Documents obtained by DeSmog Canada reveal that Canada’s Ministry of Environment vetoed an interview request on toxins in fur-bearing animals in the oilsands, even though the federal scientist was “media trained and interested in doing the interview.”

The Environment Canada scientist in question, Philippe Thomas, had asked members of the Alberta Trappers Association to send him samples of fur-bearing animals caught across Alberta in 2012. Thomas needed a broad range of samples to gain deeper insight into the contaminant load in animals living near the oilsands.

In late 2012, DeSmog Canada submitted a request to interview Thomas, and provided several written questions to Environment Canada to review.

Documents obtained via Access to Information legislation show that pre-scripted responses were prepared for Thomas should the interview be approved at the upper levels. The request was approved at the deputy general level, but denied in the office of former Environment Minister Peter Kent.

The request was also sent to the Privy Council Office for review, but was denied by the minister before requiring a decision by the prime minister’s top-level advisors.

Media requests involving controversial subjects such as the Alberta oilsands, climate change or species at risk are often subject to upper level political review and are routinely approved or denied at the ministerial level or in the Privy Council Office.

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is currently investigating the 'muzzling of scientists' after a formal request was made by the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria and citizen advocacy group Democracy Watch. The groups asked the commissioner to investigate “the systematic efforts by the Government of Canada to obstruct the right of the media — and through them, the Canadian public — to timely access to government scientists.” That investigation is ongoing. 

Sean Holman, founder of Public Eye and professor of journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said denied requests of this kind remind Canadians just how frustrated and undemocratic our access to information process really is.

“We have a Father Knows Best approach to government in Canada,” Holman told DeSmog Canada.

“Our elected and unelected officials have vast powers to withhold information from the citizenry — whether it’s because they feel that’s in the public interest or their partisan interest.”

“That’s undemocratic,” he said, adding, “but that’s why they feel they have the right to violate our right to know – frustrating access to information we have paid for.”

The internal documents from Environment Canada also show personnel were asked to keep DeSmog Canada’s previous reporting on oilsands’ science “in mind when preparing” responses to questions.

According to Holman, “it’s understandable communications staff would want to know who is asking for information from the government…from a public relations standpoint.”

“But,” he added, “from a democratic standpoint, do we want communications staff to be providing different or better access to that information depending on the requester?”

In doing so, what Environment Canada staff appear to be saying, Holman said, “is that not everyone has the same right to hold government to account since knowledge is a necessary precursor to that process.”

The research, carried out as part of the Joint Canada-Alberta Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring, is the first of its kind, and brings to light the lack of data to date regarding contaminants in fur-bearing animals — some of which are a source of food for communities and First Nations — in the oilsands area.

Environment Canada told DeSmog Canada the request to speak with Thomas “could not be accommodated.”

When pressed for a reason why, Environment Canada staff responded, “due to the nature of your request, a written response was more appropriate.”

The written responses provided to DeSmog Canada were not attributed to Thomas, however. In response to questions regarding the authorship of the answers, Environment Canada said “a number of Environment Canada staff contributed.”

Environment Canada confirmed beavers, fishers, martens, lynx and river otters have been tested for naphthenic acid, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and a suite of approximately 28 metals and inorganic compounds, pollutants that “have been identified as contaminants produced as a result of industrial activity in the Oil Sands region.”

Data collected in the samples will be “compared to existing guidelines for human consumption.”

DeSmog Canada is partnering with the Politics of Evidence Working Group to promote Write2Know Week from March 23-27. If you would like to write a letter to Environment Canada regarding the monitoring of contaminants in the oilsands area, and to let scientists know you value their work, visit Write2Know for an easy guide. 

Image Credit: Brandon T. Brown Nature Photography

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.

This article originally appeared on mikedesouza.com.

On the eve of an international climate change summit of government leaders in New York, Canada is being challenged about its own domestic record in addressing the heat-trapping pollution that contributes to global warming.

Here’s a historical timeline of some of the major climate change policies, statements and related decisions made by Canada since 2006 when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was first elected to form a government.

From a pledge to introduce a carbon tax in 2007 to internal debates about climate change science, this timeline covers the promises and the action by the Canadian government in recent years.

February 2006:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is sworn in after his Conservative Party wins a general election with a minority of seats in the Canadian House of Commons. The election ends a 13-year-old government led by the Liberal Party of Canada.

Harper’s Conservatives mainly focused on accountability and tax cuts during the campaign. They also criticized Canada’s participation in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, pledging to introduce a “made-in-Canada” solution to promote a healthy environment.

The newly-elected government cancels billions of dollars in federal spending to address climate change and promote energy efficiency. They also cancel work underway within Environment Canada to regulate greenhouse gases from large industrial facilities, describing the country’s legally-binding Kyoto target as unrealistic.

Harper and members of his cabinet note that the previous Liberal administration had promised to take action on climate change, but didn’t do anything to stop the rise in industrial greenhouse gas emissions that put Canada’s Kyoto target out of reach.

May 2006:

The Globe and Mail reports on leaked documents from international climate talks in Bonn, Germany, that reveal the Harper government has instructed its negotiators to oppose “stringent targets” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The newspaper reports that the instructions tell negotiators to instead favour a voluntary approach to addressing climate-warming pollution.

Environmental groups accuse the government of sabotaging the talks. It’s the first of many conferences over the next decade in which critics describe Canada as the worst and least helpful party at the negotiating table on climate change issues.

September 2006:

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose pledges to introduce a new law that would use the federal government’s constitutional authority to require all industrial sectors to reduce pollution. Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers president Pierre Alvarez says that his industry is prepared to accept targets as long as other sectors faced the same regulations.

The opposition, which forms a majority in the House of Commons, would later reject her proposed legislation as inadequate. The opposition parties would then attempt to rewrite the bill, but the new version was abandoned by the Conservative government that claimed it would harm the Canadian economy.

March 2007:

Preserving the environment is one of the top themes of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s federal budget. The plan includes $4.5 billion in spending “to clean our air and water, reduce greenhouse gases and combat climate change, as well as protect our natural environment.” The budget also restores funding to some measures that were scrapped, one year earlier, by the government, reintroducing them with new names.

April 2007:

Environment Minister John Baird unveils new targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution across the Canadian economy. The targets set new goals that are aggressive, but weaker than Canada’s existing commitments, under the Kyoto Protocol. Baird says that the new targets will come into force as early as 2010 for some sectors at an estimated cost of about $8 billion to the Canadian economy.

The Conservative plan proposes to give companies the possibility of meeting their targets by paying a $15 carbon tax per tonne of emissions that would go into a fund supporting the development of new technologies.

Baird’s new “Turning the Corner” plan also estimates the targets will also result in health benefits worth about $6 billion due to a reduction in air pollution and related respiratory illnesses.

“This is a mammoth undertaking,” Baird tells a news conference in Toronto. “It doesn’t end today. Global warming, climate change is one of the biggest ecological threats the environment has ever faced, and it’s going to require work every day, every week, every month and every year.”

Despite extensive consultations with all major industrial sectors over the previous year, Baird explains that more negotiations with industry would likely follow before introducing any draft regulations.

June 2007:

Speaking to an audience in Germany, Prime Minister Stephen Harper describes climate change as “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today.” He also notes that Canada was a small contributor to global warming since it was responsible for two per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“But we owe it to future generations to do whatever we can to address this world problem,” Harper says. “And Canadians, blessed as we are, should make a substantial contribution to confronting this challenge.”

He also says in his speech that his government has already introduced mandatory emissions reductions targets for large emitters that would result in “absolute reductions in emissions levels by at least 2012 and as early as 2010.”

October 2008:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative party is re-elected as a minority government in a general election, following a campaign in which the party pledged to introduce a cap and trade system as part of its climate change policies. The system would set targets to cap pollution from industry and then allow facilities to meet targets either by reducing emissions or by purchasing credits. The credits could be sold provided that they have certified a reduction in emissions beyond business as usual.

Harper names Jim Prentice as his third environment minister after winning the election.

The global financial crisis and lobbying from industry warning about economic impacts would later derail legislation in the U.S. to introduce a cap and trade system.

December 2009:

An international climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark collapses without a binding agreement.

Stephen Harper signs a new voluntary climate change accord spear-headed by U.S. President Barack Obama. Harper weakens Canada’s previous target set under Baird’s Turning the Corner proposal, but matches a target set by the Obama administration.

February 2010:

Jim Prentice criticizes the Quebec government for planning its own aggressive fuel economy tailpipe standards for cars, describing the province’s approach as a “folly.”

October 2010:

The Harper government adopts new fuel economy rules, based largely on the Quebec and California model, matching regulations introduced by the Obama administration to reduce tailpipe pollution from new cars. Environment Canada estimates the new regulations will save the equivalent of 28 billion litres of fuel between 2011 and 2016. Jim Prentice sayshigher costs of purchasing cars would be offset by savings in fuel consumption and that the regulations would also encourage more electric cars on Canadian roads.

November 2010:

Prentice resigns from federal politics to accept a job as a vice-president of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and is temporarily replaced as environment minister by John Baird.

December 2010:

John Baird hails a series of agreements reached at an international climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico as the “first step” toward a binding global deal to ensure greenhouse gases peak within a decade and then start to decline. But he also warns that it would be mathematically impossible to stabilize emissions in the atmosphere without getting the biggest polluters, China, India and the United States, to take on firm commitments.

“I hope that coming out of Cancun that people, other countries will reflect,” Baird says. “Whatever we’ve been trying for the last 13 years hasn’t worked. Emissions are way up since 1997. If we want to stabilize them by 2015 or 2020, we’re going to have to get the big players involved.”

January 2011:

Peter Kent becomes Stephen Harper’s fourth environment minister and begins his new role by praising Canadian oil as an “ethical” fuel.

February 2011:

The Harper government confirms that it is no longer pursuing a cap and trade regime, but aiming to introduce new mandatory rules and standards for industrial pollution.

Peter Kent says in an interview that the government had a “target” of introducing all of its proposed greenhouse gas regulations by the end of 2011.

May 2011:

Following a general election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are re-elected, this time forming a majority in the House of Commons.

September 2011:

Peter Kent says the spring federal election has delayed work on the oil and gas regulations and that they wouldn’t be introduced in 2011.

Fall 2011:

Environment Canada creates a new group to work on the oil and gas regulations. It includes representatives from the Alberta government, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and three oil companies – Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Cenovus and Suncor. The group meets roughly once every four weeks.

December 2011:

Peter Kent announces that Canada is withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol.

Across the government, officials are working on plans behind the scenes to reduce federal oversight of industrial activities and accelerate energy and resource development.

These plans follow a decision by President Obama to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline expansion project, that would allow for more oilsands exports from Alberta to the United States.

The new federal policies and laws would also respond to many detailed requests from oil, gas and pipeline lobbyists.

In response to questions about the Kyoto withdrawal in the House of Commons, Stephen Harper says: “I have said many times that climate change is a great problem for the world.”

March 2012:

The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research is forced to shut its doors after repeated requests for renewed funding fall on deaf ears. The foundation had offered about $120 million in university grants for climate and weather-related research over about 10 years. The total is above the $110 million multi-year grant it received from the government.

The foundation would later rebrand itself as the Canadian Climate Forum, relying on private donors to fund its work.

A labour union representing federal scientists, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, would also estimate that the Canadian government was in the middle of a three-year purge, cutting nearly $3 billion in spending and up to 5,000 jobs from its science-based departments, including many scientific research positions and programs in charge of monitoring air, water, and wildlife.

One of the victims of the cuts is the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab – also known as PEARL – a scientific observatory station near Eureka in the high Arctic that loses about a third of its federal funding and is no longer able to remain fully operational throughout the entire year.

The government instead opts to spend millions of dollars to build a new research station that is more than 1,000 kilometres to the southwest.

April 2012:

The Harper government introduces a 400-page document in Parliament that proposes to scrap major Canadian environmental laws and replace them with new legislation.

May 2012:

At international negotiations, Guy Saint-Jacques, then the former chief federal climate change negotiator and ambassador, says that the Canadian government is working towards draft regulations for 2013” in the oil and gas sector.

“Once we have finalized the oil and gas regulations, we will have covered some 60 per cent of our emissions,” Saint-Jacques told his international counterparts.

June 2012:

A series of newly-released letters reveals that Peter Kent has been challenged by many of his caucus colleagues, including the prime minister, to answer questions about whether scientific evidence is real about climate change and whether the phenomenon requires a government response. When asked about the letters, Kent says that having debates and being challenged demonstrates the “vitality of any government.”

July 2012:

New environmental laws adopted by Parliament eliminate nearly 3,000 federal environmental reviews of industrial projects, including hundreds of projects related to oil, gas and pipeline development.

September 2012:

Peter Kent announces the government has finalized its regulations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal power plants, predicting that the new rules will result in the equivalent of taking about 2.6 million vehicles off Canadian roads over 21 years. The new rules are slated to come into force on July 1, 2015.

His department, meantime, confirms it has handed over the monitoring of data for ozone and radiation in the atmosphere, previously done by atmospheric scientists, to an information technology computer expert.

November 2012:

Following damage caused to the U.S. northeast by Hurricane Sandy, Peter Kent says climate change is a “very real and present danger” that governments need to address.

December 2012:

Canada confirms its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.

February 2013:

Peter Kent says the federal government is “very close” to finalizing new carbon pollution regulations for oil and gas companies.

April 2013:

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, who would later become finance minister in 2014,says in an interview with La Presse that scientists are exaggerating the climate crisis. He follows others in Harper’s cabinet and caucus who had cast doubts on occasion about whether humans are significantly contributing to climate change. Those include the prime minister, junior industry minister Maxime Bernier, former public safety minister Stockwell Day and Senator Nancy Greene Raine, a former Winter Olympic champion skier.

March 2013:

The special group created by Environment Canada to develop greenhouse gas regulations for oil and gas companies has its final meeting.

Environment Canada later explains that its engagement with stakeholders on regulations was continuing on many fronts, but that it was moving toward more targeted discussions.

April 2013:

In internal correspondence with the provincial government in Alberta, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers expresses concerns about stringent climate change policies, suggesting that the government should spend more time studying the issue. The industry lobby group also tells the government that tough regulations won’t satisfy its biggest critics.

June 2013:

Peter Kent says industry groups are cooperating with the government’s efforts to introduce regulations, also noting that companies are concerned about “maximiz(ing) profits for their shareholders.”

July 2013:

After being replaced in a cabinet shuffle by Harper’s fifth environment minister, Leona Aglukkaq, Peter Kent says he was “profoundly disappointed” that the government didn’t complete the oil and gas regulations under his watch. He reiterates that the government was close but had to navigate through many lobby interests as well as concerns of putting jobs or investments at risk.

September 2013:

Leona Aglukkaq’s office prevents her department from publicly stating that the government accepts scientific evidence that humans are causing climate change and takes the matter seriously.

Aglukkaq later gives a television interview in which she casts doubts about whether ice is melting in the Arctic.

October 2013:

The Harper government opens a new session of Parliament with a throne speech saying that it will work with provinces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas companies.

November 2013:

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq says she’s “not ready” to introduce new regulations for oil and gas companies.

June 2014:

Stephen Harper, at a joint news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, suggests other countries aren’t being frank about scaling back climate change policies to protect their economies. He suggests aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a carbon tax, would harm the economy.

Image Credit: Prime Minister Stephen Harper on his 9th annual Arctic visit. Image courtesy of the Prime Minister of Canada's photo gallery.

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.

This is a guest post by Mark Jaccard, professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University. 

In 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government asked me and four other economists if we agreed with its study showing huge costs for Canada to meet its Kyoto commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010. We all publicly agreed, much to the chagrin of the Liberals, NDP and Greens, who argued that Kyoto was still achievable without crashing the economy. It wasn’t.

As economists, we knew that the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien should have implemented effective policies right after signing Kyoto in 1997. It takes at least a decade to significantly reduce emissions via energy efficiency, switching to renewables, and perhaps capturing carbon dioxide from coal plants and oilsands. Each year of delay jacks up costs.

Mr. Harper’s government knew this too. Years later, when environment minister Peter Kent formally withdrew Canada from Kyoto, he charged the previous Liberal government with “incompetence” for not enacting necessary policies in time to meet their target.

With the excuse that Kyoto was too expensive, Mr. Harper replaced it with his own emission target for 2020, which he presented in his 2007 policy statement, “Turning the Corner.” Two years later, he reconfirmed it alongside U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders at the Copenhagen climate conference.

Just like Mr. Chrétien, however, Mr. Harper failed to immediately implement the necessary policies. Canadian emissions have declined slightly, for which he tries to take credit. But analysts agree that the main causes are the 2008 recession, some decline of heavy industry, Ontario’s reduction of coal-fired power, and climate policies in British Columbia and Quebec. Mr. Harper’s adoption of U.S. vehicle regulations will have a small effect by 2020, not his coal regulations.

Like what you're reading? Help us bring you more. Click here to support DeSmog Canada's Kickstarter campaign to clean up the climate and energy debate in Canada.

But instead of honestly admitting that it won’t achieve the 2020 target, the Harper government still pretends that it will. And it won’t admit that its vigorous promotion of oilsands and new pipelines, such as Keystone XL and Northern Gateway, is a key factor in Environment Canada’s prediction that Canadian emissions in 2020 will exceed the target by at least 20 per cent.

Growth in oilsands emissions alone will account for half the overshoot.

Meanwhile, the U.S. will meet a similar 2020 target. And California, with the same population as Canada, will meet a tougher target.

This time, the Harper government has not asked me to comment on the cost of trying at this late date to keep its promise. I doubt it will – at least not before the 2015 election. But as a helpful gesture, I’ve done the analysis anyway, with a model like Environment Canada’s.

My analysis shows that if Mr. Harper had “competently” enacted in 2007 the regulations he promised, the effective price on carbon would have started around $15 per tonne of CO2 in 2008, reaching $100 in 2020. This would not have harmed the Canadian economy. It would have phased-out most coal plants, as Ontario has done. It would have shifted transportation toward natural gas, biofuels and electricity, as is occurring in California. It would have substantially slowed the growth of oilsands, and led to investments in carbon capture, as in Norway. Oilsands jobs would not have grown as rapidly, but would not have declined. And job creation in alternative energy would be substantial, as has occurred with renewables in B.C. and Ontario. There would be no Keystone XL, no Northern Gateway.

My analysis further shows that were Mr. Harper now to seriously pursue his 2020 promise, he would crash the economy. His frantic regulations would be equivalent to shocking the economy with a CO2 price that quickly escalates to $200 – increasing the price of gasoline by 50 cents a litre. Industrial jobs would be lost. Oilsands production would decrease.

Mr. Harper has admitted that he will do nothing for the climate that might slow the growth of oilsands jobs, as he recently confirmed during the visit of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Yet he won’t admit that this makes his 2020 climate promise false.

Isn’t it time we had some honesty in Canada? Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. We are being horribly let down by the Harper government.

Mark Jaccard is one of eight scientists who published a commentary in Nature in June calling for a moratorium on oilsands development. Follow him on twitter: @MarkJaccard

Image Credit: Kris Krug.

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.

Last week, journalist Mike De Souza published his final article for Postmedia News. The outlet closed its Parliamentary Bureau dismissing De Souza and four other employees amid a scandalous revelation that senior staff are colluding with Canada’s largest oil and gas lobby, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), to shift the national conversation to more positively reflect on the energy industry, particularly Alberta’s oilsands.

De Souza’s final piece fittingly covered an internal memo that showed the Harper government was warned back in 2011 that a massive increase in oil-by-rail transport was impending, given the rate of oil production in the oilsands outstripped Canada’s pipeline capacity. The Harper government, despite such cautions, failed to address the safety concerns associated with such sharp growth in oil tanker train traffic. Two years later, the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic killed 47 people.

There’s no question that Mike De Souza has been crucial to the survival of investigative journalism on energy and environment in Canada over the last several years. His work has exposed government and industry collusion, shining a light behind closed doors and serving the public interest. He has detailed high-level climate change denial, suppression of scientists and environmental regulations and the high level of orchestration between the Harper government and the oil, gas and pipeline industries in the creation of the infamous Omnibus Budget Bill C-38.

Ultimately, De Souza’s reporting has provided Canadians with a critical counter-narrative to Harper government spin when it comes to climate, energy and the environment.

Here’s a list of just 20 stories worth highlighting and remembering from De Souza’s career with Postmedia News:

Climate denial and killing Kyoto

Thanks to a generous donation from a major oil and gas company, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group sets up some “research” accounts at the University of Calgary. Fighting through multiple freedom of information requests and a legal challenge, Postmedia News obtained hundreds of pages of receipts, letters and other evidence revealing that the money was used for ads during an election campaign, lobbying, marketing, travel, wining and dining, with donors eligible for tax receipts for charitable contributions.

The goal of the so-called research was to cast doubt on scientific evidence showing that the consumption of fossil fuels and other human activity was causing global warming and push the government to withdraw from the international Kyoto agreement on climate change.

This series of stories earned a citation at the 2012 National Newspaper Awards in the “investigations” category.

1) Talisman Energy kickstarted University of Calgary climate skeptic fund

2) University climate research accounts used for PR, travel, wining and dining: records

3) University of Calgary and Talisman distance themselves from global warming contrarians

Spin, PR and delays

Former Stephen Harper adviser Bruce Carson left the prime minister’s office and took over a University of Calgary based “think tank” with a fresh $15 million federal grant. He proceeded to change the research mandate of the Canada School of Energy and Environment (CSEE) so that it could contribute to a lobbying and marketing strategy to green the image of the oil and gas industry.

The plan was elaborate, involving secret meetings between government officials, industry reps from companies such as Exxon Mobil or BP, and diplomats. Their goal: to lobby foreign governments, to “kill” international action on climate change, and to ensure “the oil keeps a-flowing” from Alberta.

4) Bruce Carson changed research mandate

5) Canada’s oilsands strategy includes lobbying against global warming measures

6) Governments working with oil execs to curb oilsands criticism, documents show

7) Canada enlists Big Oil to help kill U.S. green policies

8) Conservatives deny diplomatic push to shield oilsands from U.S. environmental rules

9) Feds say industry organized PR strategy for oilsands

10) Feds spent nearly $54,000 on pro-oil lobbying retreat over two days in London, England

11) Harper deploys diplomats to counter U.S. climate change campaign

12) Diplomats targeted influential media to boost oilsands coverage in Europe

Reckless Resource Development

Days before announcing Canada would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the federal government drafted plans for a “strong and coordinated” public relations campaign and major regulatory reforms to promote oil and pipeline industry expansion, say personal notes drafted by the top bureaucrat at Natural Resources Canada. His minister, Joe Oliver, was in the midst of getting briefed about what was at stake, as the federal Conservatives planned billions of dollars in cuts across the government, affecting scientists who monitored the impacts of industrial activity and eliminating thousands of federal environmental reviews of projects.

13) Secret Environment Canada study warns of oilsands’ impact on habitat 

14) Communications strategists deliberated on $60 million in cuts at Environment Canada

15) Joe Oliver doesn’t know very much about energy projects, emails reveal

16) Federal government planned strong PR campaign to promote oil industry

17) Bureaucrats told Stephen Harper’s government environmental reforms would be “very controversial,” records reveal

18) Stephen Harper’s government sent mixed messages to industry, First Nations about environmental reforms

19) Pipeline development was ‘top of mind’ in Stephen Harper’s budget bill, say “secret” records

20) Bureaucrats told Peter Kent reforms could undermine environmental protection

Do you have a favourite story of Mike De Souza’s that we didn’t include here? Let us know in the comments section.

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.

Instead of consulting with the Canadian public before cutting millions in green spending at Environment Canada, the Harper government consulted with communications strategists who helped gauge potential public reactions to the budget cuts.

Mike De Souza writes for Postmedia News, that according to "internal briefing documents" released through access to information legislation, the "Harper government included communications strategists in closed-door discussions that led to an estimated $60 million in cuts at Environment Canada in the 2012 federal budget."

"Strategists from the communication branch were involved in Environment Canada's deliberations on its contribution to the deficit action reduction plan from the beginning," said the records, which were labelled "secret advice to the minister." The briefing documents, containing up to 500 pages, were prepared for Environment Canada Deputy Minister Bob Hamilton, after he replaced Paul Boothe in summer 2012.

Hamilton was also warned in a communications strategy that "Media and public alike have been highly critical of the government of Canada, expressing concern over its cuts to science-based activities." The strategy listed "Reassuring Canadians that their health and safety have not been put at risk as a result of recent cuts" and convincing them that the "government of Canada takes the environment portfolio seriously" as among their "communications challenges."  

The released documents explain that bringing the communications branch in on the closed-door discussions preceding the budget cuts "allowed an analysis of communication issues, stakeholder reactions and public perception to be weighed during the consideration of each and every proposal." It also kept communications staff primed and "ready to hit the ground running once the decisions were announced."

In a follow-up piece, De Souza reports Environment Canada spokesman Mark Johnson as confirming that the communications specialists' analysis "consisted of identifying stakeholders who may have an interest in any particular proposal, studying the positions they have taken on related issues, and extrapolating from that, what their reactions might be to the proposal at hand."

Johnson added that the "confidential nature" of the deliberations prevented "actual formal consultation on any particular proposal with stakeholders."

NDP environment critic Megan Leslie told De Souza she was disappointed to see the Harper government's "backwards" method of reaching decisions, saying she feels "their guiding principle in making these decisions is: 'Let's see what we can get away with.'"  

Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, also found the approach "a bit backwards," saying it's "wrong for communications people to be involved in deciding what decisions to make. Communications people are there to communicate the decisions after they're made. It seems the government is just being political rather than (doing) what's in the best interests of Canadians."

Leslie advised the Harper government to "hire and consult scientists on how to manage the department, not communications experts to give us spin about these ideological cuts."

Environment Canada said that "senior science managers, knowledgeable in the relevant areas, were involved as appropriate in order to provide context."

De Souza observes that the documents didn't elaborate on "what sort of consultations might have taken place with Environment Minister Peter Kent or deliberations with government scientists, who worked in the field, on spending reductions in areas such as federal response capacity to environmental disasters or quality control in enforcing industrial air pollution regulations."

Kent's office responded by saying that they "led in arriving at the final decisions regarding the measures across the department and were therefore, obviously regularly informed and briefed accordingly."

De Souza notes that the records "estimated that Environment Canada's 2015-16 budget would be $949 million, down from a peak of $1.3 billion in 2007-08."

Image Credit: The Prime Minister's Office / Flickr

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Sunday marked the beginning of Freedom to Read week, an annual event reminding Canadian citizens of the intellectual freedom they are constitutionally guaranteed. It also reminds us we are governed by other citizens with the capacity to permit or limit that freedom. These are citizens that we can hold accountable only to the extent that we know how they make their decisions and what consequences those decisions have.

The event this year stands out on the Canadian political landscape, an uncomfortable reminder of just how frustrated the free flow of information has become in this country.

The timing is significant, as the event arrives on the heels of a University of Victoria study that highlights the Harper government’s efforts to restrict media access to federal scientists.

The study, called Muzzling Civil Servants: a Threat to Democracy and conducted by the university’s Environmental Law Clinic, found that new federal communications policies require government scientists to receive consent and coaching from media relations officers before speaking with reporters. The report also found that Environment Canada scientists are prevented from publicly commenting on such matters as “climate change or the protection of polar bear and caribou until the Privy Council gives approval.”

Such restrictive policies mean federal scientists are unable to respond to media requests within a short timeframe. With increasing regularity, interviews with scientists are grossly delayed or simply denied.

The government’s role in severing the ties between scientists and the media has been seen as integrally tied to the government’s role in streamlining industrial development in Canada, a plan in which tar sands expansion, increased levels of fracking, pipelines and supertankers are all implicated.

Now, more than ever, is not the time to scale back on or suppress the communication of the one thing that – in the world of heavy industry – stands between responsibility and recklessness: science.

Environment Minister Peter Kent recently praised Canada for the nation’s increased transparency and accountability in environmental decision-making, while outside the bureaucratic chambers journalists, academics and environmental organizations decried the government’s role in obscuring or misrepresenting inconvenient facts about Canada’s flagging environmental stewardship.

The one thing these recent events have made clear is the federal government’s willingness to prioritize public relations over public access to information.

Last week’s Muzzling report was addressed to Canada’s embattled Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault.

Legault, referring to immense delays in access to information processing and dwindling percentage of disclosed information, told the CBC the Harper government is “not the most transparent.”

Unlike other Commonwealth countries, such as Great Britain and Australia, our Information Commissioner only has the power to suggest how requests should be handled, and cannot order departments to expedite responses or the release of information.

As Elizabeth Renzetti recently reminded us, this government’s transparency problem is not going away. Scientists will become more aggravated, like the hundreds who gathered on Parliament hill last July to make their frustration known. And they will likely become more empowered, with respected voices rallying them to fight back.

Canada has dropped ten places in the World Press Freedom Index since last year. We now sit at number twenty out of ninety – not even first in the Americas.

A sorry state of affairs when one must ‘celebrate’ the Freedom to Read in a country with no Freedom of the Press.

But we can also look upon this as good news. Because the only truly bad news is the kind that is withheld.

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Documents obtained by Postmedia News under the Access to Information Act indicate that Environment Canada was telling the Assembly of First Nations one story and industry groups another in the run-up to the introduction of last year’s controversial Bill C-38, purposefully working to dispel First Nations’ fears regarding changes to the environmental reviews, even as it was seeking support from industry to make huge revisions to that process. 

A brief for a January 24th meeting with National Chief Shaun Atleo and a delegation of chiefs from across Canada encouraged the ministers in attendance, including Minister of Environment Peter Kent, to play up the government’s willingness to work with First Nations on environmental concerns and downplay fears of sweeping changes to legislation.

It stated, “Any changes to the government’s environmental assessment or project approvals regime that you may have heard of through the media are (i) speculative at this point as legislation has not been introduced to the House of Commons; (ii) will respect our duties toward Aboriginal peoples.”

This message is a stark contrast to the scenario brief for a February 2nd meeting between Environment Canada representative Michelle Rempel and Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) VP Bill Clapperton, which indicated the Ministry of Environment was already working toward the sweeping changes to the environmental assessment process.

The February brief expresses the desire for a streamlined “system to focus on projects with the greatest risk to the environment and to increase the predictability and timeliness of the entire review process, from the environmental assessment through to permitting.”

It concludes by pointing out that the “reforms, when introduced, may be very controversial. I hope we can count on your support.” Nowhere in the memo does it discuss the policy consultations ministers were instructed to promise the AFN just weeks earlier. 

The overall tone of the brief for the January 24 meeting is vague and non-committal. It gives a series of “responsive messages” for different touchy subjects, including national parks and national marine conservation areas, species at risk and caribou recovery.

When talking about climate change, officials were counselled to assure the chiefs that “Even in times of fiscal restraint, the environment remains a priority for the Government.”

When addressing the tar sands, they were told, “There is need for better information about the environment in the oil sands area.” 

There has been no confirmation as to whether Ministers expressed the recommended messages at the meetings in question. However, the documents expose the different strategies the federal government employs when interacting with business and with First Nations groups.

Mike De Souza writes that, “Postmedia News asked Environment Canada several times since last Tuesday to explain the conflicting messages from the documents, released through access to information legislation, but a spokesman said it needed to consult with other departments before providing a response.”

However, De Souza points to a letter that Atleo wrote to Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver after the introduction of the Responsible Resource Development (RRD) plan in April 2012 expressing his concern over the trampling of First Nations’ rights to consultation in environmental review processes.

Atleo argued that, “Thirty years after the Constitution recognized and affirmed Aboriginal and Treaty rights, it is an alarming development that Canada would take such steps that will potentially further undermine processes that already do not adequately address clear duties for consultation and accommodation and the clear principle set out in the United Nations Declaration for free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples.”

The sweeping changes addressed in the RRD plan were part of what led to the crumbling of the relationship between the federal government and the AFN over the last year and the advent of the Idle No More movement – a movement stressing the concern that recent changes to legislation may violate constitutionally-protected First Nations rights.

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One year after plans were announced for a new system to monitor the environmental effects of the Alberta tar sands, there is still no sign of any formal data.

In February of 2012, the federal government, in partnership with the government of Alberta, announced plans for a new three-year environmental monitoring system to collect information on the Alberta tar sands. Touted as world-class by environment ministers at both the federal and provincial levels, the three-year plan is meant to track data on water, air, land and wildlife, and provide annual reports for the first three years, followed by a comprehensive peer review in 2015.

“We will make the system highly transparent. We will ensure that the scientific data that is collected from our monitoring and analysis is publicly available with common quality assurances and common practices in place,” Environment Minister Peter Kent said a year ago, at a joint news conference with Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen. 

The plans indicated that scientists would release information on an ongoing basis in some cases, and on three and six-month schedules in others. Officials anticipated the first round of information would be released before the end of last year.

The public may not have seen any results from this new endeavour, but multiple independent reports released this year have shown that the tar sands environmental footprint stretches significantly further than previously thought. A joint study between Environment Canada and scientists at Queen’s University discovered elevated levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—or PAHs, the chemical produced when petroleum is burned—in bodies of water as far as 90 kilometres away from Fort McMurray.

Documents recently obtained by Postmedia indicate that the tailing ponds containing millions of litres of oil sands waste are leaking, contaminating groundwater in the surrounding areas.

The newly-implemented environmental monitoring system is intended to boost both government and industry credibility and combat reports of reckless environmental damage resulting from bitumen extraction and processing.

The Harper government has recently been the target of international scrutiny over highly restrictive communications policies for federal scientists. The new policies, said to prevent scientists from communicating with the media, have angered the scientific community across the country, prompting prominent organisations to condemn Prime Minister Harper's undemocratic control of information. 

In light of the recent scientific information regarding the environmental impacts of development in the tar sands, environmentalists such as Jennifer Grant, director of programing for the Pembina Institute, believe any new development should be halted until scientists better understand the impacts of existing operations.

The new monitoring plan is priced at $50 million per year – a cost that will eventually be assumed by the oil and gas industry. Government is currently covering costs until an agreement can be reached as to who exactly will be required to pay.

The issue of cost is one of several points of negotiation between the Alberta government and the Harper administration slowing down the process. Other issues involve the reconciling new information with old and deciding on a standardized method to present findings.

Albertans have long been wary of allowing the federal government to control any of their natural resources, and in a move that may have more to do with politicking than environmental protection, the Alberta government is creating a new, arms-length environmental monitoring agency to work alongside the joint federal-provincial initiative.

Scientist Howard Tennant, known for criticizing the Alberta government for allowing the federal government too much involvement in the province's resource management, will head the new agency.

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.

MICHAEL HARRIS is an award-winning author, investigative journalist, and documentary filmmaker.

The Harper government knows and cares as much about science as it knows and cares about telling the truth.

That’s what the recent decision to close Canada’s world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) tells anyone who is paying attention.

It also tells us that Environment Minister Peter Kent would have been a great witness at the Scopes Monkey Trial – for the prosecution. We shouldn’t bother jetting this guy to Earth Summits like Rio + 20 just to have him pick up the latest Fossil Award. Put the airfare into the Bev Oda VIP Transportation and Orange Juice Fund and ask the international organizers to mail in our Booby Prize.

I offer these observations after taking a close look at the decision by the federal government to shutter the ELA, yet another deconstruction and downgrading of government science in Canada.

Even Harper acolytes with a picture of Dear Leader in their wallets next to the kids should have a problem with this one. How many independent information bearers does this government have to cut down before even the Harper Moonies start worrying about the Gulag? What does it tell you about someone when they’re always telling other people to keep their mouths shut or else? Isn’t that what Edward G. Robinson does in gangster movies?

Let’s begin at the beginning, or should I say the end? On May 17th of this year, there was an emergency meeting called at the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg. For those who have not been recently canned, these group terminations are as ritualistic as a firing squad. Before the killing shot, the boss reads from a prepared script. As soon as that script comes out, you can be pretty sure that the smell of toast in the room is your career going up in smoke.

At that meeting of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ Central and Arctic Division, the person reading the script to 17 hapless employees of the ELA was Michelle Wheatley. The news stories will tell you that she is the Regional Director of Science. What the news stories will not tell you is that she was crying as she broke the news.

With good reason. Her message was as bleak as the first road that was blazed into the then embryonic ELA in the winter of 1968: The installation would be shut down by March 2013; everyone would receive “affected” letters (they did within 24 hours); no new research could be started; and scientists had to get their equipment out of the lakes, all 58 of them – and the labs as soon as possible.

And then, of course, there was the cone of silence that the prime minister expects everyone to wear like a dunce cap after they are “streamlined”. All employees were explicitly warned not to speak with the media. Instead, media requests had to be forwarded to what was risibly referred to as DFO Communications. That is the branch plant of the Ministry of Truth in the PMO that casts the appropriate lights and shadows over the facts for the government and still manages to sleep well at night. You know, the Ignorance is Strength/Freedom is Slavery crowd.

How far has the government been prepared to go to smother the facts surrounding the ELA? For starters, DFO declined all requests from the media to speak with scientists. Being an equal lack-of-opportunity employer, DFO also turned down all requests from its scientists to speak about their work to Canadians. Remember, these are the same people who sent “minders” with scientists to a recent scientific conference in Montreal, lest they stray from the government line in public. I am beginning to suspect that the government line is based on believing that 10,000 years ago Brontosaurs were cropping grass in the back forty.

You will be comforted to know that DFO extended the ban on ELA information to federal MPs. The department turned down MP Bruce Hyer’s request to visit ELA with an ELA scientist. When an outraged university scientist conducting research there offered to take Hyer – who was elected as an NDP MP but now sits as an independent – on a tour of the facility, DFO threatened to cancel his research privileges. Any wonder that acclaimed international scientist Ragnar Elmgren said that this was the kind of thing you would expect from the Taliban, not the government of a western democracy?

Yes, the Harper government decided that the end has come for one of the great scientific enterprises in Canadian history. Consider the record.

Forty-four years ago, a natural freshwater laboratory was created out of a pristine lake system in northwestern Ontario. It was an epical experiment. Although it was about fresh water, not the universe, it was a scientific enterprise of the magnitude of the Hubble Telescope. No other fresh water research station in the world could do what the ELA could in a “whole-environment” research setting. As David Schindler himself put it about the kind of work done at the ELA “This needs to be done in a controlled setting, not in the Athabaska garbage can.”

And what a lot was done.

When DFO itself was amongst the host of visionaries who couldn’t see acid rain, and politicians like Ronald Reagan were publicly questioning the scientific basis for the need to take action, it was the ELA under Schindler that worked to provide the irrefutable evidence that lakes were dying. The work went on from 1976 to 2004. As a result of the findings of Canadian scientists, the EPA in the U.S. took action and new international treaties were established.

The “Metallicus” experiment established a link between atmospheric mercury deposits and mercury in fish. That is a vitally important connection to understand given that 80 percent of the lakes listed in the Guide to Eating Ontario Sport Fish are currently under mercury consumption advisories. ELA research on this deadly neurotoxin and endocrine disruptor has been used by the EPA to design new regulations to control the atmospheric emissions of mercury from coal-fired plants.

Very often, it was the immense scale of the ELA’s outdoor lab that made crucial scientific breakthroughs possible.

That was the case in understanding excessive algal growth in lakes. Small scale studies suggested that carbon was responsible. ELA whole-lake experiments corrected that erroneous conclusion and identified phosphorous as the principle culprit. As a result, governments around the world now restrict phosphorous inputs into lakes. Several countries have banned outright the use of phosphorous in detergents.

Similarly, standard laboratory studies suggested that acidity was directly toxic to lake trout at a pH level of 5; whole-lake experimentation discovered that pH is indirectly toxic to lake trout at -6, or at a rate that is ten times less acidic than previously believed. Why? Because their food source, shrimp and minnows, disappear at the lower levels and the trout starve.

From investigating the role of nitrogen in promoting blue-green algae blooms to the environmental impacts of freshwater aquaculture, from the impacts of hydro reservoir development on greenhouse gases and mercury cycling, to the effects of artificial estrogen on fish populations, ELA has been there. Its scientists have been in the vanguard of original research that has benefitted companies, this country, and the world time after time after time. You don’t get the First Stockholm Water Prize and the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering for goofing off.

So why, unless you had a fetish for killing off Canadian success stories, would the government decide to close the ELA? Why would it leave incomplete original work on the effect of Nano-silver on lakes, (Canada has no specific policies for managing nano-materials in the environment) on growth and survival of fish that escape into the wild from aquaculture facilities, or climate impacts on lakes and their watersheds? None of that work will now be completed. Some innocent souls went to Manitoba Conservative MP Joyce Bateman for the answer, since the Freshwater Institute is in her backyard.

Sadly, there was enough space behind her wide, partisan eyes to park a double-decker bus. Bateman didn’t even know the operational budget for the ELA, and wasn’t aware of its internationally acclaimed work on acid rain, reservoir studies, and nuclear contaminant pathways. Yet she asserted erroneously the facility was no longer productive, parroting lines no doubt given to her by Fisheries minister Keith Ashfield. As Diane Orihel, a PHD candidate in science and the Central Canada Leader for the Coalition to Save ELA put it after her own meeting with Bateman, “I was shocked by her complete and utter ignorance of science and what we do.”

The Opposition didn’t fare much better trying to get answers from Environment Minister Peter Kent. He tried to justify this attack on science by pretending that he just wanted to move our scientists further west “to examine acidification of lakes in western Canada.” Sounds reasonable, right? But the stuff in Kent’s political teleprompter is more head static from mission control. Like his colleague from Manitoba, Kent is operating light years beyond his competence. The research he is talking about has already largely been done and you might be able to guess where – at the ELA.

Most of what the government needs to know about acid rain in the oil sands area was discovered in the early work by David Schindler in Ontario, and reinforced by the work of those who followed him. It is interesting to note that that the original work was funded by the Alberta Oil Sands Environmental Research Program. AOSERP funded the research precisely because the water chemistry of boreal shield lakes in Northern Saskatchewan and Alberta was very similar to the ELA lakes. In other words, the research data collected in northwestern Ontario is a moveable feast. You don’t have to move the scientists.

Not only that, but the minister didn’t understand that earlier ELA research doesn’t need to be replicated at another facility and is actually ready to be applied in the oil sands. That’s because during Schindler’s tenure, the ELA established the biological and chemical thresholds where acidification becomes problematic. The fact that we can now conduct responsible monitoring in the oil sands is a direct result of invaluable research done long ago in northwestern Ontario. The lion’s share of what governments have to do now is bring in responsible monitoring at the oil sands based on ELA research, not reinvent the wheel.

But Minister Kent did get one thing right when he was giving non-answers about this insupportable decision to kill the ELA to the Opposition in the House of Commons early in June. Under questioning from Lac-Saint-Louis Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia, Kent crowed that unlike the previous Liberal government, the Harper government isn’t just paying lip service to the environment. But why not use his own ringing words: “We are getting things done.”

And they are. But only if you count gutting the Fisheries Act, killing the ELA, cutting the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne (the only francophone research centre at Fisheries and Oceans), eliminating the water resources strategy group at Environment Canada, and ending groundwater modeling. Even Tory Kool-Aid drinkers would admit that this is an odd way to come up with a national water strategy.

The unkindest cut of all. The federal government talks glibly about finding another operator for the ELA, perhaps a university. Just sell them the millions of dollars worth of upgraded facilities for a dollar. There is only one problem. The major source of funding to Canadian universities that might have supported the ELA has itself been cancelled via the moratorium on NSERC Major Resources Support Program.

The death sentence the government has pronounced on the ELA has nothing to do with the reasons stated. Contrary to claims by people like Kent and Ashfield, the work of the ELA is aligned with departmental priorities in both Fisheries and Environment.

If the main priorities of DFO, for example, are: fish populations, community productivity, habitat and population linkages, climate change and variability, and ecosystem management, all of these are studied at ELA.

It is false to say there is a similar facility in the world, let alone in northern Saskatchewan. There is only one ELA.

It is false to use cost savings as the rationale for the cut. Most of the research cost of the ELA are not paid for by government.

The costs of the installation, divided between EC and DFO according to a 2007 Memorandum of Understanding, are embarrassingly modest – $2 million annually, including approximately $650K for operating costs and the balance in salaries.

And here is a truly shameful number. How much do you think each of the four ELA/DFO scientists receives annually to cover their research expenses? Two thousand bucks. Bottom line. Canadians pay ten times more for the PM’s security detail than they do for this world class science facility. They paid ten times more for the celebration of the War of 1812. For the price of a single F-35, ELA’s operational budget could be financed for the next 150 years.

That’s why there’s not a chance that the Harper government will take David Schindler up on a very reasonable request. If you are going to wipe out 44 years of work, spark a scientific diaspora from the federal government, and create a white elephant out in the wilderness that will cost untold millions to “remediate”, do the intelligent thing and conduct an audit this summer to see if the facts support that course of action.

The government won’t do that because it is all about putting independent voices out of business, voices that if heard might persuade the public that Harper doesn’t necessarily know best. The PM believes in strategic communication – the amassing of friendly facts and pseudo facts and big fat lies that advance a chosen agenda. His approach to governance is like a bad PhD thesis. Science is about applying empirical tests in controlled situations with predictive validity aimed at finding the facts. The two schools are natural enemies, as antithetical as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.

Stephen Harper does not believe in funding any organization that might become a critic, even inadvertently, in pursuit of the facts. So he probably will look with favor on a suggestion by a Winnipeg-based money manager who has a plan to save the ELA.

Tim Burt is the chief executive officer of Cardinal Capital Management. He has written a letter to the heads of six oil companies asking that they assume the funding of the ELA previously provided by Ottawa. It turns out that he is also the riding association president for Winnipeg South Centre Conservative MP, one Joyce Bateman. Fortunately, Mr. Burt assures one and all that there is no political motive behind his suggestion.

Of course not, Tim. What could be political about handing over the funding for an independent scientific institution to the very private sector owners whose industries would be most affected by its investigations?

Now if only Suncor, Cenovus, and Imperial see the light.

Image Credit: PMO Image Gallery.

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The federal government has repeatedly decided to forego prosecution for oil, gas and pipeline industry violations, according to Environment Canada documents released to Postmedia News through Access to Information legislation.

According to the documents the federal government issued 'warning letters' to companies like Devon Canada, a tar sands oil producer, and Gibson Energy, a midstream pipeline operator, after two separate oil spills proved the companies' respective facilities were in violation of the federal Fisheries Act. Violations of this sort can attract fines of up to $1 million, or three years imprisonment, the letters warned.

According to Postmedia's Mike De Souza, letters of this kind were sent to several companies in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec for various offenses including the pollution of air and water as well as inadequate emergency preparedness and shoddy record keeping.

Environment Canada indicated warning letters are effective in gaining industry's attention. Prosecutions, on the other hand, are both expensive and time consuming. Yet, the released documents suggest that when it comes to monitoring and enforcement of industry's actions, the government may not be acting in the public's interest.

"Our goal isn't to prosecute for the sake of prosecuting (or) make the numbers look good in that sense," Heather McCready, a manager from the ministry's enforcement branch, told Postmedia. "Our goal is to bring people into compliance as quickly as possible."

"It's about protecting the environment. It's not about racking up points. So a warning letter can be a very effective tool to do that."

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Canada's largest oil and gas lobby group, suggested the provincial and federal governments use a "compliance oriented approach" of enforcement to minimize risk.

However, Parliament's environment watchdog, Scott Vaughan the federal Commissioner on Environment and Sustainable Development, released an audit of Environment Canada in 2011, claiming the department's enforcement program is "not well managed to adequately enforce compliance with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act."

The conclusion of Vaughan's report stated Environment Canada did "not have adequate information on whom it is regulating and who is not complying" with the Act and that in many cases there was "no evidence that the Directorate had applied key management controls intended to ensure that enforcement officers carry out their enforcement activities…or that enforcement officers followed up on their enforcement actions to verify whether violators returned to compliance."

Environment Canada, the report held, was not in any position to know if its methods had improved compliance or minimized risk to Canadians and the environment, because the department simply wasn't monitoring its own activities, adequately training its employees or engaging in enforcement planning and targeting.

Vaughan told Postmedia: "Warning letters can work. There's absolutely no doubt (about that)." Adding, that one would "need to go back and figure out if the problem has been fixed."

Environment Canada's capacity to do so has been increasingly diminished after a series of funding cuts – millions of dollars worth – have rid the ministry of enforcement officers trained to test pollution and gauge the nature of an offense according to existing public health and safety standards.

Existing environmental legislation also took a significant hit last year with the passage of Omnibus Budget Bill C-38 which significantly reduced federal oversight of industrial projects while speeding up the process of their approval.

According to De Souza, Environment Canada officials "initially declined to answer questions about the nature of its warning letters in July 2012, prompting Postmedia News to make multiple requests for the records related to the oil and gas industry using federal access to information legislation…Environment Canada took about five months to process the access to information requests and release its warning letters."

Environment Canada also rejected the findings of Vaughan's audit, claiming the Department "disagrees with the audit's contention that the issues indentified prevent the Department from planning its enforcement activities to effectively target the highest risks to human health and the environment." Based on this contention Environment Canada wrote, "the Department does not accept the enforcement audit findings or conclusions."

Yet Vaughan maintains Environment Canada lacks the resources to monitor and enforce environmental regulations. According to Postmedia, "Vaughan concluded that inspectors needed special training to enforce 30 existing regulations on toxic substances but did not have this training for 16 of the listed substances and were lacking some critical laboratory facilities required to do their jobs."

As Vaughan stated, "there are some big gaps…Putting more money into something in itself doesn't necessarily make it fixed. So we said you have some pretty big gaps and you need to fix those gaps."

"There are some nasty stuff that these regulations (are intended to control) – asbestos, dioxins and furans – things that have been listed as toxic," Vaughan said. "They harm human health, they potentially cause cancer and so the regulations are there. Having a regulation on paper only goes so far and you need inspectors and you need a system to go in to make sure they have the full force of the law."

As the recently released documents demonstrate, however, Environment Canada's regulation remains largely on paper, where issued warnings take the place of strengthened monitoring, enforcement and, crucially, prosecution of polluters.

Vaughan recently announced his decision to resign from his position as Commissioner on Environment and Sustainable Development, two years before the end of his term. Vaughan has been treated with "disrespect" by the Harper government, while former governments met with him regularly for briefings and to discuss his reports.

Last spring, Environment Canada Minister Peter Kent suggested Vaughan's 2012 report, which discussed federal policies on climate change and contamination, was not credible.

Vaughan will take on a new position as president and CEO of the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

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It’s difficult to know where to start when asked to write a regular column on the little black lies that plague the debate over energy and climate policy in Canada, but for the sake of convenience and timeliness, let’s begin with one that’s close at hand: Environment Minister Peter Kent’s characterization of our attempt to turn back the tide on climate change at the 2012 UN Climate Change Conference that just concluded today in Doha, Qatar.

“I am proud to be here representing Canada in these important negotiations towards a new, more effective, international climate change agreement,” Kent said as he launched into his Dec. 5 speech at Doha. “As an Arctic nation, we profoundly understand the impacts of climate change…. The Government of Canada is committed to working with our partners to find global solutions to the global climate change problem. In fact, Canada is taking action on all fronts—domestic, continental and international—to address the challenges of climate change.”

The next day, as Kent began feeling the heat about Canada’s inadequate action on climate change, he bragged in a press release from Doha that Canada's GHG emissions were "historically low." Data, he said, show that Canada’s “GHG emissions decreased between [2005 and 2010] by 6.5% despite an economic growth of 6.3%. These numbers demonstrate that the Canadian economy can grow without increasing GHG emissions levels.”

“We are doing our part,” he said, after boasting that Canada was halfway to meeting its United Nations commitments under the Copenhagen Accord — a 17 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from 2005 levels by 2020 (which is a far cry from Canada’s original commitments under the Kyoto Protocol – six per cent below 1990 levels.)

It would be churlish to quibble; still, let’s.

Let’s start with an assessment of global climate change performance released just in time to provide the appropriate context for the Doha conference. This analysis by the environmental umbrella group Climate Action Network compared the climate protection performance of 58 countries that are, together, responsible for more than 90 percent of global energy-related CO₂ emissions. The results indicate, to our lasting shame, that Canada has the worst climate change policy of all wealthy nations, and the fourth-worst among all nations (only Kazakhstan, Iran and Saudi Arabia are worse).

In Canada, it’s common knowledge that it will be all but impossible for Canada to meet the commitments it made in Copenhagen in 2009. Environment Canada’s 2012 assessment of GHG trends in Canada estimated that current government policies would leave us just three per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, a far cry from the 17 per cent required to meet our obligations. (As for the Kyoto targets, forget about it: Canada’s total GHG emissions have increased approximately 25 per cent since 1990.)

This is consistent with Scott Vaughn’s assessment ten months earlier. Vaughn is Canada’s stalwart commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, and he released a report in 2011 that made it clear Canada wouldn’t be able to meet its climate change plans under the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act. Now it’s clear we won’t meet our Copenhagen targets either.

"I think it's next to impossible that Canada is going to be able to reach its Kyoto target, that's a given. The gap is so wide now, but I think what we've said as well is the basic problems that we've seen now, and the overall federal-wide co-ordinaton of these climate change programs really needs to get its act together," Vaughan said at an October 2011 news conference in Ottawa. "And if they don't, then we have some doubts on whether or not they are going to be able to meet any target."

Vaughn also expressed concern that the Harper government has lowered its GHG emission targets since 2007, 282 million tonnes in its first plan to 28 million tonnes in its most recent one, a drop of about 90 per cent.

If there is any truth in Kent’s bombastic remarks, it is that Canada is only halfway to meeting its 2020 GHG reduction goal, and with only eight years left to staunch the flow, and no interest in regulating climate pollution from the country’s fastest growing source of GHGs – tar sands development – it is pretty clear that Kent’s claims of responsible climate policy are simply rubbish.

Given that Kent pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol when it was clear Canada couldn’t meet its GHG targets, one wonders whether Canada will eventually pull out of Copenhagen Accord, too, and eventually drop the façade of being a good climate citizen altogether.

This is the first in a weekly series by Jeff Gailus on the little black lies that are preventing an open and honest debate about climate and energy policy in Canada. Gailus’ book, Little Black Lies: Corporate and Political Spin in the Global War for Oil, was published by Rocky Mountain Books in October 2012.

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