In late May, Canada’s “energy leaders” met in Toronto for the Energy Council of Canada's Canadian Energy Summit.

The theme of the summit? “Telling the Energy Story.”

“The aim is to raise awareness and improve understanding of the many ways that the energy sector influences the economy, regional development, innovation and aboriginal partnerships across Canada,” a press release proclaimed. “We believe that improved understanding will lead to better-informed energy dialogue and energy decisions.”

Sounds nice and all, but there’s a catch: the various players in Canada’s energy debate are telling very different stories.

While industry emphasizes jobs and economic growth, environmentalists and First Nations focus on air and water contamination, climate change and aboriginal rights.

The problem for the energy sector isn’t “telling the story” — it’s the massive logic gap between their story and the very real concerns of the Canadian public.

Right now, Canada’s energy debate is like a dysfunctional family dinner, with drunk Uncle Ed blowing a gasket on one end, Aunty Hilda screaming back and everyone else staring down at their dinner plates wishing they’d stayed home.

On the one hand, you hear rhetoric about oilsands destroying the planet and needing to be “shut down” and on the other hand you hear oil execs talking about extracting as much bitumen as possible out of the ground ASAP.

“Those extreme arguments are the ones that make everybody roll their eyes,” says Ken Chapman, former director of the Oil Sands Developers Group and proponent of triple-bottom line resource development.

“And there’s about 20 per cent on one side and about 20 per cent on the other side and neither one of them will ever bridge that gap.”

Left watching the shouting match are the 60 per cent of Canadians who aren’t on either extreme, Chapman says.

“The 60 per cent in the middle don’t know who to believe, don’t know who to trust and don’t know who to rely on,” he told DeSmog Canada.

Canada’s energy debate is stuck in what’s known as a “logic schism,” in which two sides talk past each other, impeding meaningful dialogue.

“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,” describes Andy Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan.

“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.”

Instead of leading the way, the federal government has been part of the problem.

In October, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Greg Rickford spoke to a closed-door meeting of about 40 to 50 oil and gas executives, urging them to get outside the board room and pitch projects to the public to win the public relations battle over energy.

“Enhance and expand your outreach. Communicate more effectively and clearly to Canadians with solid facts and evidence,” Rickford said, according to the documents revealed through an Access to Information Request.

Notably, Rickford mentioned nothing about improving performance in the oilsands — Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.

CAPP spokeswoman Chelsie Klassen told The Guardian that industry is taking Rickford’s advice and “embarking on a different level of engagement,” including “moving to a ground campaign model to activate industry supporters.”

Since then CAPP has opened an office in Vancouver to bolster its “Canada’s Energy Citizens” campaign.

CAPP is trying to spread the message that oilsands producers share values around developing the resource sustainably and transporting it safely, CAPP’s CEO Tim McMillan told the Vancouver Sun.

While there’s no doubt some truth in that statement, it overlooks the fact that CAPP has fought new greenhouse gas regulations and successfully lobbied to weaken Canada’s environmental laws — preventing Canada from “acting responsibly.”

It’s little wonder that a poll by Alberta  Oil Magazine found that fewer than one in 10 post-secondary graduates find oil and gas industry associations credible when it comes to carbon emissions.

So who can Canadians trust and how can we move beyond the dysfunctional dinner debate?

“Everbody is trying to prove each other wrong on the facts and quite frankly this is now like religious belief. And it doesn’t matter what the facts are; it’s the belief systems that are dominating,” Chapman says.

“What is open yet is the adult conversation, as opposed to the elementary school recess conversation.”

This week, well-known environmentalist Tzeporah Berman stepped into that “adult conversation” space with an op-ed in the Toronto Star:

It’s time for a new, honest conversation in Canada. It’s time to recognize that the oilsands are, in fact, a technological marvel that took great Canadian ingenuity and acumen. It’s also time to acknowledge that when we began the exploration of the oilsands we did not know what we know today.

Finally, something most Canadians can actually agree on.

 “We’re going to be in the fossil fuel business for a while,” Chapman said. “We have a responsibility to do it better. [The leadership] will have to emerge, but the leadership isn’t in two extremes.”

With the new NDP government in Alberta, Chapman sees an opportunity for a significant change.  

“There are calmer heads, cooler heads, deeper thinkers and people who understand complexity now dealing with the issue at the political level,” he said.

The first step is acknowledging that the issues in the oilsands can’t be solved with public relations. No advertising campaign, faux grassroots outreach effort or multi-million dollar messaging exercise is going to address growing greenhouse gas emissions, habitat destruction, air and water contamination and treaty violations.

Demonizing the oilsands as a planet-killing monstrosity also isn’t going to move us any closer to a responsible management regime.

The first step to recovery is acknowledging you have a problem — and what we have in in the oilsands is not a PR problem, it’s a performance problem due to a lack of regulation. And it’s high time Canadians got the conversation they deserve about how to do better.

Image: CAPP

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The impending closure of a key multi-stakeholder group that provides advice to Alberta and the federal government on the environmental effects of the oilsands was unexpectedly delayed by an injection of money from oil companies.

The funds come at a time when the future – and the purpose – of the organization, which involves the participation of aboriginal, industry, government and environmental groups, is increasingly uncertain. 

The Edmonton Journal reports that the 12-year-old Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA) was to be shut down on January 1, which would have resulted in layoffs, eviction from their offices, and the termination of contracts with scientists working on issues ranging from speedier land reclamation in the oilsands to the improvement of water quality.

However, oil company stakeholders provided $400,000 to keep the organization funded for a little while longer.

"It is for the first month of 2014 only," CEMA spokesman Corey Hobbs told Fort McMurray Today.

CEMA's uncertain future depends on Alberta's newly appointed Environment Minister Robin Campbell, who can resist pressure from the energy industry to have the organization shut down.

"We are optimistic that Minister Campbell will make a positive decision for the future of CEMA," said Hobbs. "There is no indication from anyone that the province does not support CEMA's research or work in the oilsands."

Managing Impacts

According to Andrew Read, Technical and Policy Analyst with the Pembina Institute, CEMA’s role is to “produce recommendations and provide management frameworks” regarding the cumulative impacts of the oilsands. The group consists of more than 50 members ranging from First Nations and Metis groups, environmental advocacy organizations and industry.

CEMA’s recommendations are based on the monitoring work of other environmental agencies.

According to Read, environmental monitoring agencies and CEMA provide complementary work: “monitoring agencies watch what’s happening in the environment and CEMA develops plans on how we can manage the resultant effects of industry to maintain environmental quality.”

The Pembina Institute withdrew from CEMA in 2008 citing numerous shortcomings with the multi-stakeholder framework, including a continued failure to adequately address environmental concerns.

CEMA has been struggling since 2012, when the Oil Sands Developers Group cut the organization's 2013 budget to $2.5 million for the first six months, down from $5 million the previous year. Then-environment minister Diana McQueen restored the group's funding and ordered a review of its future.

The province’s review, submitted in August 2013, showed industry wanted CEMA shut down. Renewed funding for the organization was refused. In September, industry members called for CEMA to be disbanded and its policy development job shifted to an industry-only group.

"We're very close to losing CEMA," said CEMA executive director Glen Semenchuck. "We've been waiting for five months for the minister to respond. Is CEMA going to survive? I don't know."

An Industry Imbalance?

Helene Walsh, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society representative to CEMA, says the cuts in industry funding are the result of an increase in non-industry stakeholder input.

“CEMA was largely industry dominated until the organization was restructured a few years ago with the four different chambers [aboriginal, environmental, industry and government] given equal voting power. Soon after that industry started reducing their funding and now they want CEMA to stop its work,” she said.

With CEMA shuttered, it would be difficult to know how non-industry groups, like First Nations, could contribute to cumulative impacts management, says Read.

“Without CEMA, there is a significant vacuum of expertise in the management of cumulative effects in Alberta that balances the needs of all of the stakeholders in the oilsands region. If it were to cease to exist, there would be a significant need for increased government and industry engagement with stakeholders to identify and address the various cumulative effects resulting from oilsands development.”

CEMA was founded in 2001 by former Premier Ralph Klein with the mandate of addressing the oil industry's environmental footprint. It is the only scientific agency that does government policy work by engaging all local stakeholders for consensus decisions.

Moving Ahead, But in the Wrong Direction

Alberta recently established the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA) intended to harmonize and ensure the credibility of environmental monitoring across the province.

Read said the Pembina Institute is “watching the establishment of AEMERA carefully as it will dictate the credibility of environmental information that is reported by the agency.”

“We are concerned about the substantial powers being granted to the AEMERA board which is appointed by the government and does not require equal or fair representation of all stakeholders. Ultimately without fair and equal representation on the board, AEMERA may suffer from the same credibility issues as past agencies have,” Read said.

In the last year, CEMA released a detailed guidance document on end-pit lakes, and hopes to release a wetland reclamation policy guide and a framework to help industry and government understand Aboriginal traditional knowledge, in 2014.

With no budget for 2014, scientific projects are currently frozen.

Alberta also faces the possible closure of the Wood Buffalo Environmental Agency (WBEA), which monitors air pollution in the oilsands area and is currently running on emergency funds.

“If CEMA were strengthened and aboriginal and environmental groups were truly able to influence the development of the tar sands there would be hope for positive change and improved management that could improve the prospects for healthy water, air, land, wildlife, people and communities,” says Walsh, who also works with Keepers of the Athabasca.

“Closure of CEMA is a step in the wrong direction.”

Image Credit: Kris Krug

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