Since the Liberals formed government last November, Enbridge and Northern Gateway Pipeline have lobbied Ottawa an astounding 86 times, federal lobbying reports reveal.

Fifty-one of those meetings have taken place since August — which, funnily enough, is around the same time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau started backtracking on his commitment to ban oil tankers on B.C.’s north coast, a policy that would leave Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal dead in the water.

Since October last year, representatives from Enbridge and Northern Gateway Pipeline met with representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office eight times, Transport Canada 10 times, Fisheries and Oceans Canada 10 times, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada 12 times, Natural Resources Canada 31 times, and mostly Liberal Members of Parliament 39 times to name just a few.

During this time Enbridge and Northern Gateway Pipeline lobbyists met with more than 130 top-level chiefs of staff, policy directors, and ministers, records show.

Diesel Spill Off B.C. Coast Creating New Urgency Around Promised Tanker Ban

The issue of oil transport along the B.C. coast has been thrust back into the spotlight in the wake of ongoing diesel spill recovery efforts near Bella Bella.

Coastal residents were in a state of disbelief last night after learning an emergency response vessel, sent to B.C.’s central coast to retrieve the diesel-leaking Nathan E. Stewart, sank beside the sunken tug in windswept waters.

Since October 13, cleanup of the diesel spill in the traditional waters of the Heiltsuk First Nation has been slow and unsuccessful, hampered by a lack of response equipment, relief crews and favourable weather.

This has heightened criticism of the federal government and Trudeau who made a clear commitment to enact an oil tanker ban for the north B.C. coast during his election campaign last year. Trudeau even included formalizing the tanker ban on the list of ‘top priorities’ in Transport Minister Marc Garneau’s mandate letter in early November last year.

When pressed on his promise to ban tanker traffic — a proposal some say is not nearly comprehensive enough to protect the coast from vessels like the Nathan E. Stewart —Trudeau awkwardly dodged the question.

“Over the past year there’s been a lot of underinvestment by the federal government in marine safety and spill response. That’s something we’re absolutely committed to turning around,” Trudeau told Breakfast Television.

“And one of the symbols of that — as someone who knows Vancouver and the Lower Mainland as well as I do — one of the first things we did was reopen the Kits coast guard base because we understand that having responders there if something happens is absolutely essential.”

Jess Housty, tribal councillor for the Heiltsuk, took to Twitter to express her dismay with the Prime Minister’s comments.

“Saw your interview today,” Housty tweeted. “You know Kits is ~650km away from Bella Bella and Seaforth Channel, right?”

Nathan Cullen, MP for the Skeena-Bulkley Valley region in B.C. and environment critic for the NDP, said it is incredibly frustrating for coastal people to have the federal government stall on the tanker ban.

“When we are talking about protecting the coast out here, for the people who live here, that’s life and death,” Cullen told DeSmog Canada.

“The insult is twice because the promise was twofold: one, to bring in a tanker ban. It’s been a year and we’re still waiting. Two, to establish respectful relations with First Nations.”

“This is literally killing two birds with one stone,” Cullen said.

He added Trudeau’s inability to follow through on his promises is indication of a dangerous duplicity.

“We are a year in and one has to wonder if there are two Justin Trudeaus. One that campaigns and does public events and Twitter. The other that meets in the private backrooms in Ottawa with more oil lobbyists — one would imagine by a factor of 10 — than he has with environmental and First Nation leaders.”

Cullen said it isn’t just the diesel spill near Bella Bella that British Columbians have to worry about, but the pending decision on the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

“You wonder if the West Coast is being thrown under the bus for nothing other than political calculation.”

John Horgan, leader of the B.C.NDP, said the response to what is unfolding in Bella Bella at both the federal and the provincial level has been “frustrating” and “astounding.”

“It does really speak to an Ottawa-based arrogance to believe that reigniting the much-needed Coast Guard base in Vancouver is somehow a benefit to the coast north of Vancouver Island all the way to Prince Rupert,” Horgan told DeSmog Canada.

When asked about Enbridge and Northern Gateway’s recent lobbying spree, Horgan said “the government should spend more time with the people of B.C. when considering these problems and less with those lobbying government offices.”

Lobbying Records Disclose the Bare Minimum: Watchdog

These high volumes of lobbying are troubling, according to Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, a government accountability watchdog.

“Everybody should be worried about the power of large corporations in terms of lobbying governments,” Conacher told DeSmog Canada.

“They not only have economic power in terms of threatening to sue under trade deals or to take their business elsewhere…but they also usually hire people who have connections to the ruling party to do their lobbying so they have undue and unethical political power as well.”

Conacher said Enbridge and Northern Gateway could be doing a lot more lobbying of the federal government without any disclosure due to vast amounts of lobbying loopholes.

The documented lobbying by Enbridge and Northern Gateway is likely just scratching the surface, he said.

“Only oral pre-arranged meetings are required to be documented in those monthly logs. So you shouldn’t think that’s all the lobbying: that’s just the lobbying they disclosed.”

– With files from James Wilt

Enbridge Northern Gateway Lobbying Aug 2015-Oct 2016 – Sheet1 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Image: Justin Trudeau via Flickr

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The Trudeau government’s rushed approval of the Petronas-led Pacific Northwest LNG project Tuesday — during sunset at a gated Coast Guard station near the Vancouver airport — struck some opposition MPs, and the Vancouver press corp, as oddly rushed.  

Now comes word, in a bombshell Reuters news report Friday morning, that Petronas may be looking to sell the Pacific Northwest LNG project, according to "three people familiar with the matter.” The B.C. government tried to throw water on the speculation Friday afternoon, saying it sought assurances from Petronas and that the proponent doesn't have plans to sell the LNG project.

However, the revelations have led some to speculate the Trudeau government knew about Petronas’ plans to sell and raced out west in a hurried attempt to save the project from collapse. Others have questioned if the provincial and federal governments knowingly approved a project destined for failure, and if so, why?

“It’s incredibly cynical if Trudeau’s government had advance knowledge this wasn’t going ahead,” Nathan Cullen, NDP MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley, told DeSmog Canada.

Hasty LNG Approval Signaled Trouble

The timing of the announcement was peculiar since Trudeau’s ministers were in a cabinet meeting earlier that morning in Ottawa. One of them, Fisheries Minister Romeo LeBlanc, was scheduled to meet in Ottawa with five B.C. hereditary chiefs opposed to the LNG project.  

But that meeting was abruptly cancelled, and ministers Catherine McKenna, Jim Carr and LeBlanc jetted across the country to the airport-area press briefing, where they announced their approval of the controversial LNG project.

Cullen said the timing of the Trudeau government’s announcement was highly suspicious.

“I’ve been trying to understand why they announced the way they did,” he said. “It was disorganized, it was panicked and they had already flown out hereditary chiefs to Ottawa. This was a huge announcement, a big deal for Trudeau. Why the panic?”

“I think because Petronas was about to say, ‘we’re thinking of selling.’ They wanted to milk one last good news story out of it before reality hit and people realized Christy Clark’s [LNG] fantasy was nothing more than an attempt to get reelected.”

Canada’s climate change minister Catherine McKenna stands beside B.C. Premier Christy Clark during the Trudeau government’s announcement approving the Petronas-led Pacific Northwest LNG plant on Tuesday evening near the Vancouver airport. Photo: Mychaylo Prystupa.

When asked to confirm the news of Petronas’ intentions, Caitlin Workman, McKenna’s media officer, provided this statement via e-mail: “As far as I have seen there are only speculation and unnamed sources out there on that matter. The project was approved by the government based on a lengthy and thorough process that took about three years from beginning to end.” A media inquiry to Petronas, via its Pacific Northwest LNG office, was not responded to Friday afternoon.

Shannon McPhail, executive director of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, told DeSmog Canada the news reveals a dizzying level of political posturing on behalf of both the province and the federal government.

“Clearly they knew this was going to happen. What other reason was there for their hasty press conference in Vancouver?” McPhail told DeSmog Canada. “They didn’t plan that. They had meetings scheduled with hereditary chiefs in Ottawa. That was a last-minute, hasty decision.”

While McPhail said she was frustrated by the federal government’s decision to approve the project earlier this week, the news of Petronas’ potential exit from the B.C. LNG market puts it all into perspective.

As for B.C. Premier Christy Clark, McPhail sees it cutting two ways.

“Did the feds play her?” McPhail mused. “At the press conference Christy Clark couldn’t get that smile off her face — she looked like the cat that had caught the canary.”

“Then I started thinking — she didn’t know. They used her has a pawn to get what they wanted: a carbon tax across Canada.”

Did Christy Clark ‘Get Played’ or is She a Player?

Earlier this week Clark reversed a long-standing election promise that her government would not increase the provincial carbon tax. This was the result of an explicit political condition placed on federal approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG project.  

Clark sure as heck wanted this Pacific Northwest LNG approved. She set ambitious LNG targets for herself, promising to have three LNG facilities up and running by 2020 and committing much of her cabinet to LNG project approvals.

So far, none of the other already approved LNG projects — Squamish's small-scale Woodfibre LNG plant, and the two giant Kitimat LNG projects by Shell and Chevron — have moved ahead with final investment decisions.

But that doesn’t mean Clark wasn’t willing to leverage the federal approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG project for some political advantage.  

It’s entirely possible Clark’s cheshire grin at Tuesday’s rushed press conference was due to the fact that she could say “we did everything we could,” McPhail said.

“Maybe the cat that ate the canary face was just for show to demonstrate to media, ‘hey look I was right all along, we’re the jobs people and look how hard we worked.’ ”

But the approval of the Pacific Northwest project may just be setting the stage for the main B.C. event: the federal approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

That’s what it comes down to for Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

“We suspect that in part the tradeoff between the federal government and the Clark government here in B.C. is that the premier agreed to sign on to the federal carbon tax proposal,” Phillip told DeSmog Canada.

“Furthermore we believe in exchange the federal government has agreed to complete the hat trick of betrayal of the promises and commitments made to the First Nations people during the course of the last federal election will be the approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposal.”

The Vancouver Sun’s Editorial Board has yet another take on the connection between the LNG approval and the pending pipeline decision, stating that Trudeau’s LNG approval will win “applause from resource sector” while giving the Prime Minister the credibility to impose the moratorium on oil tankers on the northern coast, thereby killing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline and “winning the admiration of the environmental movement.”

“Having earned his green spurs, he can [then] approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain” pipeline….having deftly played both sides of the street.”

The federal government is expected to make a final decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline by December.

For Project Opponents, Approval Still Represents Betrayal

Phillip is among many of the project’s opponents that consider the federal government’s approval of the project — even if a political charade — a deep betrayal.

“Let me begin by saying that to see the deception inherent in the approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG project proposal flies in the face of any notion of genuine reconciliation between the government of Canada or the province of B.C. and First Nations.”

Lax Kw'alaams woman Christine Smith-Martin crashed the Trudeau government’s Tuesday night Petronas LNG decision announcement in protest while holding a jar of salmon.  Photo: Mychaylo Prystupa.

“Clearly there has been a great deal of backroom dealing going on.”

Cullen, who spent Friday in Haida Gwaii for the royal visit, said many people in Northern B.C. are furious.

“Trudeau wasn’t invited here, the Premier wasn’t invited here for a reason. People are feeling very betrayed right now,” he said, adding Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, were canoed by members of the Haida nation wearing “no LNG” t-shirts.

“Haida elders expressed their real sadness and anger,” he said.

David Moscrop, a political scientist and PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, said that kind of betrayal comes with high political costs.

“You don’t get to shake the betrayal because the approval didn’t work out — the betrayal sticks to you,” he told DeSmog Canada.

Moscrop, who studies democratic governance, said if the Pacific Northwest deal goes south it will be a lose-lose for the federal government.

“On the right and left they’re going to be accused of having sold out,” he said. “This doesn’t benefit anyone participating in this process.”

‘Cui Bono?’

Moscrop said ultimately, it may have been both the provincial and federal governments who got played.

“I like to ask the old question: ‘cui bono?’” he said, referring to the ancient question, meaning simply, who benefits?

“People think industry and government are friendly, but only to the extent that they can get something out of one another.”

“If industry thinks it can gain significant advantage by sticking it to the government, they will.”

Throughout the project review process Petronas, a company with a poor human rights record, leveraged poor market conditions as a way to gain an ever-sweetening deal for the project from the provincial government. Petronas successfully negotiated for enormous income tax breaks and weakening of carbon tax rules that could cost B.C. taxpayers millions of dollars.

“I don’t blame them — either get out or leverage this moment to get every nickel and dime out while the getting is good,” Moscrop said, adding if Petronas was eyeing a sale of its Pacific Northwest LNG project it will be easier now with a conditional approval under their belt.

McPhail said the idea Petronas is threatening to pull out of the project for leverage might be what worries her most of all.

“My biggest fear is this is a negotiation tactic from Petronas,” she said.

“This is smart business accounting, smart corporate accounting. That’s what these guys are doing. If they’re threatening now, people are going to say 'give them whatever they want, please don’t go.' ”

Image: Premier Christy Clark and the ministers gather in Richmond for the approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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A report submitted to the National Energy Board (NEB) by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) points to “insufficient information and analysis” in Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposal as it relates to whale populations off the coast of British Columbia.

“There are deficiencies in both the assessment of potential effects resulting from ship strikes and exposure to underwater noise in the Trans Mountain Expansion Project Application documents,” the report says. “Ship strike is a threat of conservation concern, especially for…Fin Whales, Humpback Whales and other baleen whales.”

The report concludes that an increase in shipping intensity related to Kinder Morgan’s proposal would lead to an increase in threats to whale populations that occupy the Strait of Georgia and the Juan de Fuca Strait.

As covered by Blacklock’s Reporter the DFO analysis outlines Kinder Morgan’s failure to adequately address these concerns and “lack of an appropriate assessment framework” that would allow the department to evaluate the company’s claims.

Kinder Morgan’s current proposal would increase the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of oil per day. The increased capacity would see a significant spike in oil tanker traffic on the Burrard Inlet, from around 60 to more than 400 per year.

Critical habitat for killer whales, proposed habitat for humpback whales and other important areas for marine mammals as outlined in Kinder Morgan's submission to the NEB. Click image to see original in report.

“It’s a big issue,” NDP MP Nathan Cullen told Blacklock’s. “It’s a global concern, particularly in an area where we have had recovery of whale species.”

“The process that is being used by the government so far is flawed, and the public has lost faith,” Cullen said of the NEB review process. “It doesn’t provide certainty and creates avenues for conflict.”

Cullen recently introduced Bill C-628, which seeks to ban oil tankers from the northern B.C. coast.

Last spring, the federal government downgraded the classification of humpback whales from “threatened” to “species of special concern” under the Species at Risk Act. The move provoked British Columbia's public interest groups, which saw the downgrade as an attempt by the federal government to eliminate a legal requirement to protect whale habitat along the B.C. coast.

In February 2014, the federal courts, prompted by an Ecojustice lawsuit, ruled the Harper government had failed to provide recovery strategies for 170 species at risk in Canada. Two months later the federal government reclassified humpback whales, eliminating the requirement for feeding ground protections.

The DFO review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project submission found the company only measured noise pollution in marine mammal habitat from one single tanker and did not include noise exposure from other marine traffic. Kinder Morgan also misapplied noise exposure models, leading to inaccurate results and did not use adequate measures to calculate potential whale strikes from oil tankers, the report found.

Image Credit: Trans Mountain

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The Harper government has hired an international public relations firm to oversee a $22 million advertising campaign to promote the oilsands and Canada's natural resources sector around the world.

The Canadian arm of PR firm FleishmanHillard won a bid for the initial $1.695 million contract to conduct the first phase of the ad campaign, reports the Toronto Star.

The first phase of the ad campaign will reach the United States, Europe, and Asia this year. If the firm's contract is renewed for 2015, it could be worth up to $4 million, with the remaining $18 million reserved for media buys.

FleishmanHillard, which has previously done strategic communications work and public opinion research for federal departments, has offices in all three targeted markets.

The firm will be developing and producing the ads for print, internet and television, and will be responsible for the drafting and coordination of public relations, advertising and social media strategies, according to Natural Resources Canada.

Natural Resources Canada's request for proposals (RFP) presents a plan for the campaign, focusing on "strengthening Canadas [sic] brand as a global leader in responsible resource development" and "[expanding] market access for Canadian natural resources, primarily energy." The word "responsible" is further underlined in the proposed messages.

While the campaign is to address Canada's entire natural resources sector, the RFP only explicitly mentions oilsands bitumen, pointing out how the latter industry has been "unfairly" targeted by proposals like the European Fuel Quality Directive "in part due to preconceived notions about the oil sands that are not supported by science."

The department suggests the campaign emphasize Canada as a "stable and secure choice" in sustainable energy, "compared to international alternatives," and outline the "unparalleled" investment opportunities in the country's energy sector.

Such messaging was tested in Washington focus groups in April 2013. HarrisDecima submitted a report to Natural Resources in September, which found the groups had a "neutral to positive" response to ads suggesting an increased energy partnership between the U.S. and Canada.

"Overall, it was fairly clear that Canada is held in fairly high regard, even if it is not often considered, and that an element of that high regard relates to Canada being a competent and trustworthy neighbour/partner — both in terms of industrial partnerships and acting responsibly," says the report, which cost $58,000 to commission.

Despite these results, the Obama administration has not yet been forthcoming in providing approval for the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, which faces strong environmental opposition in the U.S. Domestic opposition to various proposed pipeline projects including the Northern Gateway, which would transport crude oil from Alberta to British Columbia, also remains strong.

David Provencher, a spokesman for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, said that the ad campaign would ensure a "fact-based dialogue" to "better inform" markets about Canada's resource development.

"The objectives of the ad campaign are to raise awareness of Canada's environmental record and the shared U.S.-Canada energy interest and needs," said Provencher, in a statement.

"The campaign is also intended to raise awareness among decision-makers in Europe and the Asia Pacific that Canada is a secure, reliable and responsible supplier of crude oil, natural gas and other natural resources."

NDP House leader Nathan Cullen, who has voiced opposition to the Northern Gateway project, called the campaign an attempt by the Harper government to "greenwash" Canada's damaged international reputation as an environmentally friendly nation. He also questioned the allocation of public funds to help the energy industry with advertising.

"Of all the industries, I didn't know that oil and gas and mining companies were so impoverished that they couldn't take ads out in newspapers. I don't know why we're subsidizing Shell and Chevron in their efforts to sell oil. I think they're more than capable of doing that themselves," said Cullen.

FleishmanHillard's Ottawa office declined to comment on the campaign.

While the ad campaign's estimated budget is $22 million, Natural Resources Canada noted that the final cost will not be made public until the government releases its 2014-2015 annual report on advertising expenses.

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