The federal government has issued an approval for the $36-billion Pacific Northwest liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminal on Lelu Island on the B.C. coast, undermining its commitments to take action on climate change.

Tuesday’s decision — announced an hour behind schedule in Richmond, B.C., by a trio of ministers including Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna — means it will be virtually impossible for B.C. to meet its climate targets.

The announcement was seen as the litmus test on whether the Liberals would live up to its climate promises.

“With today’s decision on the Pacific NorthWest LNG project, Minister McKenna made it much more difficult for Canada to meet its climate targets and signaled that it’s OK for provinces to miss their own emissions targets," said Matt Horne of the Pembina Institute.

"If built, Pacific NorthWest LNG will be one of the largest carbon polluters in the country and a serious obstacle to Canada living up to its climate commitments."

Pacific Northwest LNG — wholly owned by the Malaysian government and boasting a questionable human rights record — lobbied the federal government 22 times between February 1 and April 21 this year, including meetings with McKenna and her chief of staff Marlo Raynolds.

The project will involve scaling up fracking in northeastern B.C., building a pipeline to the West Coast and constructing an export terminal on Lelu Island, near a crucial area for juvenile salmon.

The Pacific Northwest LNG project is expected to emit 9.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually — equal to 1.9 million cars.

By 2050, the entire province of B.C. is supposed to emit 13 million tonnes of carbon pollution. With this approval, meeting the climate target becomes an impossibility.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark had already torpedoed any credibility she had on climate change when she announced her widely criticized “climate action plan” this summer.

On Tuesday she trotted out her go-to myth that exporting LNG will reduce emissions in other parts of the world — which was quickly shot down. 

“Despite claims to the contrary, the production and export of LNG from B.C. has not been demonstrated to help reduce global emissions. Stronger climate policies — not increased fossil fuel production — are what we need to position the British Columbian and Canadian economies to thrive in a low-carbon future," Horne said.

Honeymoon Over for Liberals

The federal Liberals were riding on the coattails of their election promises and climate commitments made in Paris

Now the honeymoon is over.

“For British Columbians and all Canadians concerned about salmon habitat, climate change and reconciliation with First Nations, today’s decision is profoundly troubling,” said Christina Smethurst of Dogwood, B.C.’s largest citizen group. 

“It does not restore public trust in the federal environmental review process.”

The announcement comes on the heels of the Liberals pledging to repair relations between Canada and First Nations, but then approving permits for the Site C Dam against their wishes (the dam has been pushed by Clark in part to power the fracking fields in northeastern B.C. that will feed the Pacific Northwest LNG export terminal).

Adding to the heap of broken promises, the Liberals are also expected to approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver sometime before Christmas.

“Nation-to-nation” rhetoric is awfully convenient until you have to live up to it.

It’s also one thing to care about climate change as a concept and quite another to have the guts to turn down a project when you’re being barraged by lobbyists.

A refusal of Pacific Northwest LNG would have proven the federal government is one willing to make tough decisions to live up to its promises  — one that would refuse a project if it put climate targets out of reach. One that would invest in renewables, energy efficiency and public transit infrastructure.

Perhaps, one day, we’ll see some real change.

On the bright side, there are doubts Pacific NorthWest LNG will even be built.

“As the cost of renewable energy continues to fall, it is increasingly uncertain that LNG exports can compete in Asian markets,” Merran Smith of Clean Energy Canada said.

A new world is coming. Question is: will Canada compete in it?

Photo: Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr, Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, Premier Christy Clark and Fisheries Minister Dominic Leblanc. Photo by Province of British Columbia.

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Only three-and-a-half months have passed since the federal election, but fossil fuel companies and lobby groups haven’t wasted any time in ramping up their lobbying efforts.   Suncor, the country’s largest energy company by revenue, has led the pack in meeting with high-ranking federal officials — logging at least 12 meetings in just over one month.   Between Nov. 2 and Nov. 19 the dominant oilsands player met four times with Louise Metivier, who was Canada’s chief negotiator at the UN climate summit held in Paris between Nov. 30 and Dec. 12.   Steve Williams, the company’s CEO and head lobbyist, also met three times with Environment Minister Catherine McKenna (on Nov. 18, Dec. 7 and Dec. 8) another three times with Environment Canada’s chief of staff Marlo Raynolds (on Nov. 5, Dec. 7 and Dec. 9) and twice more with Gerald Butts, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s right-hand man and principal secretary ( Nov. 18 and Nov. 19).   “The meetings were preparatory meetings for Suncor’s participation at COP 21 in Paris,” explained Sneh Seetal, spokesperson at Suncor, via e-mail. “Our president and CEO, Steve Williams, attended as a member of the Canadian delegation at the invitation of the federal government. We discussed Suncor’s perspectives on climate change and how industry can help be a part of the solution.”

Lobbyists Include LNG Canada and TransCanada

Other oil and gas interests have displayed similar determination since the Liberals formed government.   Take LNG Canada Development (a Kitimat-based joint venture composed of Shell, PetroChina, Korea Gas and Mitsubishi), which met with Erin O’Gorman, assistant deputy minister of Natural Resources Canada, on Oct. 27, Nov. 5 and Jan. 8.   TransCanada, the proponent of both the Energy East and Keystone XL pipelines, lobbied Canada’s ambassador to the United States, Gary Doer, three times on Oct. 30.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association met with NEB chairperson Peter Watson on Nov. 2 and Dec. 17. And the Petroleum Services Association of Canada lobbied McKenna, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Employment Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk in separate meetings on Dec. 22.

It’s important to keep in mind that the lobby registrations are likely just scraping the surface of the actual lobbying happening in Ottawa.   Richard Girard, executive director of research centre Polaris Institute, notes that only employees who spend more than 20 per cent of their month’s work on lobbying efforts are required to register as a lobbyist. As a result, Girard suggests there are “lots of meetings that are more likely taking place that we don’t know about.”   Even the meetings that are registered lack specifics, only hinting at general subjects such as “environment” or “energy.”   “It certainly provides you with a list of who’s seeing who, which is helpful,” says Gillian Steward, author of the Toronto Star’s 2015 Atkinson Series on public policy on the oilsands. “They do have to at least put down the topic of what they’re talking about. On the other hand, it can be very difficult to get — say, from CAPP — exactly what they’re presenting.”

Bear Head LNG Lobbies Federal Government 15 Times in 10 Weeks

Some companies have clearly been making plenty of moves, with Bear Head LNG — the company proposing to build a liquefied natural gas facility in Nova Scotia — meeting with Doer on Oct. 21, Oct. 26, Oct. 30, Nov. 10, Nov. 11, Dec. 10 and Dec. 18.   Represented by former U.S. ambassador Derek Burney, the company also lobbied the duo of Jay Khosla (assistant deputy minister of Natural Resource Canada’s energy sector) and Terence Hubbard (director general of Natural Resource Canada) four times between Nov. 12 and Dec. 29, with Khosla chatting individually with the company an additional four times in the window.

‘It’s a Question of Balance’

Girard notes that while the Canadian lobbying registry has improved over the years, it’s still flawed because it doesn’t show how much companies are spending on lobbyists, unlike the U.S. But reasonable conclusions can still be made.   “The number of times people register communications increases around certain important pieces of legislation,” says Girard, who served as co-author for the Polaris’ report Big Oil’s Oily Grasp. “Many of those pieces of legislation were very positive for the industry. We can’t draw the line, but yes we can see there’s a correlation between the level of lobbying — who’s lobbying and for what — and the outcome of the legislation.”   The Polaris Institute’s 2012 report found that that 2,733 lobbying communications were made by oil and gas companies between July 2008 and November 2012, far outweighing similar efforts by mining and forestry interests. Prominent lobbying organizations such as the Canadian Association for Petroleum Producers (CAPP), TransCanada, the Canadian Gas Association, Imperial Oil and Suncor led the way. Meanwhile, only 11 environmental non-governmental organizations were registered as lobbyists in that window.   “It’s a question of balance,” Steward says. “[Oil and gas companies] have a right to go and do that. It’s just that they have more resources and more power to actually have those meetings, where environmental and First Nations groups and other kinds of NGOs don’t have the funds or staff, and aren’t represented as well. It’s much harder for them to actually get their message across to the people who influence those decisions.”

Image: Steve Williams takes the helm as Suncor CEO in 2011.  

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Nine and a half years. That’s how long Stephen Harper was prime minister of Canada — a long haul for environmentalists, who were all but shut out of Ottawa and often antagonized by the federal government.

Now that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals have taken the helm, advocates have high hopes for a course correction on the environment and energy files. But after nearly a decade of working under hostile conditions, environmentalists need to make a course correction of their own if they want to effectively influence public policy, experts say.   

“If I was running a large ENGO and my file was climate, it’s a new day,” said Allan Northcott, vice-president of Max Bell Foundation, which runs the Public Policy Training Institute to train non-profit leaders in how to effectively advocate for policy changes.

“The opportunity is different, so it’s going to require a different plan, a different strategy.”

Many of the tactics advocacy groups undertake aren’t effective, Northcott told DeSmog Canada. 

“It ends up just being noise. And there’s lots of noise,” he said. “Right now, everybody and their dog and cat has got an idea for what the federal government should do.”

Outside Game and Inside Game Must Work Together

Many environmental groups have spent a decade building up their “outside game,” doing things like gathering petitions and organizing protests. But now that government is willing to meet with environmentalists, the door is opened to influencing elected leaders and public servants directly, through an “inside game.”

This new context requires a shift in strategy. Essentially, the outside game needs to morph to complement the development of an effective inside game.

“Just don’t assume that you can use the same set of tools. It is a bit of a specialized tool set,” Northcott said.

That’s why Max Bell Foundation created the Public Policy Training Institute. Faculty members include Jim Dinning, who served as an Alberta PC MLA for nine years and as a cabinet minister. Today, Dinning serves as a director on the board of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission.

“One of the things we teach in our class is that there are very few absolutes,” Dinning told DeSmog Canada. “Most elected people are willing — more than willing — to listen to a point of view that’s contrary to the one they hold. The ability to change your mind shows that you have one.”

'Protest is not a Dialogue. It's a Monologue'

The key to being heard is to start with a respectful, low-temperature, evidence-based conversation, Dinning said.

“A lot of people don’t think to do this, but the best place to start looking for a ‘yes’ is in the lowest levels of the public service that you can go to and get a ‘yes.’ The public service should play, and does play, a really important filtering and briefing role in advising ministers and deputy ministers and premiers and prime ministers,” he said.

Given that the chief of staff for Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is Marlo Raynolds, former executive director of environmental think tank the Pembina Institute, meeting with the public service should be a logical first step for many environmental groups.

However, skipping over the public service and going straight to a minister or Prime Minister is a common mistake.

“Public policy almost never happens in that way. If your first call is to the premier or the prime minister’s office, then it’s a bad call,” Dinning said.

As for protest, Dinning sees it as a tactic best reserved as a last resort if you’ve pursued dialogue with the government, but haven’t been able to make progress.

“It’s certainly not a first resort,” Dinning said. “A protest is not a dialogue. It’s a monologue.”

Environmentalists Eager to Keep Pressure On Elected Officials

Environmentalists, however, are chomping at the bit to hold the Liberals’ feet to the fire, especially with the UN climate negotiations coming up in Paris in December.

Clayton Thomas-Muller is the ‘Stop it at the Source’ campaigner with 350.org, the group that organized a protest called the ‘Climate Welcome,’ which involved four days of sit-ins outside Trudeau’s residence beginning on the first day he took office to demand a freeze on oilsands expansion.

Four days after organizing those protests, Thomas-Muller facilitated a United Nations climate event at the National Arts Centre, attended by the chief negotiator for Canada and the French ambassador.

“That’s the new landscape with a centrist party,” Thomas-Muller told DeSmog Canada. “Strategy and tactics have to reflect both pulling and pushing. It’s much more complex.”

Thomas-Muller said he’s full of hope based on the government’s first moves. “But we have to keep the bar where it is and raise it with intelligent multi-pronged approaches,” he said.

Politicians Must Balance Multiple Interests

It’s true that the early days of a new government are important.

“If you’re interested in federal policy change, right now — the first six or eight months in the mandate of a new government — is the best time to get in there and try to help inform what they’re going to do,” Northcott said.

But governments are faced with tough decisions about balancing multiple interests.

“Put yourself in the shoes of government, imagine where they’re at and what they’re trying to deal with at the moment,” Northcott said. “You’ve got to try to attach your issue to their agenda.”

With the public release of ministerial mandate letters, it’s easier than ever for groups to figure out what’s on the government’s agenda.

“You have to basically demonstrate that you have a pretty good knowledge of the issue. And not just the issue, but the issue in its context,” Northcott said.

“The presumption sometimes is that only ENGOs care about what happens in the enviro and energy space. And that’s just not real. That’s not politically real. You have to understand whose ox is going to get gored if your position becomes policy. You have to think about balancing out the different stakeholders in the policy ask.”

Dinning also stresses keeping in mind what any government minister has on their plate.

“Remember that a minister has 50 other files on their desk,” Dinning said. “And the file that you are talking to me about is one of 13 meetings I’m having this morning. Be mindful of that — especially with a new government.”

Great Expectations: Campaign Promises Vs. Reality

“You campaign in poetry and you govern in prose,” Dinning said. “The fact is, especially when you’re in opposition, you’re campaigning in a vacuum. You don’t know all the facts, there are a far greater number of layers of facts, of nuance: the world isn’t all black and white.”

That means sometimes after a government takes office, it learns new information that results in a campaign promise needing to be delayed or altered.

Further to that, Trudeau has promised to return to a “cabinet government” — in which policy decisions are made collectively, not just by the prime minister. If we want more of that open, collaborative approach to governing, we also need to be prepared to give politicians some leeway to change their minds.

As Don Lenihan of Canada 2020, a progressive think tank, wrote in a recent op-ed:

Back in the 1960s, cabinet government succeeded because ministers weren’t just selling an idea. They were trying to develop one. Public input and feedback were needed to get the policy right and the process was there to help them.

As a result, everyone was more open to seeing ideas change and evolve as the process unfolded. Decision-making came at the end of the process, not the beginning.

Nowadays, Lenihan writes, ministers who change policy proposals are often accused of “backtracking” or “flip-flopping,” which makes it tricky for politicians to really consider the best evidence on the table.

Politicians Follow Public Opinion

Ultimately, politicians are looking to advance policies that are broadly acceptable to voters.

“The window of acceptability moves and changes over time. Squarely in the middle are the things that become policy,” Northcott said. “Most governments try to get right in the centre of the window because they’re serving all voters … In a way, that’s kind of what you would expect from a democracy.”

That leads us to the work environmental advocates can do to actually shift what’s inside the window of acceptability. In Northcott’s mind, that type of public engagement work is an entirely different kettle of fish than advocating directly for policy change.

Changing public opinion is absolutely vital to creating social change and requires a long-term strategy built around shared values. Doing that type of work requires a very specialized skill set all of its own.

“Advocates sometimes look to politicians to lead public opinion. In my experience, most of the time, politicians follow public opinion, rather than lead it,” said Brenda Eaton, who served as deputy minister to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell.  “Sometimes you need the outside game to change public opinion.”

While there’s room for a variety of tactics to be used to advance environmental issues in Ottawa, it’s vital that environmental groups differentiate between those meant to alter public opinion and those meant to influence elected leaders directly — and put themselves in elected leaders’ shoes when trying to do the latter.

On that note, fewer than three weeks into their tenure, the Liberals deserve a bit of time to settle in, Dinning argued.

“They’re still looking for the cafeteria,” he said. “The big decisions need time.”

Image: Protestors during a 2009 President Obama visit to Ottawa. Photo by Mikey G Ottawa via Flickr.

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.