Documents filed with the Alberta Lobbyist Registry reveal that Canadian media behemoth Postmedia — which owns the National Post, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Vancouver Sun, The Province, Ottawa Citizen and many others — is actively seeking to become “involved” in Premier Jason Kenney’s “energy war room.”

The lobbying records state Postmedia hired Kenney’s former campaign director Nick Koolsbergen to “discuss ways Postmedia could be involved in the government’s energy war room.”

Postmedia registration to l… by on Scribd

A filing in Albertas lobbyist registry indicates Postmedia will lobby the government on ways to be involved in the government’s “energy war room.”

Kenney proposed the creation of a “war room” during Alberta’s most recent election campaign.

The war room — which the UCP said in its campaign platform will run on a $20 million budget — will “fight fake news and share the truth about Alberta’s resource sector and energy issues.”

In his victory speech, Kenney made it clear that Alberta would take an aggressive stance against any negative attention directed at the province’s energy industry.

Kenney named several organizations, including prominent charities, environmental groups and multinational companies, suggesting they may be early targets of the war room.

Postmedia, it appears, is now seeking to become a part of this campaign.

Postmedia Network Inc. has hired former UCP Chief of Staff and campaign director Nick Koolsbergen to lobby the Alberta government “To discuss ways Postmedia could be involved in the government’s energy war room.” #ableg #cdnpoli #postmedia

Link: https://t.co/b7JMLMFwAT

— Dave Cournoyer (@davecournoyer) May 17, 2019

Postmedia hires lobbyist who will ‘win high stakes campaigns’

Koolsbergen has deep political roots, having taken on the role of chief of staff for the United Conservative Party in October 2017. He remained with the party, as campaign director, during the most recent election campaign.

Koolsbergen also worked briefly as former B.C. premier Christy Clark’s chief of staff, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Koolsbergen announced earlier this month on Twitter that he had left his role with the UCP and had founded a new group called Wellington Advocacy, a firm that would work in “government relations” and “help companies and candidates win high stakes campaigns.”

Wellington Advocacy boasts its team has “a decade of working alongside Stephen Harper on the campaign trail and in office.”

Less than ten days after Koolsbergen announced his new company, Postmedia filed documents to have Koolsbergen lobby the new UCP government on its behalf.

Postmedia plans to lobby the Alberta Treasury Board and Finance, Alberta Environment and Parks, the Executive Council, the  Premier’s Office, Alberta Energy and Alberta Legislative Assembly, according to documents filed with the Alberta Lobbyist Registry.

The lobbying records contain few details as to how exactly Postmedia plans to become “involved” in the energy war room.

‘An abrogation of everything that we as news media are supposed to stand for’

Postmedia purchased the Sun newspaper chain in 2015 and went on to merge the newsrooms of the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun, as well as the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun.

The Competition Bureau reviewed the acquisition, but did not oppose the purchase despite the fact it meant the chain took ownership of both dailies in three major cities: Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa.

At the time of the purchase, Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey said he intended to maintain separate newsrooms, but less than a year later the chain announced it was laying off 90 journalists and merging newsrooms in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa.

Sean Holman, a journalism professor at Mount Royal University, called the lobbyist registration “disturbing.”

“If I was to speculate about what they might be doing here, I would think that they would be discussing branded content or custom content that Postmedia could provide in the service of this war room,” Holman said.

In an emailed statement, Postmedia’s vice president of communications, Phyllise Gelfand, told The Narwhal that “Postmedia has engaged Wellington Advocacy with respect to the commercial content area of the business and the previously announced Alberta government’s energy war room.”

“This sort of exposes the problematic nature of that kind of business,” Holman said. “Is it appropriate for a news media organization to be providing political custom content while at the same time reporting on politics? And how does that impact trust in that media organization?”

Holman said having newspapers looking to profit from a “government operation that is designed to punish a certain kind of speech” is “problematic.”

“Media organizations certainly shouldn’t be in the business of working in support of that type of activity. It’s an abrogation of everything that we as news media are supposed to stand for.”

The Edmonton Journal recently ran a “built on trust” ad campaign. Photo: Mack Male / Flickr

Postmedia told local papers to endorse conservatives

During the most recent election campaign, the Edmonton Journal and Edmonton Sun publicly endorsed the UCP and then-candidate Kenney, writing “voters should choose the UCP.”

“Kenney has shown force of will and determination to accomplish tasks some believed impossible,” the editorial staff wrote.

“The election is about who can best lead Alberta …. That person is UCP Leader Jason Kenney.”

In 2015, then editor-in-chief of the Edmonton Journal, Margo Goodhand, told Canadaland that the paper was “asked to endorse” the Conservative party during that provincial election campaign by Postmedia leadership in Toronto.

All four major Postmedia papers in Alberta ran endorsements of the Conservative Party in 2015.

Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey has long been known to be a conservative supporter, having financially contributed to conservative campaigns in the past.

Postmedia also reportedly told its papers to endorse the federal conservatives in 2015.

“This was a decision made by the owners of the paper,” tweeted Paula Simons, at the time a columnist at the Edmonton Journal (Simons is now an independent senator).

The admission prompted CBC’s Charles Rusnell to question the ethics of “an American hedge fund telling an Alberta newspaper which federal Canadian party to endorse.”

In 2014, a presentation was leaked that detailed a partnership between Postmedia and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. Later that year, we revealed that Postmedia had been running editorial content paid for by the oil industry without any labelling to indicate it was sponsored content.

Holman said it seems there is more and more reason to believe “Postmedia has ceased to be a news media organization and has become a political organization.”

And, he said, that raises concerns about the future of democracy in Alberta.

“If the major dailies are unable to do their job to hold power to account and inform the citizenry, then that does not speak well for the future of democracy in Alberta,” Holman said.

“When a jurisdiction lacks a robust fourth estate, that leaves them vulnerable to political authoritarianism and subversion of democracy.”

— With files from Emma Gilchrist

Update Friday, May 17, 4:17 p.m. MST: This article was updated to reflect that Postmedia’s vice president of communications, Phyllise Gelfand, provided a brief statement in response to The Narwhal’s questions.

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The 2014 financial reports from B.C.’s political parties are out and my face hurts from all of the eyebrow raising.

Donations to political parties from corporations are banned federally, but here in B.C. — the wild west of political donations — the corporate cash is free-flowing.

Here are the Top 5 disconcerting revelations from this year’s disclosures. (Thanks to Integrity BC for drawing my attention to many of these.)

1) Let’s start with the $40,950 that accounting firm KPMG gave to the BC Liberals in 2014. KPMG is the company BC Hydro hired to “independently review” the costs of the $8.8 billion Site C dam. The B.C. government has pointed to the KPMG report to defend its decision to ignore an expert recommendation to send the project to the B.C. Utilities Commission for review.

Since 2005, KPMG and its related companies have given $284,994 to the BC Liberals and $13,150 to the NDP.

2) In the words of IntegrityBC’s Dermod Travis “the 2014 Award for Incredibly Bad Taste in Donations goes to Imperial Metals, owners of the Mount Polley mine.”

The mining company donated $7,150 to the Liberals, including a $1,500 cheque in October and another for $250 in November, in the months following the company’s enormous Mount Polley tailings dam failure.

“The spill may have been toxic, but Imperial's cash wasn't,” Travis quipped.

3) Oil and gas transportation companies got in on the action, too, with Kinder Morgan ($4,500), TransCanada Pipelines ($5,600), Coastal GasLink Pipeline ($12,500) and Enbridge Northern Gateway ($13,450) all filling up the Liberal’s bank account.

Woodfibre LNG, which is proposing a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Howe Sound, gave $28,000 to the Liberals and $8,000 to the B.C. NDP. Woodfibre also spent more than $18,000 on newspaper and radio ads in Squamish during the November 2014 local election.

4) As the high-stakes Metro Vancouver waste debate raged on last year, BFI Canada gave the Liberals $91,300 and Belkorp Environmental Services gave $37,200.

Those companies didn’t like Metro Vancouver’s garbage plans, so they also hired lobbyists to pressure the provincial government. According to B.C.’s Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists, Belkorp hired John Les, former MLA for Chilliwack, and BFI hired lobbyist Dimitri Pantazopoulos, who was the Liberals’ chief pollster during the 2013 provincial election.

5) Perhaps the most bizarre donation of all is one for $28,750 from the Alberta Newspaper Group to the Liberals.

Alberta Newspaper Group has no papers in B.C., but is run and partially owned by British Columbian David Radler. Yes, that David Radler. The one who went to jail, along with his business partner Conrad Black, after being convicted of defrauding their company Hollinger Inc.

Alberta Newspaper Group is a subsidiary of Glacier Media, which owns the Victoria Times Colonist. Radler was named the acting publisher of the Victoria Times Colonist a year ago.

Radler also runs Continental Newspapers, which publishes the Kelowna Daily Courier and Penticton Herald.

As traditional media players face unprecedented hardships to stay alive, it’s a wonder how any newspaper company can afford to scrounge up tens of thousands of dollars to curry political favour.

Sadly, this is far from the first time a B.C. media company has donated to a political party. In 2013, Postmedia — which owns the Vancouver Sun and The Province — donated $10,000 to the BC Liberals. In 2009, Glacier Media gave $100,000 to the Liberals. And between 2006 and 2011, Black Press — which owns more than 70 community newspapers in B.C.— contributed $5,430 to the BC Liberals.

It’s exactly the kind of impropriety that would typically set the press off on a feeding frenzy — alas, the only organizations to escape the news media’s often savage scrutiny are the news media themselves.

Photo: Mary Crandall via Flickr

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Sun News went dark Friday, not with a bang but a whimper.

The Sun News television channel faded to black at 5 a.m. eastern time with no on-air announcement, the screen simply reading, “Sun News Network is no longer available, at the discretion of the programmer. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope you will continue to value all the channels included in your package.”

The network, which has been at the centre of much controversy since its inception in 2011, provided right-leaning news and opinion in the style of the U.S.'s Fox News, earning the nickname “Fox News North.”

Faced with annual losses of $20 million and with no new buyers on the horizon, “there was no alternative to closing Sun News,” a Sun Media Corp. press release said. In October 2014 Postmedia News purchased Sun News papers but declined to purchase the television channel. 

Julie Tremblay, president and CEO of Media Groups and Sun Media Corporation, said: “This is an unfortunate outcome; shutting down Sun News was certainly not our goal.”

“Over the past four years, we tried everything we could to achieve sufficient market penetration to generate the profits needed to operate a national news channel. Sadly, the numerous obstacles to carriage that we encountered spelled the end of this venture.”

In 2013 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled the network did not meet the criteria necessary for mandatory coverage on basic cable in Canada.

Tremblay said “the closure is regrettable for the Canadian broadcasting system, which is losing a distinctively Canadian voice in the national news space.”

Responses to the network’s demise have been varied.

Members of the media took to Twitter to express their condolences to Sun News journalists. Others took the opportunity to disparage the outlet.

Liberal commentator and author Warren Kinsella wrote in a mournful blog post about the death of traditional media and how the Sun News Network – as disagreeable as it was – played a role in lively debate.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he wrote, “our traditional new media are dying.”

“When that journalism disappears, mark my words: our democracy will be diminished, and possibly even in peril. I’m not exaggerating. There is nothing that keeps the powerful in check – not Question Period, not a public opinion poll, not even the policy – as effectively as journalists do. I’ve worked on both sides, and I know, I’ve seen it: every time a newspaper dies – every time a TV network dies – the powerful grow more so. You may think that’s okay, but I sure don’t. They are not always benign in the way they exercise power.”

Writer Omar Mouallem, however, had a different perspective on the network’s closure.

“Everyone at Sun News deserved to be fired,” he wrote on Canadaland’s website. “They were complicit in spewing hatred.”

Mouallem noted that many Canadian journalists were deferential in their goodbyes to Sun News, engaging in “back-patting.”

“It doesn’t matter how many people lost their jobs or how many young and talented journalists Sun News Network took a chance on,” Mouallem argued. The network’s “bigotry is well known and well documented. The network promoted racism – against Arabs, against Romani people, against First Nations – under the veil of ‘opinion,’ a disgraceful abuse of the latitude that is afforded to news commentary and columnizing.”

The network provided a platform for commentators like Ezra Levant, founder of EthicalOil.org. Levant, host of The Source, was perhaps the network’s most notable provocateur.

Writing for The Walrus Jonathan Kay notes Levant's sensational views on race, religion, environmentalism and politics did not represent the entire network. 

"One hundred seventy-five people worked at Sun News Network," he wrote. "One hundred seventy-four of those people were not named Ezra Levant. So even Canada’s leftists would do well to keep their schadenfreude in check. The majority of Sun’s staffers were apolitical twenty- or thirty-somethings looking to eke out a career in television. They were not mini-Ezras, and many likely will never find another job in journalism. If you find this to be reason for celebration, you’re a bad person."

Kay added that because Canadians do not display U.S.-style outrage over immigration, abortion and gay rights, Sun News Network was doomed from the start.

"The U.S. has a culture war. Here, we have question period."

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Postmedia has struck a $316 million deal to buy 175 of Quebecor’s English-language newspapers, specialty publications and digital properties, including the Sun chain of papers, according to a report in the Globe and Mail this morning.

If it passes regulatory hurdles, the deal will mark a step further down the path of media concentration in Canada.

What does this mean for Canadians in practical terms?

In Calgary, for instance, the Calgary Sun would be owned by the same company as the Calgary Herald. In Toronto, the Toronto Sun and 24 Hours would be owned by the same company as the National Post. In Ottawa, the Ottawa Sun would be owned by the same company as the Ottawa Citizen. And in Edmonton, the Edmonton Sun would be owned by the same company as the Edmonton Journal.

It’s Vancouver that takes the cake for media concentration though — Postmedia already owned the Vancouver Sun and The Province, but if the deal goes through it will take over the free daily 24 Hours as well.

In a statement, Postmedia president and CEO Paul Godfrey said the company intends “to continue to operate the Sun Media major market dailies and their digital properties side by side with our existing properties in markets with multiple brands as we have in Vancouver with the Province and the Vancouver Sun for more than 30 years.”

Sean Holman, journalism professor at Mount Royal University, says the deal means three major things for the Canadian public.

“First, I think the Canadian public should be worried about what this potential sale could mean for press freedom,” Holman says. “If you have one media owner with the capability to dictate editorial policy across almost every single major newspaper in the country, that is not a healthy thing. There may be assurances of newsroom editorial independence, but we have seen over the years that newsroom independence has been violated by Canadian media owners.”

Holman also notes that as media companies encounter more financial trouble, business reasons are increasingly being used to compromise editorial standards. Case in point: In June, DeSmog Canada revealed that Postmedia had been running unlabelled oil advertorials.

The second major reason Canadians should be worried about this deal has to do with press criticism, Holman says.

“Right now, the Canadian media is not held to a very high level of accountability,” he says. “You look down in the States at the amount of media analysis and media criticism there is there and we simply can’t hold a candle to that. This potential sale will make that worse.

“If there is only really one major employer behemoth, how reluctant are newspaper journalists going to be to criticize one of their few major potential employers?”

Thirdly, Canadians ought to be worried about the capacity of the media to cover the important issues, Holman says.

“[Postmedia CEO] Godfrey has said that the chain won’t be closing any of Sun Media’s properties in major markets. I note that that statement does not include minor markets. Without further clarification, at this point in time, we could see closures there…We could see layoffs.”

“And as we reduce those newspaper resources and newsrooms themselves, that erodes the capacity of the media to perform its societal role which is to hold power to account.”

Media capacity is getting to such a point in Canada that Holman says Canadians need to be having a serious national conversation about how we are going to hold power to account in the absence of companies that seem to be concerned with that.

“I think this is certainly going to increase the pressure on independent and activist media to perform some of those tasks, which mainstream newsrooms may not be able to fulfill,” Holman says.

At DeSmog Canada, we are trying to fill that gap and hold power to account. Please give what you can today.

Photo: Rachael F. via Flickr

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Paid advertisements for the oil industry have run unlabelled as editorial content on the websites of the Vancouver Sun and Regina Leader-Post — yet Canada’s ad regulator has decided not to rule against Postmedia, the company that owns the papers.

DeSmog Canada filed a complaint with Advertising Standards Canada on March 4, regarding a story published on the Vancouver Sun’s website on Dec. 4, 2013, with the headline “Born to the Challenge: Janet Holder’s B.C. roots make her the perfect lead on Northern Gateway.”

The article told the tale of how Holder came to be Enbridge’s VP of Western Access, responsible for pushing the Northern Gateway oil tanker and pipeline project. Holder recited the economic claim that Canada is losing $50-million a day due to limited export markets

Economist Robyn Allan read the article and took issue with that economic claim. When she submitted an opinion piece in response, she was informed it couldn’t be run because the article she was responding to was actually a paid advertisement.

“It was clear that the page was set up to look like arms length reporting — even more so on the web than in the printed version of the paper,” Allan told DeSmog Canada. “I had prepared my opinion piece from the web ‘article’ and when I saw the printed version, I became confused—was it reporting or paid-for propaganda? The Sun editorial staff confirmed the page was paid content.”

DeSmog Canada’s complaint with the ad standards agency cited Clause 2 “Disguised Advertising Techniques,” which states: “No advertisement shall be presented in a format or style that conceals its commercial intent.”

After two months, Advertising Standards Canada sent a written reply to DeSmog Canada indicating that it had decided not to issue a ruling against Postmedia.

Since the complaint was filed, the article has been removed from the Vancouver Sun’s website.

A screen grab of the paid article on the Vancouver Sun website, before it was removed.

However, on March 7, the same thing happened again, this time with a paid advertisement from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

When the ad ran online in the National Post, it was clearly labelled with this disclaimer: “This content was developed by Postmedia’s advertising department in collaboration with a client. Though it does not mention the client’s products or services, the client was involved in the creative direction of the content and reviewed it before publication.”

On that same day, that CAPP advertorial ran in the Regina Leader-Post with no disclaimer. (UPDATE: On June 25th, the story — shown in the screen grab below — was removed from the Regina Leader-Post website.)

The unmarked, paid story begins: “Major Canadian oil sands companies have come together in an unprecedented move to collaborate and advance technologies to accelerate the pace of environmental performance improvement.”

Postmedia owns nearly every broadsheet daily in the country, including the Vancouver Sun, The Province, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Regina Leader-Post, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, the Ottawa Citizen, the Montreal Gazette and the National Post.

Consequences for news industry

Sean Holman, founder of Public Eye and a journalism professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, says media organizations undermine their own value by undertaking such ventures without ensuring content is clearly labeled.

“What I do find tragic is, as we go down this route that we seem to headed down, it is eroding the societal and political value of the content that media institutions are supposed to be producing,” Holman told DeSmog Canada. “I’m not sure the media has thought through the ramifications of that.”

Postmedia, like most newspaper publishers, is in serious financial trouble — laying off staff, shutting down presses and losing tens of millions of dollars.

“Media organizations are trying to do the best job they can to figure out how to make money in this new environment. But I think some of these ventures go down the wrong path,” Holman said. “We enjoy the access that we do because we are supposed to be serving not an advertising purpose, but a political purpose, not a business purpose, but a societal purpose.”

At the same time, Holman asks how news organizations are supposed to make money in a society that does not value journalism in the way it once did.

“Journalists bear some of the blame, media organizations bear some of the blame, but we as citizens bear some of the blame, too,” he said.

Postmedia to work with CAPP to amplify “energy mandate”

Earlier this year, the Vancouver Observer reported on a Postmedia presentation that outlined a content strategy that includes several Financial Post “Special Report” sections, with topics to be arranged by Postmedia and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

The partnership also includes 12 single-page “joint venture” features in newspapers across the country. Those are different from “special reports” in that CAPP fully directs the topics and Postmedia writers just pen them.

If the features were properly marked as paid content, that would be one thing — but at least two paid articles appear to have slipped between the cracks.

Add to that the tone of the leaked Postmedia presentation, which is graphically designed to follow the route of a cartoon pipeline (snazzy!) and includes this note from Douglas Kelly, the publisher of the National Post:

“From its inception, the National Post has been one of the country’s leading voices on the importance of energy to Canada’s business competitiveness internationally and our economic well being in general. We will work with CAPP to amplify our energy mandate and to be part of the solution to keep Canada competitive in the global marketplace. The National Post will undertake to leverage all means editorially, technically and creatively to further this critical conversation.”

Huh. You almost get the impression that Postmedia sees itself as being on the same team as CAPP — which is rather disconcerting.

Let’s say a Postmedia reporter ran across a contrary piece of information, like the fact the oilsands industry only actually accounts for about two per cent of Canada’s GDP, a quarter of the contribution of the charitable and non-profit sector? How would that fit into Postmedia’s “energy mandate” to keep “Canada competitive in the global marketplace?”

To be fair, the presentation to CAPP was meant to cajole an advertiser to spend big bucks, not for public eyes. Even the unlabelled articles online could very well have been left unlabelled by error.

But the fact is, it doesn’t look good. Readers expect news organizations to maintain their first loyalty to citizens. As outlined in the Pew Reseach Centre’s nine core principles of journalism:

While news organizations answer to many constituencies, including advertisers and shareholders, the journalists in those organizations must maintain allegiance to citizens and the larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or favor. This commitment to citizens first is the basis of a news organization’s credibility, the implied covenant that tells the audience the coverage is not slanted for friends or advertisers.

When media companies appear to lose track of that commitment to the public interest, they lose the trust of their readers — which undermines their own business. But more than that, it casts a pall over the good work of their journalists who continue to serve the public interest even as the traditional media industry crumbles around them — and that’s likely the biggest tragedy of all.

 —With files from Emma Gilchrist.

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A strange chain of events played out in the Vancouver Sun in the past couple of weeks. 

First, on Feb. 5, the newspaper ran the results of a poll commissioned by Dogwood Initiative and three other B.C. non-profits that found 64 per cent of British Columbians are opposed to bringing oil tankers into B.C.’s inside waters, including 50 per cent who are strongly opposed.

(Full disclosure: I’ve worked both for Dogwood Initiative and Postmedia, the company that owns the Vancouver Sun.)

Let’s get one thing straight right away: all polls should be taken with a grain of salt. Anyone who has followed the Enbridge Northern Gateway debate closely has watched all sides of the debate trot out surveys with vastly different results. They all claim their poll gave the respondents the undisputed facts and the people have spoken. And they’re all right — in a sense.

When Enbridge itself asks the question, they focus on the pipeline, ensure respondents know it’ll be underground (I'm sure they focus-grouped the living daylights out of that one) and include lots of technical detail about things like condensate. And when Enbridge asked the question that way in late 2011, they came out with a result indicating more British Columbians were in favour of the pipeline than against it (48 per cent to 32 per cent). What you don’t see in that result is how many different ways and different times they had to ask the question to get there.

On the flip side, when environmental groups ask the question, they tend to focus on oil tankers in inside coastal waters and the threat of an oil spill. And when they ask the question their way, they tend to find 65 per cent of British Columbians opposed to Enbridge’s oil tanker proposal. They too have honed in on how to ask the question to get the result they want, but they have a lot less money both to focus group questions and to poll continually until they get a desirable result.

Given the fickleness of any given polling result, the Vancouver Sun’s initial treatment of the latest Dogwood poll was fairly circumspect. While it didn’t give Enbridge a chance to respond directly to the findings, it did quote December’s B.C. Chamber of Commerce poll (PDF), which used Enbridge’s polling question, and analyzed the way the question was asked.  The sub-headline even read: “Results not surprising in survey commissioned by environmental groups.”

It should be noted that when the Vancouver Sun covered the release of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce poll, the results ran un-refuted — with nearly no analysis of the polling question and no response from environmental groups. (That poll found 47 per cent of British Columbians support the project and 44 per cent oppose it — a 12 per cent jump in opposition in the two years since Enbridge released its poll with exactly the same question. The Sun didn’t make that connection.)

So, here’s where things get weird: in response to the latest poll commissioned by enviros, Enbridge whipped up a two-minute video refuting its findings and released it exclusively to the Vancouver Sun on Saturday Feb. 8. The Vancouver Sun ran an entire story dedicated to Enbridge’s argument, including embedding the video on its website. The story had no commentary from the environmental groups who actually commissioned the poll.

Enbridge execs had their knickers in a twist because the poll referenced oil tankers entering the inside passage, which the company disputes. To be clear: oil tankers will cross through the inside passage and throughout B.C.’s inside coastal waters, but they won’t sail up and down the inside passage. Sure enough, the wording could have been better, but it hardly warranted the Sun running a two-minute video response, which was essentially an ad for Enbridge.

It seems the good folks over at the Vancouver Sun had that realization later on because the story that went to print on Tuesday Feb. 11 included fulsome rebuttals from both Dogwood Initiative and Justason Market Intelligence, rather than straight-up PR spin from Enbridge. The story noted that at the end of the poll, respondents were asked what type of organization they thought sponsored it — more than 50 per cent thought the research was sponsored by a group either in support of Enbridge’s proposal, or neutral. So while Enbridge may claim bias, the citizens involved in the poll didn’t get that sense.

A day after Enbridge’s attack on their poll, Dogwood Initiative invited Enbridge to collaborate on a new poll with them.

“In the spirit of the balanced and fair public conversation . . . Enbridge and Dogwood Initiative could develop a question that describes the full scope and location of the proposal and then work together with an independent polling organization to field it,” the statement says. “We could split the costs and release the results publicly. This is a sincere offer, and we hope Enbridge will accept.”

So far, Dogwood hasn’t heard back from Enbridge — and their challenge hasn’t received much attention. Perhaps newspaper editors are too embarrassed by the way it shines a light on the budget constraints that prevent them from commissioning their own polls these days?

I’m sure the Vancouver Sun’s spotty coverage of the polling debate has much more to do with a lack of resources and the rush to get stories online than it has to do with the millions of dollars Enbridge and the oil industry spends with Postmedia — but the optics aren’t good.

The poll fiasco went down in the same week Postmedia laid off its top environment reporter Mike De Souza as part of a downsizing of its parliamentary bureau and a leaked presentation gave indications of a slightly-too-cozy relationship between Postmedia and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Readers could be forgiven for wondering what exactly drove the Sun to embed Enbridge’s video rebuttal in its story. Perhaps the best way to find out for sure is for environmental groups to issue a video rebuttal to the Vancouver Sun the next time industry releases poll results — and then to sit back and wait for it to run in its entirety. It may not have the same production values as the Enbridge video, but surely the fact Enbridge neglects to mention oil tankers in inside coastal waters (the very issue British Columbians are most concerned about) is worthy of a response?

Image Credit: Kumravel via Flickr

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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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Companies responsible for two separate oil spills in Alberta failed to provide adequate oversight for their operations, according to federal government documents released by Environment Canada through Access to Information legislation.

The documents detail how Devon Canada and Gibson Energy violated environmental laws, including the federal Fisheries Act, when their operations cause two oil spills into fish-bearing waterways in 2010.

Gibson Energy, a midstream pipeline operator, spilled a few hundred litres of oil into an Edmonton creek after failing to properly abandon an unused pipeline. According to a warning letter issued to the company from Environment Canada, "Gibson Energy ULC made a business decision to keep the Kinder Morgan lateral full of crude oil and to not purge it with nitrogen."

The pipeline released a "brown foamy substance" into the waterway, indicating the pipeline suffered internal corrosion. "Based on information obtained, I have reason to believe Gibson Energy ULC was responsible for the release of a deleterious substance into (a creek) leading to the North Saskatchewan River and they were not duly diligent in preventing this release," wrote an Edmonton-based inspector and Environment Canada fisheries inspector, Deanna Cymbaluk.

Violations of this kind can encur a fine of up to $1 million or three years in prison in Canada. Similar infractions in the United States are often met with heavy fines and penalties levied against operators.

When Postmedia's Mike De Souza contacted Gibson Energy, communications manager Nicole Collard, refused to comment on the two-year old file, saying "we're not interested in participating in this." The Alberta regulator Energy Resources Conservation Board issued Gibson a "high-risk non-compliance" order for "improperly discontinuing/abandoning a pipeline."

An additional spill, of 350,000 litres, or the equivalent of 3,000 barrels of oil, occurred when a blowout could not be contained for 36 hours by Devon Canada, a major operator in the tar sands.

At the time Devon was conducting steam-assisted gravity drainage oil production, a process that uses steam to heat underground bitumen, allowing the viscous substance to more freely flow up a well-bore. The relatively new technique poses new operational challenges industry may not always be prepared for.

In this instance, Devon lost control of the procedure at its Jackfish facility after a combination of human error and damage cause by sand erosion caused a well failure. According to Environment Canada's Cymbaluk, Devon had "poorly documented protocols" and a "lack of planning for a well failure" at the time of the accident.

Tim Waters, manager of operations engineering at Devon told Postmedia "there were certain risk areas around the well-head and how the wells were operated that we didn't fully understand, quite honestly."

Devon is one of many tar sands operators hoping to improve their image through public relations campaigns. Recently Devon released a series of television commercials intended to highlight the company's environmental stewardship at its Jackfish facility.

Greenpeace's Keith Stewart suggests the commercials can't undo the industry's operational shortcomings: "When the oil industry's poster child for clean water can't stop a blow-out for 36 hours, it makes me wish we had stronger truth-in-advertising laws in this country."

Waters, however, maintains the commercials are accurate and demonstrate Devon's concern for the environment.

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The Canadian government is working hard behind the scenes to cover up the negative effects that tar sands extraction is having on the local environment, wildlife, communities and the global climate. According to Access to Information documents obtained by Postmedia's Mike De Souza, the Stephen Harper government has actively suppressed the release of vital information regarding the spread of tar sands contamination by muzzling federal scientists.

The gag order, according to De Souza, came on the heels of a newly researched government report in November 2011 which confirmed the findings of University of Alberta scientists Erin N. Kelly and David Schindler. The scientists discovered concentrations of toxics such as heavy metals were higher near tar sands operations, showing a positive correlation between tar sands activity and the spread of contaminants in the local environment.

The government of Canada and the government of Alberta denied the correlation, saying local waterways tested showed no signs of toxic contamination and reports of mutated and cancerous fish downstream from the tar sands were unfounded.

The document uncovered by De Souza shows that federal scientists who could confirm the University of Alberta results were restricted from speaking to the media: "If scientists are approached for interviews at the conference, the [Environment Canada] communications policy will be followed by referring the journalist to the media relations…phone number. An appropriate spokesperson will then be identified depending on journalist questions."

Federal scientists were also given a list of scripted responses, explaining government tests in the spring of 2010 showed no toxics in the Athabasca River and established no links between contaminants and abnormal and sick fish.

Scientists were also directed to avoid questions regarding environmental monitoring of the tar sands and the role Environment Canada plays in the region with this scripted line: "I am a scientist. I'm not in a position to answer that question but I'd be happy to refer you to an appropriate spokesperson."

David Schindler, co-author of the 2010 University of Alberta study commented, "it is a good study, and [the author] is a very fine young scientist, who should be trusted to comment on her own results."

"Similarly, Derek Muir, her supervisor and co-author, is one of the world's top contamination experts, and Canadians should be ashamed that he cannot discuss results directly with the public, but must go through an official spokesperson."

In 2010, the results of Kelly and Schindler's contaminant analysis caused an uproar in Alberta and federal governments. Eager to promote expansion in the tar sands, the Canadian government failed to install a sound and independent monitoring system for the region.

Any data used to support the government's official position, that no contamination had occurred, was supplied by the oil and gas industry.

Schindler conducted a basic analysis of waterways in the region, sampling water both upstream from tar sands operations, and downstream. What Schindler and his team discovered was a considerable accumulation of pollutants in water downstream from tar sands development which includes open-pit mining and refining.

Most notably, Schindler discovered that airborne pollutants were being deposited on land, far from contaminated waterways like the Athabasca River. It was Schindler who first recognized the role snow was playing in the transportation and depositing of tar sands pollution.

These land-based pollutants mirrored contamination of waterways. Schindler found that "embryos of fish exposed to oilsands' water and sediment have very high rates of mortality, and among the survivors, there are very high rates of deformities."

His research confirmed the concerns of local communities, First Nations and environmental groups that the fast-tracking of tar sands expansion without careful monitoring was having negative effects on the environment and those living downstream.

The findings also contradicted research conducted by the industry/government group Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP), a group Schindler claims "violated every rule" of long-term study.

In perhaps one of Canada's most scandalous moments in recent history, Dr. Schindler was publicly discredited by the provincial and federal government. His research and his credibility were called into question when the Alberta government went on record to say his study – which was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – was biased and that contaminants in the region's watershed occur naturally and not as a result of industrial activities.

The treatment Schindler received as a result of his research concerned scientists across Canada, many of whom felt the federal government was conduction a 'witch hunt' to silence information that might fuel opposition to the tar sands.

Schindler's experience was just one of many reasons why scientists from across Canada held a mock memorial this summer on Parliament Hill, mourning the "Death of Evidence," caused by the muzzling of scientists by the federal government.

The motto of the event was clear: "Stephen Harper Hates Science."

To this day no clear environmental monitoring program is in place to track and analyze the effects that tar sands extraction and refining has on the local environment. Last month the Alberta government announced the creation of a new scientific body to monitor the impacts of development, which Diana McQueen, the province's Environment Minister, suggests will be 'credible' and operate at an 'arms-length' from industry and government. The plan, however, has yet to take any real shape.

"This is yet another plan to develop a plan," said Greenpeace energy and climate campaigner Mike Hudema. "There is still no funding commitment and no clear governance model to ensure independence. The province should stop approving new projects based on flawed data and incomplete information until this gets sorted out."

Image credit: Jodi Stark

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