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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government and Industry Doublespeak

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

From the Prime Minister’s Office in January 2012:

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



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



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

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

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

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




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

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



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

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

Doubling Down

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

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

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

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

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

Kent’s accusations were as follows:

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

  Clearing Doublespeak From the Public Square

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

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

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

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

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

Image credit: Kris Krug

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If the pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. is content to cower behind a 20-something blog manager rather than acknowledge its role in the recent attack on the patriotism of Canadian environmentalists, what hope have we that the company would ever stand accountable for the accidents that will occur – inevitably – if Northern Gateway ever gets built?

That’s a rhetorical question, but a pressing one, given the environmental time-bomb that Enbridge proposes to lay out between the Canadian tar sands and the pristine B.C. coastline.

We actually don’t know for sure that Enbridge is behind the so-called Ethical Oil Institute, a phony grassroots organization that was established by Ezra Levant and run for most of its first year by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s current Director of Planning, Alykhan Velshi. But you might come to your own conclusions by watching this clip or reading the transcript below.

It comes from an interview on the CBC show Power and Politics, in which the host, Evan Solomon, asks current EthicalOil.org manager Kathryn Marshall a question she just can’t bring herself to answer:

Solomon: Some have said that Enbridge, which is building the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, is a funder of Ethical Oil and that they’re using your group to disempower environmentalists that oppose this. Does Enbridge support or give your organization money?

Marshall: Look, we’re a small grassroots advocacy organization. This is about foreign special interests and their puppet groups who are trying to hijack a Canadian process. … This isn’t about our money, this is about foreign special interests who are trying to hijack the process.

We don’t take any foreign money. We take no foreign money. We are 100 per cent Canadian.

Solomon: Are you taking money from Enbridge?

Marshall: We’re a small grassroots organization. Our average donor is a regular hard-working Canadian who gives us 20 or 30 dollars through our website.

Solomon: I am not trying to disparage your donors. I’m trying to understand if the company that is building the pipeline is also funding you. If we’re talking about who is funding and the influence of that, I think it’s fair to be transparent about that.

Marshall: This is about foreign influence. EthicalOil.org is 100 per cent Canadian. Let’s talk about foreign money.”

[Minutes later, the host asks again.]

Solomon: You keep calling these other groups puppet groups. People will ask, are you a puppet group of Enbridge? Let me ask you again. Does Enbridge fund you to have a campaign against these other groups? Does Enbridge give your organization money?

Marshall: Look Evan, I am not going to respond to conspiracy theories, we are a small grassroots organization.  (Garbled by interruptions)

Solomon: Just to be fair. It’s not a conspiracy theory. If they don’t give you money, you could say they don’t. If they do, fine.

Marshall: I don’t respond to conspiracy theories. But look, this is about foreign interests trying to hijack a Canadian process.

Solomon: Ok, I can’t get an answer. I don’t know why that’s a conspiratorial question. If Enbridge funds Ethical Oil, I’d love to know.

Is this the kind of transparency that would give you confidence in how Enbridge might account for itself in the wake of an out-of-sight oil spill?

For that matter, do Marshall’s well-rehearsed talking points even make sense? The portion of income that any large Canadian environmental groups receive from foreign sources seldom changes – and seldom tops about 10 per cent. Yet Enbridge, which reports more than double that level of foreign ownership (23%) appears to be accusing others of having “special interests” or “foreign influence.”

Here you have a PR person who is prepared to embarrass herself, painfully and repeatedly on national TV rather than answer a simple question about Enbridge funding. We have a $5.5-billion project that has already attracted huge offshore support; we have a tar sand scar across northern Alberta that is increasingly owned by Chinese buyers (who really want this pipeline). And yet everyone from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to this hapless PR professional is saying it’s the Canadian environmental community that is somehow biased by its diversity of support.

Does this conform to your definition of “ethical”?

Take one more moment to think about what Enbridge is proposing. Northern Gateway would stretch 1,172 kilometres through some of the last untouched temperate rainforest in the world. Bearing in mind that Enbridge pipelines have leaked a recorded 132,000 barrels of hydrocarbons in 610 recorded spills between 1999 and 2008, are we convinced that Enbridge would account for every “little oops” that occurs deep in the BC wilderness? Or, after this incident, do you think they might rather hire Kathryn Marshall to tell us that she had no personal evidence of any spill – and that anyone who says different is probably being put up to it by foreigners?

Worse, what would Enbridge or their PR team say when the first oil tanker does an Exxon Valdez in Hecate Strait?

This whole Ethical Oil dodge is just one more reason to slam the door on this whole project.

Image credit: Henrik Lehnerer | Shutterstock

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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. 

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