a report in the Globe and Mail this morning.

If it passes regulatory hurdles, the deal will mark a step further down the path of media concentration in Canada.

What does this mean for Canadians in practical terms?

In Calgary, for instance, the Calgary Sun would be owned by the same company as the Calgary Herald. In Toronto, the Toronto Sun and 24 Hours would be owned by the same company as the National Post. In Ottawa, the Ottawa Sun would be owned by the same company as the Ottawa Citizen. And in Edmonton, the Edmonton Sun would be owned by the same company as the Edmonton Journal.

It’s Vancouver that takes the cake for media concentration though — Postmedia already owned the Vancouver Sun and The Province, but if the deal goes through it will take over the free daily 24 Hours as well.

In a statement, Postmedia president and CEO Paul Godfrey said the company intends “to continue to operate the Sun Media major market dailies and their digital properties side by side with our existing properties in markets with multiple brands as we have in Vancouver with the Province and the Vancouver Sun for more than 30 years.”

Sean Holman, journalism professor at Mount Royal University, says the deal means three major things for the Canadian public.

“First, I think the Canadian public should be worried about what this potential sale could mean for press freedom,” Holman says. “If you have one media owner with the capability to dictate editorial policy across almost every single major newspaper in the country, that is not a healthy thing. There may be assurances of newsroom editorial independence, but we have seen over the years that newsroom independence has been violated by Canadian media owners.”

Holman also notes that as media companies encounter more financial trouble, business reasons are increasingly being used to compromise editorial standards. Case in point: In June, DeSmog Canada revealed that Postmedia had been running unlabelled oil advertorials.

The second major reason Canadians should be worried about this deal has to do with press criticism, Holman says.

“Right now, the Canadian media is not held to a very high level of accountability,” he says. “You look down in the States at the amount of media analysis and media criticism there is there and we simply can’t hold a candle to that. This potential sale will make that worse.

“If there is only really one major employer behemoth, how reluctant are newspaper journalists going to be to criticize one of their few major potential employers?”

Thirdly, Canadians ought to be worried about the capacity of the media to cover the important issues, Holman says.

“[Postmedia CEO] Godfrey has said that the chain won’t be closing any of Sun Media’s properties in major markets. I note that that statement does not include minor markets. Without further clarification, at this point in time, we could see closures there…We could see layoffs.”

“And as we reduce those newspaper resources and newsrooms themselves, that erodes the capacity of the media to perform its societal role which is to hold power to account.”

Media capacity is getting to such a point in Canada that Holman says Canadians need to be having a serious national conversation about how we are going to hold power to account in the absence of companies that seem to be concerned with that.

“I think this is certainly going to increase the pressure on independent and activist media to perform some of those tasks, which mainstream newsrooms may not be able to fulfill,” Holman says.

At DeSmog Canada, we are trying to fill that gap and hold power to account. Please give what you can today.

Photo: Rachael F. via Flickr

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This week, Natural Resources Canada released a major report on climate change and its potential impacts in Canada. The report is novel-thick, the first significant NRCan missive on climate change since 2008, and it rattles off a list of near-future worries that will be familiar to anyone watching climate news closely — heavier rains, more extreme weather events, rising sea levels and acidifying oceans.

You can be forgiven if this is the first you heard of it, since the report was published without so much as a press release. I can only assume this is because the report represents a straightforward, data-driven, thoughtful analysis of the status of the planet’s climate and the likely impact of a changing climate on Canada’s environment, economy and society. And this kind of serious talk is just not how you talk about climate change in Ottawa these days.

I speak often to a wide range of Canadian audiences – from conventional and renewable energy professionals to academic crowds to municipal officials – about the status of the green economy’s vanguard, much of which is situated in western Europe. And I frequently encounter some variation on the same question: Why has Canada lagged so far behind in building a low-carbon society? There’s no single answer, but when I’m in need of a shorthand, I say that we’ve failed for the most part to develop and maintain a serious public conversation about climate change. We talk about climate change – a ubiquitous, universal problem of epochal scale – as something distant in time and space, self-contained and inconsequential, unworthy of intense and sustained scrutiny. Sometimes, our government doesn’t even tell the public when it has issued a major report on the subject.

Another textbook example of Canada’s stunted climate conversation transpired just days before the NRCan study’s launch, when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott paid a visit to Stephen Harper in Ottawa. It was a perfunctory state visit for the most part. Harper and Abbott had no big announcements to make, no agreements to sign or policies to peddle. There was a photo op, then a press conference at which a joint statement was delivered. The media, in Harper’s preferred style, were strictly limited to four questions, two from the Aussies and two from the Canadians. Later in the evening, there was a formal dinner, which the Aussie press corps didn’t bother sticking around for. As Colin Horgan put it in a Guardian post-mortem, the whole thing was “a lesson from political message makers on how to create nothing out of something.”

And yet there was some news generated by this Seinfeldian summit. It emerged when one of the Australian reporters who’d been granted the rare privilege of a question asked about Barack Obama’s recently unveiled climate plan. Abbott and Harper, who take evident pride in being two of the world’s least enthusiastic climate change warriors, used the question as an opportunity to lecture the rest of the world on its irrationality and hypocrisy regarding the climate file.

A shrug and a sneer at climate change

The full responses of the respective prime ministers to this question are in this post from Mike De Souza if you’d like to read the whole thing. The takeaway was a two-parter, a shrug and a sneer at taking action on climate change. Abbott handled the shrug. “It’s not the only, or even the most important problem that the world faces,” he said. Then he aimed his rhetorical sneer at do-gooder wastrels like the ones who’d passed a carbon tax in Australia. “We shouldn’t clobber the economy and that’s why I’ve always been against a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme because it harms our economy, without necessarily helping the environment.”

Harper, not to be outdone, switched into the smug lecturing mode that has become his default approach to international policy discussions of this sort. “No matter what they say, no country is going to take actions that are going to deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country. We are just a little more frank about that.” He also indulged in a dusty old NDP-bashing talking point, thanking Abbott for cutting taxes, “most notably the job-killing carbon tax.”

A shrug – climate change? No big deal, guys – and then a sneer at treehugging lefties who’d rather have us wreck the economy to do barely anything at all about climate change anyway. The daily press dutifully reported on the limited story they’d been given, the CBC explaining that both PMs “took a hard line” on climate change and the Globe & Mail noting the “unapologetic tone” both shared on the subject. The Globe story placed the exchange in the context of the forthcoming Northern Gateway pipeline decision, while the Ottawa Citizen filled out its story with a bit of background on Harper’s relationship with previous Australian leaders.

All in all, though, nothing much to see here. Move along.

But let’s be just a little more frank, shall we, about what actually transpired in this summit about nothing. The leaders of two G7 countries met in the wake of a major climate plan rollout by the United States – a policy package that appears to be the signature initiative of the president’s second term – and just ahead of a G20 summit in Australia at which one of them (Abbott) is doing everything he can to keep climate change off the agenda. Both of them glibly dismissed the very notion of taking meaningful action on an issue that the other of them (Harper) once called “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today.”

Reporters transcribe glib comments … and that's about it

And Canada’s mainstream press, conditioned to ignore that which official Ottawa shrugs at, filed the most rote and routine of stories. They transcribed the glib comments, padded them with a bit of vaguely relevant context. And, like the hapless stormtrooper convinced by Obi-Wan’s dismissive Jedi hand wave that these aren’t the droids he’s looking for, they moved along.

Try to imagine this response in another context. Let’s say Abbott and Harper were discussing national defence and the global security situation. Someone asks about the Middle East, the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS. Abbott says really it’s all been overblown, nothing to worry about. Harper says devoting government resources to something as trivial as the conquest of Iraq by jihadists would get in the way of higher priorities, then takes an offhand dig at Trudeau.

In this context, is it plausible that any reporter would file a story with no contextual detail at all about, for example, the actual situation on the ground in Iraq? Would there be barely a word about previous policy positions on the Middle East or the strategic importance of the region or the rather shockingly indifferent tone being taken regarding such a grave crisis? Would the coverage marvel at what a non-event this was? Of course not. War is serious business. Global security issues are always a top priority.

But climate change? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Consider each PM’s soundbite comment on the subject, the ones that marked off that “hard line” and struck such an “unapologetic tone.”  Abbott: “We shouldn’t clobber the economy.” Harper: “No country is going to take actions that are going to deliberately destroy jobs and growth.” Both of them are referring to a carbon tax. The one Australia has, which Abbott is dead-set on repealing (though his government hasn’t yet, despite Harper’s suggestion otherwise, which not a single report on the summit bothered to correct). And the one Harper wields as a Question Period bludgeon, that “job-killing” threat which is just one reason why only his government should be trusted with the keys to the treasury.

Here's a thought: how about verifying climate change claims?

In the midst of this non-story, how is it that not one reporter thought to verify these claims? Given that both PMs spoke explicitly about carbon taxes, why didn’t reporters fill out their stories with detail on what carbon taxes are and what they do? Does a carbon tax actually clobber the economy and destroy jobs and growth? Australia’s economy has operated under a carbon tax for nearly two years. British Columbia’s had one for three times that long. Do either of these economies resemble a punchdrunk boxer in the late rounds of an epic beating?

Well, actually, Australia’s GDP has grown by three per cent or so in 2012 and 2013. Electricity prices are up a bit, but the carbon tax is not the sole cause of that. And at the same time, Australia saw its biggest drop in greenhouse gas emissions in 24 years, refuting Abbott’s claim that such policies don’t help. Similarly, B.C.’s carbon tax has utterly failed to kill jobs or clobber economic growth. Again, fuel prices are up a bit, but B.C. consumers have responded, as expected, by consuming less. And this week a new World Bank report actually indicated seriously tackling climate change could increase GDP.

But hey, maybe carbon taxes are too esoteric, too wonky, too “inside baseball.” What about at least some discussion of the state of the planet and what climate change is doing to it and what the costs might be – today and in the future – if we continue to shrug at the problem and accept as fact the unproven argument that dealing with it would wreck the economy?

With the exception of Aaron Wherry at Maclean’s, who at least quoted an NDP MP talking about current climate change costs, the Canadian press was again mostly silent. Or what about that perennial Hill reporter’s favourite – the reading of the Harper tea leaves? To go from claiming (falsely) that the government will meet its climate change targets to saying they don’t really matter represents a significant shift in rhetoric if not necessarily in policy. Wouldn’t that warrant a bit more substantial discussion? Evidently not.

This is, after all, not the only or even the most important problem the world faces. Why bother reporting on it like it matters at all?

Image Credit: RHL images via Flickr.

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Neil Young’s Honour the Treaties tour kicked off with a bang on Sunday when the ex-pat Canadian rocker ripped into the Conservative government’s management of the oilsands.

Calling the oilsands a “disaster” and a “devastating environmental catastrophe” at a press conference at Massey Hall in Toronto, Young stood by his earlier statement that the oilsands region resembles Hiroshima.

It wasn’t long before a war of words with the Prime Minister’s Office broke out. Young’s comments provoked a particularly fierce reaction in Calgary, the corporate headquarters of Canada’s oilpatch.

By Tuesday, the Globe and Mail had posted a cartoon depicting the House of Commons divided into two camps: “pro Neil Young” and “anti Neil Young.”

Talk about turning a complex issue into black and white. The more important question here is whether celebrity awareness-raising efforts like this one serve a valuable role in generating discussion or whether Young’s inflammatory language further divides the country into two opposite camps — moving Canadians further away from the solutions we so desperately need on the energy and climate file.

In an editorial on Wednesday, the Hamilton Spectator wrote:

“If there's a downside to Young's comments … it’s that the kerfuffle around Young might detract from the substance of his remarks. Some — including comparing the area to Hiroshima — are over-the-top silly. But about the pace of oilsands development and lack of environmental oversight, he's not wrong. The question isn’t whether or not oilsands development should take place. It should, responsibly. The question is how fast growth should happen, and whether the regulatory and monitoring infrastructure is in place to make sure environmental damage is mitigated.”

Agreed. You might not know it from reading the news headlines, but the vast majority of Canadians strongly believe the country needs an integrated approach to climate change and energy. In July, Clean Energy Canada released the results of a Harris-Decima poll, which found 87 per cent of Canadians surveyed agreed: “The nation needs a Canadian climate and energy strategy to plan its energy future.”

Canadians were asked to indicate to what degree they would prioritize a series of objectives for a potential Canadian energy strategy. What did Canadians most frequently rank as “high” or “top” priorities? Improving energy efficiency (80 per cent), creating more jobs in clean energy (73 per cent), reducing Canada’s carbon pollution to slow down climate change (67 per cent) and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal (61 per cent). In contrast, only 31 per cent of those surveyed called “exporting more of Canada’s oil and gas resources” a high priority.

So why, when there’s so much common ground in the middle, does the Canadian energy debate continue to rage around the edges?

Well, for one, that’s where the conflict happens and we all know the media loves a good ole’ dust-up. And since the media likes a brawl, it’s tempting for players on all sides to make polarizing statements because they chalk up media hits and social media shares.

However, in doing so, they’re playing a dangerous game. Andy Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan, describes scenarios in which two opposing sides talk past each other, impeding meaningful dialogue, as a “logic schism.”

“In a logic schism, a contest emerges in which opposing sides are debating different issues, seeking only information that supports their position and disconfirms their opponents’ arguments,” Hoffman told the University of Michigan Record. “Each side views the other with suspicion, even demonizing the other, leading to a strong resistance to any form of engagement, much less negotiation and concession.”

Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale, who researches science communication and the application of science to law and policymaking (and who just so happens to be a fan of Neil Young's music), says debates like the one stirred by Neil Young become about much more than what they appear to be on the surface.

“People end up seeing questions of fact as kinds of symbols that are badges of who they are and stock that indicates their status in society,” Kahan says. “The kinds of dynamics that I find disturbing and sad are the ones that prevent people who really probably have the same goals, or at least pretty close to the same goals, from recognizing what the best available evidence is."

Which brings us to the state of debate in Canada today. When Young says the Canadian government is “trading integrity for money,” Harper’s spokesman says: “Canada’s natural resources sector is and has always been a fundamental part of our country’s economy.”

Logic schism, anyone? The fact is rapid oilsands development comes with tradeoffs. Now, people are free to make different value judgments on those tradeoffs, but to deny they exist is to deny Canadians a sensible conversation on natural resource issues.

Young responded to the PMO with this: “Our issue is not whether the natural resource sector is a fundamental part of the country, our issue is with the government breaking treaties with the First Nation and plundering the natural resources the First Nation has rights to under the treaties.”

Indeed, proceeds from ticket sales for the concerts are going to support the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in their legal challenges of oilsands projects. Unfortunately, as of right now, most of the conversation spurred by Young’s tour doesn’t appear to be of a substantive nature about the issues the First Nation faces.

Reading the PMO’s statement, you’d think there is nothing controversial going on up there. “Projects are approved only when they are deemed safe for Canadians and [the] environment,” MacDonald said.

That seems a strange thing to say given the federal government recently approved Shell Canada’s Jackpine mine expansion even though Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq said it is “likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.” (That's what's called a tradeoff, folks.)

And so it is that almost every environmental issue in our country plays out as a he said-she said in the media, and then goes on to one of two fates — stagnation or escalation, wherein both sides of the debate end up viewing the other as untrustworthy without much discussion of the real issues.

Roger Conner, a law professor at Vanderbilt Law School who also runs a consulting practice specializing in consensus building and conflict resolution on contentious public policy issues, coined the term “the advocacy trap” for this point in the debate where both sides have a profound distrust of the other.

“There are a few profoundly evil people in the world, but if you think you’re surrounded by them, you probably need to change your own psyche,” Conner said in an interview with DeSmog Canada founder Jim Hoggan. “If you think that the whole movement of people for the pipeline in Canada is made up of people who are either evil or idiots, I can almost assure you with great certainty that’ s not accurate.”

The only way out of this trap, Conner says, is for advocates to police their attitudes so they can learn to push sometimes, pull sometimes, collaborate sometimes and remain limber enough to sway back and forth as the situation demands, like a light-footed boxer. To use the entire range of strategic options, a public advocate must be able to avoid thinking of others as foes, he stresses.

“Resentment is like a drug. It feels good to go home and say: ‘Those assholes! Those jerks! Those liberals. Those conservatives … I’m right, they’re wrong,’ ” Conner says. “The truth is we all have some degree of uncertainty and we go to this self-righteous place to protect ourselves from that uncertainty.”

In other words, while it might feel good to be self-righteous and demonize people on the other side of the debate, it's likely not helpful in advancing the energy policy solutions the vast majority of Canadians want for their country.

So long as civil society groups rely on ingenuity to do battle with companies with multi-million dollar PR budgets, celebrity activists are likely to continue to play a role in the debate. But if you're using this as a moment for self-affirmation, to dig your trench a little deeper, remember: if we’re going to make progress on energy issues in this country, we’re all going to have to stick our heads up, stop seeing the people on the other side of the debate as enemies and find some common ground in the middle. 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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.