At the end of a dirt road about an hour’s drive north of Edmonton, the hum of machinery pierced the air as a pumpjack nodded up and down, striking a black silhouette against the bright sky.

Normally, one would expect the pumpjack to be sitting alone on the Alberta prairie, surrounded only by a few pieces of equipment.

But at this site a gas generator buzzed loudly and power lines snaked their way to another structure filled with rows and rows of computers, arranged on metal shelves and connected with winding, multicoloured cables. A sign nearby listed the operator: MAGA Energy, a privately owned Calgary oil and gas company.

This small operation near Westlock, Alta., is a natural gas well being used for a novel purpose: to generate Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency. The Narwhal visited the site in August.

Bitcoin is a form of digital money that can be “mined,” or produced by users who deploy energy-hungry computers to churn through cryptographic puzzles. Some cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are quite valuable in Canadian dollars, but they can also be volatile, high-risk investments prone to scams.

MAGA Energy — short for “Make Alberta Great Again,” a play on its more well-known use as Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” — is hoping to capitalize on a more constant trend: the need Bitcoin miners have for cheap, plentiful sources of energy to power their computers. By offering their natural gas assets to Bitcoin miners, MAGA Energy intends to breathe new life into about 60 of its gas wells in Sturgeon County, in the Edmonton region, that were previously “shut in,” or closed off from production.

According to the company, these wells were shuttered after a nearby power plant — a consumer of the gas produced at the wells — closed in 2014. Now MAGA Energy is among several oil and gas companies across the country hoping Bitcoin can provide a way to sell its products a different way: by burning it on the spot.

Crypto mining ‘exacerbates climate change’: White House

For proponents, burning natural gas to power Bitcoin mines is a useful way for companies with stranded oil and gas assets to sell more energy. Advocates also argue if Bitcoin miners can run their computer rigs from escaped methane from oil and gas drilling, it is less damaging to the climate than letting the methane gas escape directly into the atmosphere.

But like other fossil fuel projects, it creates carbon pollution and furthers climate change. A report from Sturgeon County’s administration to local council members makes it clear that MAGA Energy’s proposal would “increase emissions.” It specifically noted this was inconsistent with the county’s guiding principle of “environmental stewardship.”

Powering crypto mining with individual fossil fuel sites would at best be an emissions-neutral undertaking, far from the “urgent system-wide transformation” scientists have shown society needs to undergo in order to avoid more extreme climate consequences.

Critics argue by giving new life to old facilities, these kinds of fossil-to-Bitcoin schemes are threatening to prop up a dying fossil fuel industry and put emissions-reduction targets in jeopardy.

This pattern can be seen in places like Montana, New York and Pennsylvania, where companies have reversed plans to close coal-fired power plants, or restarted plants that had already closed, to power Bitcoin mines.

In September, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a report concluding U.S. climate objectives would be under threat unless the U.S. government developed environmental performance standards for cryptocurrencies to minimize carbon pollution.

“Crypto-asset mining produces greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbates climate change primarily by burning coal, natural gas or other fossil fuels to generate electricity,” the report said.

“The electricity generated at power plants to power crypto-asset mining and for all uses of electricity can damage the environment and human health.”

Alberta oil and gas regulator wants to ‘better understand’ crypto mining

MAGA Energy is not the only company in Alberta pursuing this line of business.

In April 2022, the provincial energy regulator issued a bulletin saying it was “aware of cryptocurrency mining operations running alongside” oil and gas facilities in the province.

“We are looking to better understand the situation and work with regulated parties to manage potential risks and ensure compliance and overall safety,” the regulator wrote.

An official at the province’s utilities commission also confirmed to The Narwhal there has been “an increase in cryptocurrency mining operations entering Alberta” and the commission had developed its own bulletin about small power plants, released in March, in part as a result of this activity.

Koleya Karringten, executive director of the Canadian Blockchain Consortium, a crypto industry group, said there were “large oil and gas companies currently in the province of Alberta that are looking to diversify their assets by adding generators to their sites, and being able to mine” cryptocurrencies.

“There’s a lot of ways [crypto] mining companies can partner with energy companies,” she said.

The industry is lobbying against a proposal to eliminate an existing federal tax break for crypto miners. The legislation to implement this measure has not yet been tabled in Parliament.

These changes would mean “it would be extremely expensive for mining companies to be able to operate in the country,” Karringten said. “So we are hoping that the government sees the value this industry can create, especially supporting our natural resources sector.”

She added crypto miners were dealing with “a lack of clear regulatory guidelines” across the country, and were looking for a national securities framework to allow mining companies to operate with full licenses.

The federal government’s fall economic statement acknowledged Canada’s financial system regulations need to “keep pace” with the transformative impact of crypto and digital money. The government said it is launching consultations on cryptocurrencies in November 2022.

“At the same time, the digitalization of money poses a challenge to democratic institutions around the world. In the last several months, digital assets and cryptocurrencies have been used to avoid global sanctions and fund illegal activities, both in Canada and around the world,” the statement read.

Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre was initially an outspoken advocate of allowing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to “thrive” in Canada, as an “alternative” to the dollar. He vowed to implement legislation, for example, to treat some crypto assets like regular stocks and bonds if Conservatives win the next election. He talked about “the freedom for buyers and sellers to choose Bitcoin” and promoted himself buying a shawarma using the digital currency.

Poilievre has not actively promoted Bitcoin since its value crashed in the second quarter of 2022. Since the crash, a number of companies have been driven into bankruptcy. This fall, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized Poilievre over his past support for Bitcoin.

Carbon pollution from crypto ‘not that easy to measure’

Karringten estimated there were about 40 crypto mining companies in Alberta, and virtually all of them were running off natural gas. Fossil fuels produce almost 90 per cent of electricity in Alberta.

Large companies like Exxon Mobil are also interested in crypto mining. The largest U.S. oil and gas company has been running a pilot project to burn natural gas from North Dakota oil wells to run crypto mining operations.

Exxon Mobil is the majority owner of Imperial Oil, one of the largest fossil fuel companies in Canada. The company’s annual report does not mention crypto mining. A spokesperson for the company did not respond to questions from The Narwhal.

There are several Bitcoin mining companies across the country, some of which are publicly traded. Many of these companies are powered by the grid, not individual oil and gas facilities.

The country’s “hash rate,” an industry estimate for how much computing firepower is being aimed at the Bitcoin network, has increased by over 1,200 per cent in less than three years, according to an index published by the University of Cambridge.

But those numbers are just a broad estimate and don’t break down the industry by energy type. Exactly what kind of fossil fuel-powered Bitcoin mining is happening in Canada, or how much carbon pollution the activity is generating, is unclear.

Henry M. Kim, an associate professor at York University and the director of the blockchain lab at the Schulich School of Business, has been studying the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency mining and also has found there is a lack of data.

Kim and Andrea Podhorsky, an assistant professor of economics at York University, published a paper in October concluding “since the carbon intensity of electricity generation varies widely from region to region and the Bitcoin network design largely conceals the miners’ locations, it is difficult to precisely estimate the [carbon dioxide] emissions from mining at a regional level.”

“The bottom line is, people don’t know. … It’s actually not that easy to measure,” Kim said.

Utilities across Canada cite privacy, lack of data as obstacles to understanding crypto mining

Neither Alberta’s energy regulator nor its utilities commission could give any specifics about how many crypto mining operations there were in the province, or what kind of emissions they were responsible for.

The regulator said it was still working to verify the information it had received from its public outreach. The commission said it didn’t track how many power plants were dedicated to crypto mining, because applicants aren’t required to say what purpose the power is to be used for.

The provincial energy ministry refused a freedom of information request from The Narwhal for access to records concerning the use of oil and gas sites to power cryptocurrency mining operations, stating it included “advice from officials,” and other information that could be “harmful to economic and other interests of a public body.”

Freedom of information legislation in Alberta requires provincial ministries and other public organizations to provide access to information, upon request to anyone who pays a $25 fee, unless they have a valid reason to refuse.

Alberta Municipalities, an organization representing cities in the province, said in an October 2021 brief that cities “may need to balance their role in the regulation of climate change matters with the approval of cryptocurrency mines which require significant power.”

The organization told The Narwhal it was not tracking the issue. Another group, Rural Municipalities of Alberta, an association made up of rural municipal districts and that counts Sturgeon County as a member, also said it didn’t have any data to share on the topic.

The picture is similar outside the province. Utilities and regulators across Canada were hesitant to share statistics on the industry when asked by The Narwhal, either because the information isn’t being collected or because of privacy concerns.

“In order to protect the privacy of our customers, we do not publicly disclose the types of businesses connected to our system,” a spokesperson for Hydro One, one of the largest utilities in Ontario, said in an email.

Similarly, a spokesperson for Manitoba Hydro confirmed it did have “a number of cryptocurrency operations in Manitoba,” but said it couldn’t divulge “the number of operations or their load due to confidentiality reasons.”

BC Hydro estimated it was supplying on average about 80 megawatts of electricity load to crypto mining activity. But it said since customers weren’t required to disclose the nature of their business, the utility couldn’t determine how many cryptocurrency operators that number represented.

“There is still a significant amount of uncertainty as to how this industry will develop over time,” a spokesperson for the utility said in an email.

The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission said it was “not aware of any crypto mining operations on or near any of our regulated assets.”

Hydro-Québec said at the end of June it had 103 clients involved in crypto mining on their grid, and they had consumed 75 gigawatt-hours in that month. But the utility said that because its electricity was almost 100 per cent non-emitting, “there is no greenhouse gas emissions associated.” Quebec’s electricity is 94 per cent hydropower.

In early 2021, Canada’s national energy regulator singled out the “energy demands associated with cryptocurrency mining” as an example of how a new and significant power drain could affect climate goals. That regulator had also not done any recent analysis of crypto mining, a spokesperson told The Narwhal.

The Canada Revenue Agency, which has produced several guides on keeping records of crypto transactions, said it has “established a dedicated crypto-asset unit to build intelligence.” But, it added, it “does not currently track crypto-asset declarations separately in our system.”

A private company with carbon capture dreams

MAGA Energy insists its plan is greener than it sounds.

In response to questions from The Narwhal about the climate impact of their operations, company board chair David Tian said the firm’s plan is to eventually bundle their sites with emissions-lowering technologies, like carbon capture.

In an interview, he also talked about a plan to erect greenhouses nearby to their gas wells — greenhouses he said could use the excess carbon dioxide from burning gas and waste heat from running Bitcoin computers, to grow vegetables.

“Because this is waste heat, and also [carbon dioxide], we’re not going to charge much for those [greenhouses] — we can give them a very low price, and let the greenhouse operators have reasonable returns,” he said.

That infrastructure had not yet been built when The Narwhal visited.

It’s unclear what kind of ability the company has to invest in these emissions-lowering projects. MAGA Energy has 20 employees and 95 operating wells, producing about 1,800 barrels of oil equivalent per day of oil, gas and natural gas liquids. For perspective, large oilsands companies produce many hundreds of thousands of barrels per day.

Tian declined to share business statistics with The Narwhal such as general revenues or costs, whether it was making a profit right now or whether it was backed by any significant investors.

“We are a private company and we don’t disclose these financial results publicly,” he said. “However what I can disclose is that currently MAGA is a financially healthy company after two years of a very tough time during COVID-19, and it is on the way to getting better.”

Bitcoin’s volatility in the markets will also affect how profitable MAGA Energy’s plans can be. Tian said there is now less demand from Bitcoin miners than when they pitched Sturgeon County administrators on their plan to use their shut-in gas wells. But he said MAGA Energy still hopes to attract miners “at a gas price lower than market price.”

Even if the price of Bitcoin rises again in future, the company’s plans to add carbon-capture equipment will still face a big technical challenge. Most major projects, for example, have failed to stop the emissions they promised to capture. The technology is also still unproven at the scale necessary for broad decarbonization of the energy sector.

‘We are trying to find a way to create a win-win situation’

In addition to emissions, crypto mining can also cause other environmental impacts, according to the White House report. It flagged local noise and water impacts, air quality and environmental justice concerns as other potential issues.

MAGA Energy is familiar with noise complaints. A previous partnership with another firm using one of its gas wells to mine for Bitcoin led to nearby residents complaining about the mine’s noise levels, comparing it to “several idling Boeing 737s.” The operation was shut down.

In November 2021, the company gave a presentation to Sturgeon County administrators about changing the land-use bylaw to allow these kinds of facilities. Council approved, and voted in favour of adding “data processing facility” as a legitimate operation.

As part of its presentation, the company promised to follow all regulatory requirements “strictly,” such as noise and environmental assessments, as well as respecting stakeholders’ rights.

The company also promised its plan would result in other benefits to the region, in the form of royalties from the use of the gas, increased demand for local businesses and “job opportunities for the local residents.”

An emailed request to speak with a county administrator on the issue was not returned.

Tian argued that gas wells that are shut-in for too long are in jeopardy of developing corrosion issues, which he noted are also an environmental problem. In addition, he said, nearby farmers can’t grow crops as easily when pipelines and wellheads still occupy their fields.

Leaving the wells shut-in is “not the best option for both MAGA Energy and also the landowners. So we have to find a way to produce those [gas] reserves, but at the same time, protect the environment,” he said.

“We are trying to find a way to create a win-win situation between the economic return and also the environment.”

‘This is not extending the life of oil and gas’

Cryptocurrencies are clearly a massive energy hog around the world. Yearly global electricity use by crypto assets now equals what is consumed by all of Australia, according to the White House, and Bitcoin accounts for about three-quarters of that.

Crypto’s emissions, meanwhile, are equivalent to that of all the world’s barges, tankers and other ships on canals and rivers, the office estimated.

The issue of energy use is in part why Ethereum, a competing cryptocurrency, recently switched its protocol to cut down on the amount of work computers needed to perform to validate its transactions.

Industry advocates suggest their activity is not necessarily at odds with climate goals. The Bitcoin Mining Council, a Texas-based group of companies including some headquartered in Canada, said that 66 per cent of the power used by its members and identified in a voluntary survey was deemed as “sustainable.”

“It is important for the world to get the real facts about the amount of energy used and carbon released by the Bitcoin Network,” co-founder Darin Feinstein said in a press release.

University of Cambridge researchers found fossil fuels account for “almost two-thirds of the total electricity mix” at 62.4 per cent, compared to 37.6 per cent for sustainable energy sources.

By mid-September 2022, they concluded, about 199.65 million tonnes of carbon pollution was attributed to the Bitcoin network.

Karringten dismissed Bitcoin mining’s dirty reputation as a leftover myth from its history of linking up with the coal power industry in China. Since that country engaged in a crackdown on crypto, miners have been “looking for the cleanest, most ethical, most renewable sources of energy,” she said.

Asked how much Canadian mining represents in terms of global crypto emissions, Karringten said she doubted if Canada would even make up a full per cent.

She also called natural gas “a very clean and very effective” source of energy for Bitcoin mining, and rejected the idea that gas-to-Bitcoin schemes were giving the fossil fuel industry a new lease on life.

“This is not extending the life of oil and gas. This is a benefit that could create a more positive environmental impact, if you can use the waste heat off of Bitcoin mining, and you can use that heat towards greenhouses, you can actually increase our agricultural production through that and create net-zero on sites, as opposed to stacking and flaring your gases,” she said.

“You can take those gases, combust them, create less damaging emissions and then use that waste heat for good.”

‘Those people don’t fucking care about the environment.’ But we do.’

Although Tian has talked about reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the company’s projects by using carbon-capture technology, he also expressed skepticism about whether these types of initiatives were needed — raising his own personal doubts about widely accepted and extensive scientific evidence concluding humans have been responsible for global warming.

Tian said he is a geologist with a master’s degree. His name does not appear in the member directories for the professional geoscientist associations of B.C., Alberta or Saskatchewan. He declined to give more information about his professional credentials.

He said he believed people outside Alberta didn’t understand how serious average workers in the oil and gas industry treat environmental issues.

“My impression is, most people think of the oil and gas industry, ‘those people don’t fucking care about the environment.’ But we do. We do a lot,” said.

To give some examples, he talked about an experience he had 15 years ago at another oil and gas company, when he was visiting one of the company’s wells.

He said there was a spill while they were working on the well, maybe 20 or 30 litres. The supervisor at the time impressed Tian by putting down sawdust on the spill and removing the contaminated soil immediately, he said.

He said he was also amazed by how a fracking company he’d seen had made sure each joint didn’t even leave “one drop of fluid on the ground.”

In the end, Tian said he’s interested in caring for the environment for the same reason as many other people.

“We are all human beings living on this planet, and we all have to do our part to keep it in good condition,” he said.

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.

An investigation by The Narwhal reveals that industry and related groups, primarily from the oil and gas industry, are responsible for more than 80 per cent of Senate lobbying on Bill C-69, Canada’s proposed new environmental assessment law.

In contrast, just 13 per cent of Senate and Senate staff lobbying was conducted by environmental groups and four per cent was carried out by one First Nation.

Twenty-nine groups representing industry, business and related associations registered to lobby the government specifically about Bill C-69, which introduces new rules for reviewing major projects like mines and pipelines following the gutting of environmental assessment legislation by the former Stephen Harper government.

Of these groups, 21 went on to have 224 meetings with individual Senate members over a 16-month period beginning when Bill-C-69 was first introduced in February 2018. (To read more about how The Narwhal conducted this analysis, read our methods at the end of the article).

The unelected Senate has become a potential show-stopper for Bill C-69, which would make updates to Canada’s environmental assessment laws promised by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the last election campaign. The bill was supported by four out of five political parties in the House of Commons.

Normally the Senate would readily approve legislation backed by a majority of MPs. But last Thursday, in a rare move that tests the limits of its power, the Senate passed Bill C-69 with 187 sweeping amendments that experts say would leave Canada with weaker environmental assessment laws than those introduced by the Harper government.

Breakdown of meetings linked to lobbying on Bill C-69 that targeted the Senate. These meetings took place between February 8, 2018 — the date Bill C-69 was introduced — and early June 2019. The Narwhal is looking at meetings arranged with lobbyists that specifically named Bill C-69 in their registrations.

Many of the Senate’s amendments mirrored requests, some word for word, from oil companies and related associations such as the industry lobby group Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

CAPP, which has issued press releases and written op-eds condemning the original Bill C-69, has lobbied 36 senators since Bill C-69 was introduced, some of them on multiple occasions, according to The Narwhal’s findings.

Only three environmental groups specifically listed Bill C-69 as a target for their government lobbying — the Quebec Centre for Environmental Law, West Coast Environmental Law and the Pembina Institute, a Canadian non-profit think tank focused on energy issues.

Those three groups had a total of 36 meetings over the 16-month period beginning when Bill-C-69 was first introduced by federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in February 2018.

Foreign ownership of Canada’s oil industry

Kevin Taft, a former Alberta MLA and former leader of Alberta’s Liberal Party, said he’s not at all surprised that the oil industry has “massively outspent and out manoeuvred and out lobbied everybody else” on Bill C-69 — and Bill C-48, which would formalize a 30-year-old moratorium on large oil tanker traffic off B.C.’s north coast.

Taft said he’s struck by what he called an“Orwellian twist” and irony that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney faults “foreign-funded” environmental groups for influencing bills C-69 and C-48 when the oil industry has played a far larger role in lobbying. The oil industry, Taft said, is largely foreign-funded even though it’s based in Calgary.

Last Friday, when Kenney announced his “energy war room,” he repeated a now-familiar refrain from his campaign that environmental groups are behind a “campaign of lies and defamation” against the province’s energy industry.

Kenney, flanked by oil and gas industry representatives including the CEO of CAPP, Tim McMillan, told reporters that the “tar sands campaign” launched by environmental groups “helped to write two devastating federal bills — C-48, the ban on Alberta oil exports off our northern coast, and Bill C-69, what we call the No More Pipelines Law.”

Taft pointed out that Imperial Oil is owned by Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp., while Canadian Natural Resources Limited trades largely on foreign stock exchanges.

China is also heavily invested in Canada’s oil industry. Calgary’s Nexen Energy is now owned by China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s (CNOOC) international division. And Chinese-owned Sinopec Oilsands Partnership — the biggest oil company in the world ranked by revenue — owns nine per cent of Syncrude, while CNOOC acquired seven per cent of Syncrude through its acquisition of Nexen.

Then there’s Husky Energy Inc., one of the largest oil companies operating in Alberta. The majority stake in Husky is controlled by the family of Hong Kong’s richest man, recently retired billionaire Li Ka-shing, who holds approximately 70 per cent of the company’s shares.

Oil industry spends ‘millions’ a year on lobbying and PR campaigns

Laurie Adkin, a political science professor at the University of Alberta, said to imply that the oil and gas industry is the victim of propaganda and the environmentalists have all the power is “an inversion of what we know factually.”

“The reality is that the oil and gas industry has huge resources to lobby and finance public information campaigns, advertising … departments dedicated to engaging in government relations, digital communications, preparation of submissions for inquiries and consultations of various kinds,” she told The Narwhal.

“We know that they spend millions of dollars a year on this.”

Adkin noted that environmental lawyers say the government’s original version of Bill C-69 is weak, pointing out that it doesn’t go far enough to reverse the Harper government’s deregulation and protect the health of Canadians and biodiversity, or to address the climate change effects of Canada’s extractive industries.

The oil and gas industry views Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 as “obstructions” to building pipelines and expanding the oilsands, Adkin said. “So they are investing a lot in defeating them and modifying them.”

Oil industry has a ‘grip on the throat of democracy’

“It’s not a coincidence that five members of Jason Kenney’s cabinet, including the energy minister, are from the oil industry,” said Taft, author of the book Oil’s Deep State, which examines why democratic governments have failed to take serious steps to reduce carbon emissions despite compelling evidence of the growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

In addition to Sonya Savage, Alberta’s energy minister, at least four other ministers in Kenney’s cabinet list extensive oil and gas experience in their government biographies.

Taft said the oil industry has “got a grip around the throat of democracy in Canada” and that he believes that anybody who thinks the Alberta government is looking after the best interests of Albertans is mistaken.

“The Alberta government is looking after the best interests of the oil industry and that’s because the oil industry has such a tight grip on most of the democratic institutions in this province. And they are working hard and deliberately to tighten that grip nationally through the Conservative party, for example, whose senators are bringing forward legislative amendments written word for word by the industry.”

“Those should be ringing loud alarm bells for every Canadian,” Taft said. “When we have a rich, powerful, foreign-controlled industry drafting our legislation for us we have a real problem with democracy in Canada.”

Industry lobbies government 16 times more than environmentalists

At press time, the full House of Commons was poised to debate a motion to accept about one-third of the Senate’s amendments and reject about two-thirds. Once the amended bill is approved by a majority of MPs it will return to the Senate for consideration, likely next week.

The Narwhal’s investigation reveals industry and related groups had far more access to politicians than environmental groups did, even before the bill reached the Senate.

In addition to tallying lobbying of the Senate, The Narwhal also looked at the total number of lobbying meetings with all government officials reported by groups registered to lobby on Bill C-69. This includes senators, members of parliament, the prime minister’s office and all other public office holders. These reports span a 12-month period.

Because the communications reports that document meetings do not specify the content of the lobbying effort, we couldn’t verify that each of these meetings directly included Bill C-69, though each group had included the bill in their lobbyist registration.

The Narwhal’s analysis found that industry and associated groups registered to lobby on Bill C-69 had 945 meetings with government officials in a 12-month period.

Breakdown of meetings linked to lobbying on Bill C-69 that targeted all government officials, including the Senate, members of parliament and other public office holders. These meetings took place over a 12-month period. The Narwhal is looking at meetings arranged with lobbyists that specifically named Bill C-69 in their registrations.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) alone reported more than 100 meetings during this time period.

In its lobbyist registration, CAPP listed — among a myriad of other topics — what it described as a “grassroots lobbying campaign to ask Senators to make sure [Bill C-69] does not pass as it stands today” as one of its lobbying activities.

Elisabeth Besson, a spokesperson for CAPP, declined to answer specific questions but told The Narwhal by email “CAPP seeks to work collaboratively with governments to meet a common goal — protect the environment, responsibly grow oil and natural gas production and strengthen the economy. We appreciate opportunities to submit comments or participate in working groups to provide our expertise, along with other key stakeholders, on a given topic.”

Taft said “for practical purposes” oil companies have unlimited resources for lobbying.

“They count their dollars by the billions whereas environmental groups count them by the thousands,” he said. “It’s a complete and utter mismatch.”

“Organizations and corporations lobby because it’s effective,” Taft said, adding that lobbying is “only one small component” of the oil industry’s broader strategy.

“It’s a strategy that, in addition to lobbying, includes advertising, legal threats, massive political donations … [and] overt political organization,” Taft told The Narwhal.

By comparison, environmental groups registered to lobby on C-69 held 58 meetings with government officials — about six per cent of the lobbying done by industry-related groups.

Indigenous groups registered to lobby on C-69 filed a total of seven communications in the same period.

Not all industry groups oppose the bill. The Mining Association of Canada has supported Bill C-69 since it was introduced, saying it would provide more certainty and is an improvement over existing legislation. The association’s CEO, Pierre Gratton, told CBC that metal and minerals mines account for more than half of current environmental assessments.

Industry is ‘in the driver’s seat’

David Hughes, an earth scientist who has studied the energy resources of Canada and the U.S. for more than four decades, said The Narwhal’s analysis clearly show “industry is in the driver’s seat.”

“The industry’s been incredibly successful in ramping up production, which is why we have a pipeline bottleneck,” Hughes said in an interview.

“If the environmental groups are lobbying to reduce production and leave it in the ground they’re incredibly unsuccessful.”

Oilsands production increased 376 per cent from 2000 to 2018, according to Hughes, who spent 32 years with the Geological Survey of Canada as a scientist and research manager.

Oil production in the rest of Canada increased 45 per cent over the same time period, he said, while conventional oil production in Alberta dropped by 34 per cent.

Canada’s net oil exports have increased by 515 per cent since 2000, Hughes pointed out, adding that “environmental groups have been very ineffective.”

As overall oil production has climbed, royalties to government have plummeted — by almost 60 per cent, or $9.5 billion, from 2000 to 2017, according to Hughes.

‘Very big disproportionality’

University of Victoria sociologist Bill Carroll, whose research focuses on the relationships between corporate power, fossil fuel capitalism and the climate crisis, said The Narwhal’s findings are consistent with patterns traced by the Corporate Mapping Project he co-directs.

“What Jason Kenney says is not only untrue in terms of the specific details of Bill C-69 but it doesn’t fit the actual reality of lobbying in a larger time frame,” Carroll said in an interview.

Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the mapping project — a partnership of several universities and civil-society organizations — examined fossil fuel sector lobbying of federal agencies and public office holders from early 2011 to early 2018.

That research showed that 260 fossil fuel companies and carbon-sector industry associations, such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, lobbied the federal government over that time period, registering more than 11,000 distinct lobbying contacts.

Those lobbying contacts were concentrated among a small number of those 260 organizations, with the top 20 organizations accounting for 88 per cent of all lobbying, Carroll said. Those included CAPP, Enbridge, Suncor and TransCanada Corp (now known as TC Energy).

By comparison, over the same seven-year period, 16 environmental groups were active in lobbying at the federal level, Carroll said. “Their total lobbying contacts amounted to one-fifth of what the fossil fuel sector was doing. So a very big disproportionality there.”

The most active environmental group was the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, with 628 lobbying contacts. Other top environmental lobbyists were Environmental Defence, Pembina, Nature Canada, Ducks Unlimited and the David Suzuki Foundation, Carroll said.

Fossil fuel companies and associations are lobbying in an effort to shape legislation and policy “in ways that maximize their profitability” as part of business strategies, he noted.

“There’s an ongoing strategic concern to shape policy, to in a sense bombard policy makers — including senior civil servants and politicians — with a lot of information in an on-going, really permanent campaign in which the voice of industry is dominant.”

‘Tactical’ lobbying

When a specific piece of legislation like Bill C-69 is introduced, a “lobbying window” opens up and lobbying takes on a more “tactical aspect,” according to Carroll.

Speaking to CBC this week, Cenovus CEO Alex Pourbaix characterized his industry’s involvement with Bill C-69 and subsequent amendments as an “almost unprecedented effort with government.”

Rick Petersen, founder of the group Suits and Boots, penned a strategy for killing Bill C-69 in the Senate. Suits and Boots describes itself as a “grassroots organization” of 3,700 members, founded in April 2018 by a group of investment community colleagues (the ‘suits’) who support the working families of the resource sector (the ‘boots’).

Petersen wrote that only 48 Senate votes were needed to kibosh the bill.

He theorized that the 31 Conservative Senators “will all very likely oppose C-69.” So only an additional 17 votes would be needed from the remaining 64 sitting senators, Petersen wrote on the Suits and Boots website, which published a list of senators people could call to “kill Bill C-69.”

Of the sitting non-Conservative senators, 11 are Liberal, 45 are independent and eight are non-affiliated.

CAPP’s Senate lobbying on Bill C-69 reflected the strategy outlined by Petersen. Of the 37 senators lobbied by CAPP since February 2018, only approximately a fifth were Conservative senators — eight in total, including one senator who retired in August 2018.

The majority of senators CAPP targeted for lobbying — 24 in total — were independents. CAPP also targeted two Liberal senators and two non-affiliated senators.

Suits and Boots is a non-profit organization that lists neither its total funding nor its funding sources, although its website solicits donations from “individual grassroots supporters.” The website says the group received “early support” from corporations that include Canoe Financial and Petersen Capital.

As part of the group’s campaign targeting the Senate, launched last October, Suits and Boots hired an airplane to fly over Parliament Hill trailing a huge banner for all to see.

The message was clear: “Kill Bill C-69.”

*Updated 9:20 a.m. June 14, 2019, to add the word ‘net’ to this sentence: Canada’s net oil exports have increased by 515 per cent since 2000, Hughes pointed out, adding that “environmental groups have been very ineffective.”

Research methods

Wondering how exactly we conducted this analysis?

First we wanted to hone in on the lobbying of the Senate — which was crucial in gutting Bill C-69 — so we tallied the number of lobbying efforts that specifically targeted the Senate.

To do this, The Narwhal scoured the federal lobbyist registry for all registrations that specifically named “C-69,” dating back to February 8, 2018, when federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna introduced the bill.

We then tallied the number of monthly lobby communications reports — communications reports are filed whenever there’s a pre-planned face-to-face meeting, a phone call or any other verbal communication with a member of parliament, senator or other government official — associated with those registrations, including only those that involved the Senate.

We then categorized each lobbyist into one of the categories: industry and related groups, Indigenous groups and environmental groups. A couple of lobbyists, such as Alberta Barley and the Alberta Wheat Commission, were grouped into the “other” category as they appear to be primarily lobbying on agricultural, rather than industry-related, interests.

While we can’t verify the precise content of individual lobby efforts (the communication reports contain only vague subjects, such as “environment” or “energy”), we can identify which groups lobbied Senate members the most extensively in the 16 months after Bill C-69 was introduced. It’s important to note that The Narwhal only searched for lobbyist registrations that specifically named Bill C-69 — other lobbying activities on Bill C-69 may have taken place without specifically naming the bill.

Second, we wanted to get an idea about lobbying of all government officials. To do this, we used the federal lobbying registry’s 12-month tool to compile all communications reports tied to lobbying registrations that specifically named Bill C-69.

We again searched for registrations that specifically named C-69, then tallied communications reports and grouped them using the same categories.

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In an interview on CBC’s The National, United Conservative Party (UCP) leader Jason Kenney last month espoused a view that is persistent in Alberta politics — that the province can once again make a fortune in the oil industry.

“We’re talking about trillions of dollars of potential wealth,” Kenney said, perched on a chair in a coffee shop across from CBC host Rosemary Barton. “There’s a growing global demand, whether people like it or not, for oil and gas through at least the year 2040.”

But with changes in the world’s appetite for oil — and global goals to reduce carbon emissions — Albertans are left to wonder if this is still a safe assumption.

“It’s a pipe dream,” Gordon Laxer, a political economist and professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, told The Narwhal. “We are in the twilight of oil.”

Kenney was citing a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that projects increasing oil demand through 2040. Other organizations, such as Carbon Tracker, project worldwide demand for oil could peak as soon as 2023.

When global oil demand will decline — and how it will affect Alberta’s economy — remains up for debate.

“It’s a really tough question for anyone to answer with any degree of precision,” Trevor Tombe, associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary, told The Narwhal, pointing toward an enormous number of macroeconomic factors that influence global oil demand.

“Even in a world of unrestricted carbon emissions, the oilsands still face huge, huge economic challenges,” Jeff Rubin, former chief economist with CIBC World Markets and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, told The Narwhal.

“Eliminating global carbon taxes ain’t going to fix it,” he said.

Oil prices and Alberta’s downturn

“One thing that many people fail to realize is just how important the global price of oil is for the level of economic activity in Alberta’s oil and gas sector,” Jennifer Winter, assistant professor of economics at the University of Calgary, told The Narwhal.

Alberta oil doesn’t do well when prices are low. It’s more expensive to produce than in other jurisdictions, like Saudi Arabia.

Rubin previously told The Narwhal that oil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will be economically viable for much longer than Alberta’s high-cost oilsands. “That’s the kind of oil that’d be the most commercially sustainable, if in fact we’re going to mitigate climate change,” he said last fall.  “Low-cost oil [is] oil that still will be viable even if the world starts consuming less of it and prices decline.”

Prices have, indeed, declined from the highs Albertans were getting used to.

“Since 2015, there’s been substantial shrinkage [in oil prices],” Winter said. “There is a substantial temptation to blame governments for not doing enough… regardless of the political party in power.”

‘Real nemesis is the U.S. shale revolution’

Kenney and his UCP supporters have often accused the “job-killing carbon tax” and “foreign-funded anti-oil activists” of wreaking havoc on the Alberta economy.

That message appears to resonate with many Albertans, Rubin told The Narwhal, but there’s more to the province’s energy woes than taxes and protests.

“Albertans want to see a provincial government that’s willing to be more confrontational with the federal government on the pipeline issue, and I can understand where they’d be coming from,” he said.

“But people shouldn’t also lose sight of the bigger picture here either.”

He points to external factors influencing demand for oilsands crude. “The bigger picture here is the oilsand’s real nemesis is the U.S. shale revolution,” he said.

According to the Energy Information Administration, U.S. crude oil production averaged nearly 12 million barrels per day last month, up from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2011 — more than doubling in recent years.

Alberta’s production is temporarily capped at 3.63 million barrels per day, in the province’s effort to get full value for the resource. Production reached 3.7 million barrels per day last summer.

The Energy Information Administration projects American production will increase to 13 million barrels per day by next year — something Rubin says will have reverberating effects on the demand for Alberta oil.

“That’s not going to change with a change in [Alberta’s] government. They can get rid of the carbon tax, they can have a referendum on equalization…but it’s not going to change the economic challenges from the U.S. producing…much cheaper, higher-quality light oil.”

‘Changes in the energy market itself’

“We’re facing an economic crisis in Alberta,” Kenney told Bloomberg recently. “We need to get our economy back to work.”

This is an oft-repeated refrain in Alberta politics, and relies on the idea that with a few changes to policy, Alberta can boom again.

But there are questions as to whether the current situation is something Alberta can get out of with a change to its tax regime.

“This is different than other previous downturns,” Duncan Kenyon, Alberta regional director at the Pembina Institute, said. “There are so many changes in the energy market itself.”

“There’s a lot of things working against Alberta’s oilsands industry,” Ian Hussey, research manager at The Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta, told The Narwhal.

Hussey listed a few factors that could impact global oil demand off the top of his head: climate-change mitigation measures around the globe, increased use of public transportation, the move to urban centres, more energy efficiency measures, changes to building code standards and issues around the liabilities of the oil and gas industry.

Not to mention legislation mandating passenger vehicles away from fossil fuels (as in France, Denmark and Norway. China and India have announced similar ambitions).

And then there’s the push by many countries to replace carbon-intensive sources of energy with cleaner alternatives.

All affect Alberta’s economy, which is still largely dependent on oil.

A question remains about whether “made-in-Alberta” policies could mitigate the impact these changes have here at home.

“For most countries most of the time, policy affects things at the margin,” Tombe said. “Even what might look like large changes only have a minor effect on the rate of economic growth.”

So plans to cut corporate tax rates or the carbon tax, he says, likely wouldn’t have major effects on economic growth.

“Big moves in economic activity are due to factors beyond any particular government’s control.”

‘It’s bigger than pipelines’

“We just expect oil demand to increase and increase and increase,” Kenyon of the Pembina Institute told The Narwhal. “That oil demand flattening may come much sooner than we expect.”

“We do not have a business plan for that. We do not have a strategy.”

There’s been much talk, of course, about pipelines. Kenney says the Trans Mountain expansion is “a pipeline that is critical to our future prosperity.” But how far into the future?

“It’s beyond pipelines,” Kenyon said. “They’re a big deal for our current structure, but it’s bigger than pipelines.”

Pipelines are often said to be essential in relieving the pressure on Alberta’s oil industry, by allowing access to better-paying markets (though there are questions about whether the oft-touted Asian market for Alberta’s oil may be a myth).

“A pipeline might help us in today’s market,” Kenyon said, “but it does not help us in the next 10 to 20 years.”

Kenyon acknowledges that “the NDP has started that conversation about this, by looking at how you get more value out of [our] products in the province.”

But, he added, we “have to go one or two levels further than that.”

‘Royalty revenues have plummeted’

The long-term strategy for the province’s economic transition remains up for debate.

“You can either have a managed transition off oil, in which you actually have a plan and look after workers and communities,” Laxer said, noting that the province’s coal phase-out is a model for this kind of thinking.

“Or you can have an unmanaged freefall.”

He thinks that the policies advocated for in the election campaign are pushing us toward the latter.

Other researchers point to the province’s decline in royalty revenues as further evidence of problems to come.

Alberta has long been dependent on oil and gas royalties to balance its books.

“You can either have a managed transition off oil…Or you can have an unmanaged freefall.”

“We are not prepared for a drop in global demand for oil,” Tombe told The Narwhal, “for the simple reason that our government relies so heavily on royalties to fund public services.”

According to the Government of Alberta, the total revenue from oil and gas development — $5 billion in royalties and related revenue — made up 11 per cent of the province’s total revenue in fiscal year 2017-2018.

“The provincial government’s royalty revenues have plummeted,” Hussey of the Parkland Institute told The Narwhal. “It just fell off a cliff after the price crash in 2014.”

In 2013-2014, the province received 21 per cent of its total revenue from income from resource extraction. The decline puts the province in a tricky situation.

“I simply haven’t seen the evidence that Alberta is going to go back to funding 20 per cent of public services from resources revenue,” Hussey said.

Without that tried-and-true revenue source — and with concerns that it may decline further in the future — Alberta is in need of a plan.

‘Anxiety about the state of the economy’

Winter agrees the global demand for oil will likely decline at some point, but likely not overnight. “It’s likely to be a fairly sedate decline in global demand for oil,” she said.

Others are concerned the decline may be sooner — and more abrupt — than Albertans are prepared for.

Either way, Winter said, our ability to look far into the future hinges on our confidence in the present.

“There’s still some anxiety about the state of the economy right now,” she told The Narwhal. “That makes it harder to look into the long-term.”

But Kenyon of the Pembina Institute thinks it’s crucial that we start thinking about the future, pronto.

“Long story short, we cannot take for granted that demand for oil is perpetually growing,” Kenyon told The Narwhal.

“When that stops to grow is coming sooner than most people in Alberta want to acknowledge.”

“Which of the political parties are recognizing that?” he wonders. “And who’s coming up with something to try to address that?”

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In the weeks since Kinder Morgan’s announcement that it was suspending all “non-essential spending” on the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline, we’ve seen yet another round of concerns about a spike in the shipping of oil by rail.

The argument goes that failing to build Trans Mountain means that excess oil from Alberta will just be shipped to markets by rail — a more costly option with the potential for fiery spills and explosions in the middle of communities, like what happened in Lac-Mégantic back in 2013.

But there are two major issues with such analysis: 1) there’s not enough rail capacity to substitute for pipelines; and 2) transporting oil by rail wouldn’t be nearly as unsafe as it currently is if government updates its rules and enforcement.

Ignoring such realities may allow for convenient pro-pipeline mythmaking, but not for reasonable fact-based debate.

“Governments and industry uses it to fearmonger a little bit to justify pipeline capacity expansions,” said Patrick DeRochie, climate and energy program manager at Environmental Defence. “But if they were actually concerned about mitigating the risks of oil by rail, there are some pretty clear and simple steps they can take.”

Here’s a breakdown of what’s actually going on.

IEA predicts rail exports could nearly triple by 2019

In February 2018, the most recent month that we have data for, Canada shipped a daily average of 134,100 barrels of oil to the United States on trains. While not an insignificant amount, it was nowhere close to the historical high of December 2014 — when oil-by-rail exports hit 175,600 barrels per day (bpd) due to pipeline constraints.

Such figures don’t include oil that’s shipped by rail across Canada. A recent Globe & Mail article reported that more than 150,000 barrels of oil are moved daily on British Columbia’s railways. Much of that ends up being exported to the United States.

To put such numbers in perspective, Alberta produced an average of 3.4 million barrels of oil per day in February. So rail shipments represented only five per cent of the province’s output.

The concern is that those numbers will rapidly rise in the near future, well beyond the December 2014 threshold.

“It’s real and people have been predicting it,” said Bruce Campbell, former executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of an upcoming book about the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. “As production keeps increasing, there’s uncertainty about the pipelines, so there is that looming possibility.”

In March, the International Energy Agency forecasted that Canada’s oil-by-rail exports could increase to 250,000 bpd in 2018 and 390,000 bpd in 2019. Kevin Birn of IHS Markit told Reuters that exports could go higher than 400,000 bpd if pipelines face more delays.

To put all those numbers in perspective, the rosiest forecast would mean an increase of 266,000 barrels per day via rail. Meanwhile, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposes to add more than double that with 590,000 barrels per day of capacity.

CP and CN already facing major backlog of grain shipments

According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, there’s already a total of 754,000 bpd in rail loading capacity in Western Canada, including 210,000 bpd at Kinder Morgan’s very own co-owned terminal in Edmonton.

So why on earth aren’t oil producers using that spare rail capacity? Well, for the very same reason that some are doubtful oil-by-rail is going to see any kind of major increase: there simply aren’t enough trains to go around.

DeRochie is skeptical about projections by the International Energy Agency.

“There might be a small incremental increase in the oil being shipped by rail, but we’re looking at the tens of thousands of barrels, which is nowhere near the capacity that pipelines would introduce to the system,” DeRochie said.

Canada’s two freight rail companies, Canadian Pacific (CP) and Canadian National (CN), are facing ongoing criticism from grain producers on the Prairies for critical delays that have left massive quantities of wheat and canola unable to get to markets. Grain shipments are ultimately the “bread and butter” of freight rail in Canada — and the companies are failing to adequately service even them.

Rail companies look for long-term shippers

Both companies have rebuffed calls from the oil industry to enter into short-term contracts to ship more crude.

In a January conference call with investors, CP Rail CEO Keith Creel said: “We understand crude is only going to be here for a limited period of time. We are looking for strategic partners with long-term objectives that allows us to have a more stable book of business.”

Meanwhile, CN Rail requires a minimum of a year-long commitment from shippers.

Most oil companies aren’t prepared to enter into long-term contracts and are ultimately banking on new pipeline capacity opening up in the near future. After all, oil-by-rail tends to be more expensive — Birn of IHS Markit recently told CBC News that rail adds about $3 to $4 per barrel in costs — so even the ability to ship backlogged crude to market isn’t necessarily worth it given current oil prices. But rail companies won’t spend on new trains and tracks without commitment.

This week, Bloomberg reported that Cenovus had signed an oil-by-rail contract to start in the second half of the year, seeming to confirm earlier statements by CN.

But workers at CP Rail are on the verge of striking, which could shut down shipping for weeks or months. CN Rail’s CEO has already stated that his company won’t be able to “pick up the slack” if it proceeds. While likely not a long-term issue, the potential strike action represents yet another source of unpredictability for oil producers.

B.C.’s proposed regulations could curtail shipments

Add to those issues the fact that B.C.’s proposed regulations on the transport of diluted bitumen would apply to rail.

In its reference case submitted to the B.C. Court of Appeal this week, the B.C. government outlined regulations that would apply to pipelines transporting any quantity of liquid petroleum products, as well as rail or truck operations transporting more than 10,000 litres of liquid petroleum products.

The proposed regulations would require shippers to meet several spill response criteria to obtain a “hazardous substance permit” from the government.

‘Industry still seems to be running the show’

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that companies evade all these obstacles and oil-by-rail exports triple to more than 400,000 barrels per day by 2019.

There’s simply no reason that shipping oil on trains needs to be as dangerous as it currently is. As we’ve previously reported, there are a wide range of changes that could be introduced by the federal government to greatly reduce risk — amend the Railway Safety Act to restrict certain volumes of dangerous goods, accelerate the phase-out of existing railcars, increase the number of on-site inspections and improve public transparency.

But with the exception of minor changes, the federal government hasn’t moved to make rail transport of oil safe

“The industry is powerful,” Campbell said. “I’ve talked a lot about regulatory capture. Transport Canada, as far as I can tell, is still as dysfunctional as ever. Industry still seems to be running the show, and resources seem to be as wanting, to say the least. You’ve got a weak regulator with insufficient resources.”

The report of the Railway Safety Act Review is expected to be released soon, but Campbell is “almost positive” that it won’t lead to a fundamental rethinking of the system.

Shipping raw bitumen by rail eliminates costly diluent, reduces risk of explosions

There are actually many upsides to transporting oil by rail instead of pipeline.

It physically moves faster in unit trains than pipeline, and doesn’t mix with other grades of petroleum as it does with pipeline “batching.” Rail terminals are also quite low in cost — the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers reported in 2014 that a typical unit train terminal ranges between $30 million to $50 million and can be paid off in five years or less.

There’s also the potential to ship raw bitumen by rail in a form known as “neatbit.”

As the name suggests, diluted bitumen that’s transported by pipeline requires diluent, a costly natural gas condensate that takes up about 30 per cent of volume in a shipment. Diluent also serves as the volatile component of the mixture, which can explode in a crash. Shipping bitumen by rail without diluent would save companies money and prevent the risk of explosions.

But it requires upfront costs to purchase heated tanker cars and special loading terminals. It’s effectively the same thing preventing the electrification of freight rail, which would greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fuel costs: it just costs too much cash to get started, even though the payoffs would be enormous. Until the government regulates such activities, it likely won’t happen — and the safety of communities will continue to be at risk.

“The reality is that the stuff is going to keep rumbling through Canadians towns and cities across the country,” Campbell said. “While it’s doing that for the next five years or more, make it safer. There are things that can be done.”

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In the remote north-eastern corner of Alaska, just under 20-million acres have been set aside as a federal protected area since 1960. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has recently come under threat, however, with President Donald Trump’s Department of the Interior proposing lifting restrictions on seismic exploration.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain has been described as America’s Serengeti, and is the year-round or migratory home to numerous species that are uniquely adapted to the conditions found within this rare expanse of undeveloped wilderness along the Arctic Ocean.

Over tens of thousands of years, both the Porcupine Caribou herd and the Gwich’in people have come to depend on the integrity of that coastal plain for their survival.

“The Gwich'in call this area ‘Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit,’ the Sacred Place Where Life Begins,” explained Vuntut Gwich’in Councillor Dana Tizya-Tramm via email.

“It is a keystone in the ecosystems of the Arctic, and the heart that beats outside of the Gwich'in chest.”

Oil and gas lobbyists have had the Refuge in their sights from the outset. For decades now, for every push to open up the wildlife refuge to oil and gas development, multiple generations of Gwich’in have stood up to protect the land and the herd that has sustained their way of life.

Disturbance to the landscape can upset a delicate balance between the wildlife that makes its home on the coastal plain.

Brooks Range mountains tower behind lush arctic tundra in Yukon's north slope region. Photo: Matt Jacques | DeSmog Canada

“In a miracle of phenology [the interaction of climate, habitat and plant/animal cycles], Porcupine caribou cows arrive at the coastal plain just as the first flush of spring growth provides a burst of nutrients to them, just as they all deliver their calves at once,” said Yukon Conservation Society energy analyst Sebastian Jones in an emailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada.

“In the first few critical days of a caribou calf’s life, predation is the main hazard. Until they have found their legs, they are easy prey to wolves and bears.”

To the west of the Arctic Refuge, high levels of industrial activity are already taking place, and to the south and east of the narrow coastal plain area where the caribou calving takes place, steep mountain ranges mean less nutrients and more predators.

“There is simply nowhere else suitable for the caribou to go,” said Jones.

Exploration Freeze Beginning to Thaw Under Trump

There have been numerous victories and setbacks in what has been a sustained effort over that time, but for many, any sense of relief or optimism brought about by President Obama’s 2016 move to freeze arctic oil and gas exploration in the Arctic has now vanished.

President Trump’s 2018 Budget includes instructions to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to raise an additional $1B over ten years. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski — Chair of the Committee — has used the opportunity to champion a renewed push to open the coastal plain to oil and gas exploration. Earlier this month Murkowski introduced legislation that would give a green light to exploration in the Refuge. Republicans have now taken Murkowski’s bill and folded it into their tax reform bill.

“There is palpable concern among the quiet people of our community of 250 people,” said Tizya-Tramm.

“I've even had children as young as 8 years old ask why this is happening and if we can talk with the President, and what they can do. It is hard to see the sincere concern in our youth’s eyes. I encourage them and tell them that we will beat this, as we must.”

Jones said that since the current proposal is exploratory in nature, the true scope and scale of potential activity in the area remains to be seen.

“It depends on what they find. If the feverish dreams of the oil men come true, it will be another Prudhoe Bay — decades of drilling, all-season roads, pipelines, and oil spills.”

For the Gwich’in, Tizya-Tramm says the development would mirror the expected impact on the caribou herd.

“Our entire existence will dwindle with any presence in their calving grounds, period.”

#Trump Eyes #Arctic Wildlife Refuge for #Oil Drilling, Alarming Gwich’in https://t.co/YPUnR7fUHy #ANWR #Arctic #WildlifeConservation @MattJacques

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 22, 2017

‘Delicate like Fine China’

“People need to understand just how delicate this area is,” says Tizya-Tramm.  

“Traditionally we stayed out of the Coastal Plains altogether. Tundra is a very sensitive and even seismic testing will scar the land with permanent trails. These caribou have been seen to purposefully stay far away from a soup can laying on the ground. Caribou populations have fallen exponentially in Alberta and other regions where there is development.”

Arctic cottongrass, mosses, other plants and lichens vital to the Porcupine Caribou can take decades to recover from industrial damage, sometimes taking decades to return.

“The picture that arises here, and well known to our people, is that nature is a fine-tuned system. And up in one of the harshest regions in the world, it is especially delicate like fine china. We cannot limit the options of animals that exist in the narrow opportunities afforded to them, especially one of the healthiest remaining herd of caribou left,” explains Tizya-Tramm

Murkowski and supporters have pitched fossil fuel exploration in the area as a quick solution to the American budget deficit, presenting minimal impacts within the coastal plain calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou.

Murkowski tweeted in November in defense of changes in oil and gas development since ANWR was established.

The size of development pads has decreased by nearly 80% since the 1970s. New technologies have expanded the subsurface reach of the newest rigs by 4,000% over the same period. Many exploration wells are now built using ice roads and ice pads—leaving no impact to the tundra.

— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) November 15, 2017

“Many exploration wells are now built using ice roads and ice pads — leaving no impact to the tundra,” she wrote. 

Jones dismisses any notion of low-impact exploration or development in the area.

“This exploration is supposed to be restricted to winter on ice/snow roads and drill pads; here are multiple problems with this,” he says. “Drill rigs are massive and require multiple large loads, in turn requiring very robust roads. It is not a trivial exercise building ice roads on the tundra sufficient to deploy an oil rig. In recent years, consistent with global warming, it has become less common to have adequate snow to build winter roads, so it may not even be possible.”

Gwich’in Gearing Up for a Fight

While the momentum to open up the Arctic Refuge to development seems to be gaining, Gwich’in and supporters have been stepping up their activity as well.

The Yukon Branch of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has launched a nationwide petition, lobbying Prime Minister Trudeau to speak up against development in the Arctic Refuge.

A delegation of Gwich’in and other Canadian officials, including Yukon MP Larry Bagnell travelled to Washington, DC earlier this month in the hopes of influencing senate votes on the issue. Upon returning, Bagnell spoke about the trip and raised the issue in the House of Commons.

For Tizya-Tramm and Gwich’in in both Canada and Alaska, the battle has been all-consuming.

“I have been working late into the night and weekends for over a month now simply trying to keep pace,” Tizta-Tramm said.

“This is a time to call upon all of our people and the strong partnerships we have forged over the years.”

The Gwich'in Steering Committee held emergency meetings in Fairbanks earlier in November that brought together tribal leadership, Elders, and community members.

“There we once again came together seeking guidance and unity. To be of one mind, one heart, so that we may speak with one voice.”

Image: Porcupine Caribou crossing the Blow River in north-western Yukon. Photo: Matt Jacques | DeSmog Canada

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As the leadership contest for Alberta’s newly formed United Conservative Party heats up, it’s no surprise pipeline politics are front and centre.

As four major oilsands pipeline projects from Alberta sit abandoned, stalled or awaiting review, one contender is proposing to beat the pipeline gridlock through an entirely new route.

It wouldn’t be through the west or east coast but through the Arctic — namely Churchill, Manitoba, the polar bear capital of the world, nestled in Hudson Bay.

“Churchill has Canada's only deep-water port facility, and it could be capable of sending 250,000 barrels/day of Alberta oil to global markets so we can secure the premium price,” states a media release from Jeff Callaway, former Wildrose president and now leadership contender for the United Conservative Party.

The president of the Churchill Chamber of Commerce blasted the proposal as ecologically dangerous.

“Everyone always wants jobs and security that way but oil is pretty scary business, especially on the edge of the Arctic,” Dave Daley, an avid dogsledder and owner of Wapusk Adventures, told CBC.

"As soon as that article hit town here there was a big uproar about 'Say no to oil.' "

Latest Oil Pipeline Proposal Comes as Support Grows for Getting Off Oil

This latest pipeline proposal comes at time when the world is grappling with the urgent need to ramp down fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

Pipelines have become a symbol of the larger debate about climate change, with new pipeline proposals threatening to enable increased oil production at a time when scientists and world leaders agree rapid de-carbonization is needed.

New polling released by Abacus Data this month indicates a majority of Canadians (59 per cent) are growing “more worried about climate change and it is changing my view of how long we should use oil.” That includes 48 per cent of Albertans and 35 per cent of Conservative voters.

“Energy, pipeline and climate issues have been among the most highly charged political debates in Canada for several years,” said Abacus chairman Bruce Anderson.

“What we are seeing in our numbers now is an evolution of opinion: concerns about climate change have deepened, and belief that the world is going to transition away from oil has grown.”

Canadians are also becoming more convinced that oil demand will decrease in the next few decades. Ten years from now, equal numbers believe demand for oil will be rising (31 per cent) as believe it will be falling (32 per cent).

“This represents a striking 15-point increase in the number who believe demand will be falling, compared to our result in April of this year,” Abacus states.

A majority (55 per cent) would prefer to see demand in decline in 10 years and fully two-thirds would like to see demand declining in 30 years.

Even in Alberta, more people would like to see demand for oil declining (38 per cent) in 10 years as would like to see it increasing (28 per cent). Looking out 30 years, 48 per cent would prefer to see oil demand in decline, compared to 20 per cent who would like to see it increasing.

So if public sentiment is shifting to a place where it doesn’t support an increase in oil demand even in the next 10 years, how does that impact the debate about constructing new pipelines?

“Over the last three years, feelings about the construction of new pipelines to deliver Canadian energy to new markets have shifted. Negative feelings have not grown (21 per cent), but positive feelings (44 per cent) have dropped, while more people take a neutral stance (36 per cent),” Abacus states, noting stark differences of opinion based on generation and partisanship.

Yet when asked to choose between two alternatives: building new pipelines while pursuing efforts to reduce emissions, or building no new pipelines to avoid contributing to climate change, the large majority continues to support a strategy that both builds new pipelines (thus increasing emissions) while simultaneously ramping up policies that will see the country shift to more renewable forms of energy (to reduce emissions).

This question gets at the crux of the breakdown of public narrative on the construction of new export pipelines. Either the public fundamentally misunderstands that the export pipeline proposals under consideration would enable increased production, and therefore increase emissions, or essentially Canadians want to have their cake and eat it too.

Alberta Leadership Candidate Proposes Oil #Pipeline to #Arctic As World Aims to Get Off Oil https://t.co/pPHVUZongI #ableg #cdnpoli #climate

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 23, 2017

Alberta Government Proposed as Main Investor in Churchill Pipeline

Back to Callaway’s Churchill pipeline idea. Key to the proposal is a front-and-centre role for a new conservative Alberta government, which Callaway envisions subsidizing the proposal as the pipeline’s main investor.  

According to Callaway, after ousting the NDP government, Alberta should buy the out-of commission rail line that connects Churchill with points south, and the port facilities.

The port would then be revamped to handle both oil and grain exports. In addition, a new oil pipeline and access road would be built alongside the railway line.

The plan echoes one carried out by Premier Peter Lougheed in the 1980s when the government put up $200 million to expand the grain export terminals in Prince Rupert so farmers would have better access to world markets.

But it’s a far cry from recent conservative policy in Alberta, which decries any government bankrolling of energy projects. Canada has also joined other G20 countries in pledging to stop subsidizing fossil fuel extraction.

Omnitrax, a Denver-based company that owns the railway and the port facilities, has said it is not prepared to pay the $20 to $60 million dollars it would cost for repairs. It wants the federal government to step in instead.

Callaway did not respond to interview requests for this article.

Pipeline Projects Face Uphill Approval Battle

If the proposal ever came up for serious consideration, it would be years away.

At this stage, Callaway is not a front runner in the leadership race for the United Conservative Party, the party that emerged after the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives agreed to unite. Jason Kenney, a former Harper cabinet minister, and Brian Jean, former leader of the Wildrose, have much better chances of winning.

Alberta’s provincial election is two years in the future and approval for a project of this magnitude, never mind completion, could easily take ten years (past the point when the majority of Canadians say they want to see oil demand decreasing).

But Callaway’s “big idea” is another sign of the growing frustration, particularly among conservatives, with a lack of progress on the pipeline file.

When NDP Premier Rachel Notley announced Alberta’s Climate Change Action Plan in November 2015 she touted it as a path to social licence for Alberta’s energy projects, particularly interprovincial pipelines. The plan included a carbon tax, a phase out of coal- generated electricity and a cap on oilsands carbon emissions and more renewable energy.

If Alberta doesn’t get a pipeline built, David Taras, a veteran observer of Alberta and Canadian politics and professor of communication studies at Mount Royal University, said the frustration in Alberta could boil over.

The “politics of isolation and anger” may surface in Alberta and that would play right into the hands of the United Conservative Party.

Numerous projects have faced regulatory and social licence hurdles when it comes to moving oilsands crude from landlocked Alberta to coastal export facilities.

After one of the most protracted, controversial and public pipeline reviews in Canadian history, the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project is now dead.

The future of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project remains uncertain.

The project, which involves twinning the current Trans Mountain pipeline will lead to a seven-fold increase of oil tanker traffic off the coast of British Columbia. Concerns over oil spills, a lack of consent from First Nations, as well as growing support for strong climate policies have converged to make the pipeline politically toxic in B.C.

The new B.C. NDP government was recently granted intervenor status in a legal challenge of federal permits for the pipeline and has promised to do everything possible to legally impede the pipeline’s construction.

Pressure on the federal government to modernize the National Energy Board’s process for reviewing pipeline projects escalated during the Trans Mountain assessment process, which was widely criticized by numerous participants and coined an act of public deception.

The NEB’s review of the Trans Mountain pipeline did not consider the upstream climate impacts of the pipeline and included no oral cross-examination of evidence.

Public scrutiny of Canada’s review process for pipelines has come to bear on the ongoing review of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline. In August, the National Energy Board announced it would consider upstream emissions in addition to downstream emissions of projects undergoing review, prompting TransCanada executive to request a suspension of the Energy East review.

The company signalled it will reconsider whether the pipeline is worth pursuing given the changes to the regulatory process.

In a perhaps unexpected turn for TransCanada, the Keystone XL pipeline project, unequivocally rejected by former President Barack Obama, was resuscitated by President Trump in March. Despite the new political support for the project, the company has publicly questioned the need for the project, leading some to wonder if Keystone XL, first proposed over a decade ago, will in fact be built.

How all of this pipeline turmoil will play out in the next Alberta election is anybody’s guess, given the rapidly shifting public opinion around the need to get off oil.

But it’s worth noting the Abacus survey was fielded in early August, before two devastating hurricanes hit the U.S., before another scorching month in B.C. stoked further forest fires and before drought conditions struck several provinces.

As the world feels the urge to shift off of fossil fuels, a transition some are calling the third industrial revolution, it’s clear the pipeline debate is caught in the crosshairs.

Image: Trans-Alaskan pipeline. Photo: etherlore via Flickr

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A court in Toronto will soon begin deliberating over whether or not to seize Chevron's Canadian assets in order to force the company to comply with an $9.5-billion judgement in Ecuador.

The company doesn’t deny that Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2000, deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon, resulting in massive environmental devastation and a health crisis affecting thousands of people. But the company claims it did its part to clean up the rainforest.

But the settlement Chevron had with the Ecuadorian government and the state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, does not preclude citizens affected by that oil pollution from seeking damages. Ecuadorian plaintiffs first filed a suit against the company in 1993. Chevron lost a high-profile trial in Ecuador in 2011, and every Ecuadorian court that has considered the evidence since then — including an appeals court and the country's Supreme Court — has ruled against Chevron.

Yet still the company refuses to pay. Chevron has even gone venue shopping in an attempt to avoid paying for a cleanup of its toxic mess — filing an investor-state dispute at the Hague, pressing RICO charges against the Ecuadorians and their lawyers in a New York court. But the communities in Ecuador affected by Chevron’s pollution have not remained idle, and have instead pursued Chevron in Canada to try and collect on the company's debt.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously in 2015 that the Ecuadorian plaintiffs could pursue an enforcement action against Chevron. In the majority opinion, Justice Clément Gascon wrote: “In a world in which businesses, assets and people cross borders with ease, courts are increasingly called upon to recognize and enforce judgments from other jurisdictions. Sometimes, successful recognition and enforcement in another forum is the only means by which a foreign judgment creditor can obtain its due.”

Now, in an open letter released this week, more than a dozen Canadian organizations, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Idle No More Canada, MiningWatch, Sierra Club British Columbia, United Steelworkers, and Unifor, have called Chevron out for its attempts to abuse the civil justice system and evade paying the Ecuador judgment.

“While Chevron continues its international litigation ‘shell game’ thousands of people continue to be systematically poisoned and suffer daily from Chevron's refusal to pay a $9.5 billion judgment to clean up its toxic waste in Ecuador,” the letter states. “Chevron's refusal to honor the judgment against it has forced these communities to come to Canada in a last ditch effort to seize assets to force Chevron to comply with the rule of law.”

"We are grateful that the people of Canada, just like their Supreme Court, have chosen to side with those of us affected by Chevron's deplorable actions when it polluted our communities and water supply,” Humberto Piaguaje, President of the Union of Affected Communities in Ecuador, who will be attending the court sessions in Canada, said in a statement. “The indigenous peoples of Ecuador deserve full access to justice and a healthy environment so that we and our Amazonian neighbors can live with dignity.”

There are signs, however, that Chevron is already attempting to circumvent enforcement of any ruling against the company in Canada. Recent reports have stated that Chevron is currently trying to sell several billion-dollars-worth of its Canadian assets. After insisting the original trial over its pollution in the Amazon be held in an Ecuadorian court, Chevron stripped its assets from the country, which some saw as a deliberate attempt to avoid having to pay any adverse judgement against the company. The fear is that Chevron is attempting the same thing in Canada.

Canadian Civil Society: Freeze Chevron Assets, Use To Cover #Ecuador Judgement on #Amazon Destruction https://t.co/ZL1Y4l8TNS #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 13, 2016

In their letter, the groups call on Canadian authorities to stop Chevron from selling its Canadian assets before a decision can be reached in the trial, stating in the letter that it "would set a terrible precedent for other corporations intending to evade responsibility for environmental and human rights crimes."

Chevron’s tactics of delay and obfuscation are nothing new for the oil industry, of course. BP held out for two years before finally agreeing to pay $1 billion to fishermen and others affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And the recent #ExxonKnew scandal erupted after it was discovered that the oil giant’s own scientists had been warning of the dangers of carbon pollution leading to runaway climate change since at least the 1970s — but Exxon continued to fund climate denial anyway.

Sierra Club BC Campaigns Director Caitlyn Vernon said that oil companies have operated with impunity for years, despite leaving a legacy of environmental destruction and human rights abuses. "Whether in Canada or around the world, oil companies such as Chevron, Enbridge and Kinder Morgan must be held accountable for oil spills, climate change impacts, and their treatment of local and indigenous populations," she said.

Now, environmentalists say, the Canadian court system has the opportunity to see some small measure of justice is done in this precedent-setting case.

"The Canadian environmental and human rights community has joined forces with the affected communities in Ecuador because we recognize this to be one of the most important corporate accountability cases in history," said Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Climate & Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. "Chevron must not be allowed to evade its legal and moral responsibilities simply because it has the might to fight on indefinitely in the courts.”  

Image Credit: Oil pollution in Lago Agrio, November 2007. Texaco operated dozens of drilling sites in the area before pulling out of Ecuador altogether. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

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A groundbreaking study published today in Seismological Research Letters has demonstrated a link, for the first time, between hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for oil and gas and earthquakes. 

"Hydraulic Fracturing and Seismicity in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin" confirms the horizontal drilling technique (which in essence creates an underground mini-earthquake to open up fissures for oil and gas extraction) is responsible for earthquakes, above and beyond what is already canonized in the scientific literature. We already knew that injecting fracking waste into underground wells can cause quakes. But now it's not just the injections wells, but the fracking procedure itself that can be linked to seismicity. 

The study focuses on an area in Canada known as the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), one of Canada's biggest shale basins and tight oil and gas producing regions.

The researchers "compared the relationship of 12,289 fracking wells and 1,236 wastewater disposal wells to magnitude 3 or larger earthquakes in an area of 454,000 square kilometers near the border between Alberta and British Columbia, between 1985 and 2015," explained a press release. They "found 39 hydraulic fracturing wells (0.3% of the total of fracking wells studied), and 17 wastewater disposal wells (1% of the disposal wells studied) that could be linked to earthquakes of magnitude 3 or larger."

If that sounds like a fairly small percentage, Atkinson and colleagues readily admit that is the case in the study. Yet they also write that it could portend worse things to come as more and more wells are fracked in the region.

"It is important to acknowledge that associated seismicity occurs for only a small proportion of hydraulic fracturing operations," they wrote, proceeding to cite another paper written in 2015 by lead author Gail Atkinson — a professor of earth sciences at the University of Western Ontario —  and colleagues on the impacts of induced seismicity. "However, considering that thousands of such wells are drilled every year in the WCSB, the implications for hazard are nevertheless significant, particularly if multiple operations are located in close proximity to critical infrastructure."

The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin uses less water during fracking operations than in places like the current mecca of frackquakes, Oklahoma. In the paper, the authors also conclude that the massive amount of wastewater incidents in the U.S. may cloak the impact fracking has had on induced seismicity in the central U.S., which calls for more scientific investigation.

"[I]t is possible that a higher-than-recognized fraction of induced earthquakes in the United States are linked to hydraulic fracturing, but their identification may be masked by more abundant wastewater-induced events," they explained.

One of their most important finds appears to be the definitive link the researchers found between fracking and earthquakes in the region, rather than the sheer number of quakes. They also found no link between the amount of fluid pumped into the ground during fracking and the size of the earthquake.

"More than 60% of these quakes are linked to hydraulic fracture, about 30-35% come from disposal wells, and only 5 to 10% of the earthquakes have a natural tectonic origin," said Atkinson in a press release. And "if there isn't any relationship between the maximum magnitude and the fluid disposal, then potentially one could trigger larger events if the fluid pressures find their way to a suitably stressed fault."

What's the big takeaway, then, according to the paper? Of course, a call for more investigation, but in the meantime they also call for more thoughtful public policy moving forward.

"The nature of the hazard from hydraulic fracturing has received less attention than that from wastewater disposal, but it is clearly of both regional and global importance," they wrote in the conclusion. "The likelihood of damaging earthquakes and their potential consequences needs to be carefully assessed when planning HF operations in this area."

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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Several prominent western Canadian politicians came out firing at Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre’s announcement yesterday that Montreal-area municipalities will oppose TransCanada’s Energy East oil pipeline project. The outraged western leaders were not exactly polite in their criticism either.

“He’s wrong on this one. There’s no better way to put it,” Calgary Naheed Nenshi told CTV’s Power Play. “The alternative is more oil by rail and people in Quebec know the dangers of oil by rail, tragically.”

“I trust Montreal area mayors will politely return their share of $10B in equalization supported by (the) west,” Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said on Twitter.

The 82 municipalities of the Communauté Municipale de Montréal (Montreal Metropolitan Community) voted yesterday to oppose the 1.1 million barrels a day proposed pipeline going through their jurisdictions. The environment risks outweighed the meager economic benefits of the project, according to the political body representing nearly four million Quebecers.

"We are against it because it still represents significant environmental threats and too few economic benefits for greater Montreal," Coderre told reporters in a press conference yesterday.

“Call a spade a spade: It’s a bad project,” Coderre said.

Alberta’s provincial politicians also took shots at Montreal’s concerns about Energy East. Alberta’s Wildrose Leader tweeted that the Montreal-area municipalities cannot “benefit from equalization and then reject our pipelines.” The Alberta government called the announcement “both ungenerous and short-sighted.”

Earlier this month, the British Columbia government came out against Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain pipeline project and Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan requested the regulatory review of the project be suspended. Neither announcement was met with the same outrage from politicians in the oil patch.

Some of the criticism showed a clear lack of understanding of the Energy East project by pro-pipeline politicians.

Nenshi seems to have mixed up Energy East with Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline when he tried to justify Energy East as “a pipeline that already goes to Montreal. This is a project to modernize it, to bring it up to even better standards.”

Some 3,000 kilometres of the 4,600 kilometre proposed Energy East pipeline do exist as a TransCanada natural gas line stretching from Alberta to the Ontario-Quebec provincial boundary. The remaining kilometers of pipe will be a newly constructed pipeline in Quebec and New Brunswick.

The new pipeline would be built in the northern municipalities of Montreal should the project receive regulatory approval.

Nenshi’s and other western Canadian pro-Energy East politicians’ praising the pipeline for its potential to supply eastern Canada with western Canadian oil overlooks eastern Canada’s inability to refine large amounts of oilsands (tarsands) bitumen. The three eastern refineries lack the equipment to process heavy bitumen.

As Andrea Harden-Donahue of the Council of Canadians points out in a recent article, by the time Energy East comes on line eastern Canadian refining needs will likely already be met by rail, tanker and the existing Line 9 pipeline with Atlantic Canada offshore oil, U.S. light crude as well as western Canadian crude.

“When it comes to U.S. imports, the fact is it is cheap light crude and a likely ongoing choice given refineries desire for the best bang for their buck,” Harden-Donahue writes. “This leads to the conclusion that 978,000 barrels of the 1.1 million BPD is destined for export.”

How bitumen is going to help eastern Canadian refineries has yet to be adequately explained by Energy East supporters.

Alberta and Saskatchewan politicians’ condemnation that Montreal is sucking oil and gas provinces dry through equalization payments smacks of typical ‘Quebec bashing’ seen before in Canada. It also skirts around the issue that only half of natural resources wealth is subject to the equalization system because natural resources are under provincial control.

“Despite having a higher than average ability to fund services, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland receive more in federal spending and transfer payments than they contribute,” the Mowat Centre states in a 2014 press release on Canada’s “broken system of federal redistribution.”

At the end of the day, the most diplomatic response to Coderre’s announcement from the pro-pipeline side came from Energy East’s proponent TransCanada:

“[We] will continue to listen to other elected leaders in Quebec and stakeholders across the province as we take their concerns and input seriously.”

Image Credit: City of Calgary via flickr

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Much of the country is understandably pre-occupied with Monday’s federal election. But while we have all been watching the national drama unfold, something monumental happened in Alberta.

In a nutshell: big coal is pushing for renewable energy and big oil is re-iterating its push for a carbon tax.

Close to 500 individuals (including at least one alien — more on that to come), companies and NGOs submitted proposals to Alberta’s Climate Change Advisory Panel (chaired by University of Alberta economics prof Andrew Leach) about the kind of policies they think the new government should introduce to address spiking greenhouse gas emissions.

The significance of this for Alberta’s climate politics cannot be overstated. After years of stalling or stifling meaningful conversations, the province has now pulled off one of the country’s most important and interesting climate consultation processes.

The submissions, now accessible online, largely consist of the classic combo of recommendations from the usual suspects: phasing out coal-fired power plants, incentivizing renewable energy sources and introducing a proper carbon tax.

But there were also some fairly surprising sources of support for such recommendations.

Major electricity providers TransAlta and ATCO backed immediate caps on coal-fired electricity and energy companies like Suncor and Shell reiterated calls for an economy-wide carbon tax (CNRL, on the other hand, issued an ostensibly veiled threat: “If we make investment in our province un-economic, the jobs and investment dollars will go elsewhere”).

Premier Rachel Notley seemed thrilled with the responses, saying to reporters: “The quality of the conversation has just improved so dramatically in just such a short time.”

It’s true. The conversation about climate change solutions has come a long way in Alberta in the past six months.

But looking through the comments posted online, there were some pretty far-out ideas coming courtesy of private citizens. Many such comments may in fact offer an intriguing window into how and what Albertans think about the issues of climate change.

Such esoteric suggestions arrived in three distinct forms: hyper-paranoid forecasting, well-meaning but unpopular social changes and outright climate change denial (we’ll let you decide which one is the more concerning of the bunch).

Aliens, Famines and Predictions of Apocalypse

The most overtly out-there suggestions of the bunch were the two that addressed aliens. Yeah, you read that correctly.

In one case, a person only referenced as “Aaron” announced that humans can’t possibly understand “broader thermodynamic processes” and the “offspring of the few humans who do miraculously survive extinction, despite failing to comprehend these limits, will nicely make pets for my offspring.” He later signed off as “the ancestor of the future benevolent overlords of your few surviving offspring.”

There was also “Michael,” who suggested there’s “UFO technology that would eradicate all pollution relating to energy production and general transportation worldwide” (linking to a radio show on the subject which has been listened to over 400,000 times).

Many other suggestions took a less extraterrestrial approach but exemplified an equal level of paranoia: someone identified only as “a terrified and terrorized citizen” warned of coming famines and suggested that Canada starts to ration food and incentivize the rapid construction of windmills by exchanging “work for full meals.” Some writers appeared to fall asleep on their keyboards, way overusing exclamation points (“Albertans should be outraged!!!!!!”). A dozen consecutive commas were issued in one bizarre entry, which also featured vaguely Biblical references and all-caps sentences like “THEIR [sic] WILL BE EMPTY (GAS_TANKS _ ).”

Keep in mind that someone had to sort through all of these. The real kicker is that the posts came with a disclaimer that “submissions will be reviewed for appropriateness before posting to the library.” It’s certainly an interesting thought experiment to imagine what kind of entries didn’t make it past such gatekeepers.

Dramatic Social Changes Proposed

Then there was the class of loftier, more cerebral pitches.

Take, for example, the notion of “Enviro-Wednesday,” which would “close” the province once a week with the exception of essential services such as hospitals and police. Only emergency services would be permitted to drive vehicles, with a “fleet of hybrid taxis” available to transport sick people to hospitals. “Enviro-Wednesday” would allow us to “relax and catch our breath in the midst of all of life’s crazy hustle and bustle and to reawaken ourselves to the priorities in life” by effectively trapping us all at home.

Another entry suggested alterations in societal values, with significant reductions in airline travel and bans on lawn-mowing and recreational road trips. A prohibition on driving trucks was also recommended.

The issue of “unchecked population growth” inevitably reared its head, as did banning GMOs. Which, of course, are legitimate concerns, but perhaps a tad beyond the powers of the Alberta panel.

Climate Change Deniers Arrive in Full Force

Rounding out the pack of entries from private citizens were those who simply don’t buy into the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. There was a staggering number of those. Many seemed convinced that climate change is being harnessed by politicians to generate more revenue for government coffers via mechanisms like carbon taxes and cap-and-trade arrangements.

“Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming has been a solidly falsified theory by now,” one person wrote with impressive confidence. Another contended that “CO2 is not a problem as anyone who has studied the real science knows.”

One Albertan dubbed wind farms “bird slicers” and photovoltaic panels “solar cookers.” The phrase “social engineers” was slung around a few times, usually accompanying the volcanoes-produce-emissions-therefore-human-action-is-irrelevant refrain.

Friends of Science, the controversial Calgary-based organization that suggests climate change is being caused by the sun, made five submissions. The most intensely worded of the climate-denying bunch proclaimed: “Time will come you and your panel of shills shall be exposed. Treachery as this carries massive consequences.”

Climate Change Panel Report Coming Soon

All strangeness aside, hundreds of Albertans did what no one 12 months ago would have believed: that is, have a meaningful engagement with the issue of climate change and what the province can do to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Hats off to you, Alberta.

The hundreds of submissions received by the panel supplement the two public open houses that were hosted in early September: the government reports that close to 1,000 people showed up to those.

Next up is the actual formation of the climate action plan, which will be presented to cabinet prior to the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, France. It’s unknown how many of the submissions will be seriously considered by the panel.

Image: Premier of Alberta

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Chevron lost a high-profile pollution case in Ecuador in 2011 and was ordered to pay $9.5 billion for cleanup of billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest. So far, the company hasn’t paid a dime — but a recent ruling in Canada might finally force Chevron to pay up.

Chevron appealed the 2011 ruling all the way to Ecuador's highest court, the National Court of Justice, which voted 5-0 in 2013 against the company. But Chevron still refuses to comply with the ruling, and since the Big Oil behemoth has no assets in Ecuador, the plaintiffs were forced to seek enforcement of the decision elsewhere.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously to allow Ecuadorian plaintiffs to pursue just such an enforcement action. In the majority opinion, Justice Clément Gascon wrote that the ruling had implications for attempts to hold the entire global oil industry accountable for its pollution and other abuses.

“In a world in which businesses, assets and people cross borders with ease, courts are increasingly called upon to recognize and enforce judgments from other jurisdictions,” Gascon wrote in the 7-0 ruling, according to The Globe & Mail. “Sometimes, successful recognition and enforcement in another forum is the only means by which a foreign judgment creditor can obtain its due.”

Some 30,000 Ecuadorians have been affected by the oil pollution in the Amazon, left behind when Texaco (which Chevron bought in 2000) ceased operating hundreds of oil wells in the country in 1990.

Humberto Piaguaje, the Coordinator of the Union of People Affected by Texaco, welcomed the ruling, saying in a statement, “after 22 years we can perform actions to collect the judgment against Chevron and immediately start repairing our territories."

Chevron is fighting a multi-front battle against the Ecuadorian judgement. The company secured a favorable ruling under RICO statutes in a New York court last year after its lawyers convinced a federal judge that the Ecuador ruling was the result of a corrupt judicial process.

The company has also entered into an arbitration process at the Hague, where its lawyers are attempting to argue that the government of Ecuador absolved Texaco of all liability when it ceased its Ecuador operations and left the country 25 years ago, though Chevron’s main legal defense in that case recently hit a major snag when it was rejected by the arbitrators.

Chevron once issued a statement threatening the Ecuadorians with "a lifetime of appellate and collateral litigation" if they continued to pursue their lawsuit — a company official later vowed to "fight until hell freezes over . . . and then we'll fight it out on the ice" — and the company appears to be making good on that threat.

Still, the Canada ruling comes at a bad time for Chevron, which has lost as much as $100 billion in market value over the past year thanks to cratering oil prices and other factors. Among them is the fact that the company made $24.7 billion from operations over that same time period while laying out $41.7 billion in expenditures and dividend payments.

At some point, says Amazon Watch’s Paul Paz y Miño, Chevron investors have to start wondering if the billions spent by the company on its aggressive, scorched earth legal strategy have really been worth it — especially as Ecuadorians continue to get sick and die as a result of the pollution still littering the forest floor.

“What does that say about [CEO John Watson’s] leadership? If I were a shareholder I’d say you have to pay this back to the company. You can’t mismanage the funds of our shareholders any further,” Paz y Miño told DeSmog.

The Financial Post reports that Chevron has assets worth roughly $15 billion in Canada, more than enough to satisfy the Ecuadorian judgement.

The Canadian assets include a network of Chevron gas stations in B.C.; a 20 per cent-stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project in Alberta; a 26.9 per cent interest in the Hibernia Field and a 23.6 per cent interest in Hibernia South Expansion off the shore of Newfoundland and Labrador; a 26.6 per cent interest in the Hebron Field in Newfoundland; an interest in the Duvernay Shale Field; and an interest in the Kitimat LNG Project in B.C.

The Ecuadorian plaintiffs say they want to seize and sell the shares of Chevron Canada to satisfy the $9.5 billion judgment — which has actually risen to $10 billion with interest, according to Amazon Watch’s Paz y Miño, who says the Canadian courts will count that interest.

But even if the plaintiffs ultimately win the enforcement action in Canada, a judge will still have to sort through the so-called "corporate veil" and determine whether the seizure of assets owned by Chevron Canada, which is not directly owned by Chevron, can be used to satisfy the latter's debt. No less than seven companies stand between Chevron Canada and its US-based parent company, according to the Financial Post.

In the end, however, Paz y Miño says the lawsuit has never been about money.

“They’re sitting there twisting a knife into the people of Ecuador,” he told DeSmog. “This isn’t about saying, ‘These people were responsible for something that happened in the past, and they should be held accountable.’ It’s about stopping the poisoning of people that’s still going on. Chevron is continuing to poison people, and won’t clean up the pollution.”  

Image Credit: Jeff Whyte / Shutterstock.com

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