After more than a year of public hearings, the federal government unveiled its new and improved environmental assessment legislation in February 2018 with much ado.

But the new rules — designed to restore public trust in Canada’s process for reviewing major projects — didn’t contain any details on what kinds of projects would trigger a review under the new legislation.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna skirted the issue, saying her ministry was still evaluating what kinds of activities would show up on a yet-to-be-released “project list” that was pending further consultation with Canadians.

But when pressed on the issue, McKenna told reporters she didn’t believe oilsands projects developed via in-situ methods should be included. McKenna reasoned that because Alberta already has a hard cap on emissions, future oilsands projects would be exempt from federal environmental review.

The implications of excluding new oilsands projects because of a provincial emissions cap (which is controversial) weren’t lost on Adam Scott, senior advisor with Oil Change International.

Unbelievable and unacceptable. @cathmckenna proposes exempting #tarsands in-situ projects from any federal environmental assessment because ‘Alberta has a hard cap on emissions’ #cdnpoli

— Adam Scott (@AdamScottEnv) February 8, 2018

“It’s just appalling,” Scott told DeSmog Canada in an interview. “There’s no other way to say it.”

Unlike the more familiar open-pit mines of the Alberta oilsands, in-situ projects extract the region’s viscous bitumen by injecting steam into the ground, which softens the oil that is then pumped to the surface.

In-situ development represents the future of the oilsands. Between 2016 and 2040, in-situ is expected to double in daily production reaching 2.9 million barrels per day.

And while the process is less visible than its open-pit counterpart, in-situ oilsands mining has greater greenhouse gas emissions and significant land disturbance that clashes with the rights of local Indigenous peoples.

NDP MP Linda Duncan said by not releasing the project list the federal government has left everyone in the dark.

Duncan, who serves as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development which is responsible for reviewing the new legislation, said in-situ projects were exempted from federal assessments under the previous Harper government during dramatic cuts to Canada’s environmental rules. The new proposed federal legislation, bill C-69, was meant to make the gutted rules more robust.

“Everybody agrees that this bill should not be finalized until everybody knows what the project list is,” Duncan told DeSmog Canada.

“Who is it going to apply to? It’s ridiculous that they didn’t have the consultations simultaneously. This is a really serious matter. One of the things that we heard from industry today was that they’re just fed up.”

In-situ projects expected to emit 65 megatonnes of emissions by 2030

In-situ projects don’t result in the same level of visual devastation as open-pit mining: there are no toxic tailings lakes or gargantuan trucks needed.

But they have their own set of significant impacts, which critics argue should fall under the purview of federal assessment.

For one, they emit far more greenhouse gases that mining on a per-barrel basis. A 2016 assessment by the Pembina Institute found the “emissions intensity” of in-situ is about 60 per cent higher than mining. That’s because natural gas is burned to create the steam used in the process, making it extremely emissions intensive.

By 2030, in-situ projects are expected to emit 65 megatonnes of emissions per year: almost equivalent to all passenger transport in the country.

Sharon Mascher, law professor at the University of Calgary and expert in environmental law, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada that such climate impacts from in-situ projects warrant federal assessment.

“I would argue that the federal government has the constitutional power to deal with greenhouse gas emissions and they need to show some leadership if they’re going to purport to be acting in a way that’s consistent with their obligations under the Paris Agreement,” she said.

“They need to exercise that jurisdiction to make sure that over the long term Canada’s greenhouse gases are not increasing  but are decreasing and eventually reaching carbon neutrality.”

Alberta’s emissions cap allows for a 40 per cent expansion in emissions, up to 100 megatonnes. But that doesn’t include electricity cogeneration, oilsands that doens’t require steam extraction and new or expanded upgraders — which combine for another 15 megatonnes of emissions.

As noted in the recent collaborative report by Canada’s auditors general, Alberta is one of nine province and territories that doesn’t even have a 2030 emissions goal in place.

Mascher said the only way an exemption for new in-situ projects would make sense would be if the federal government conducted a strategic assessment of all existing legislative frameworks in order to provide assurance that new production fits within Paris Agreement obligations.

However, strategic assessments aren’t legislated — meaning they’re completely at the discretion of cabinet.

No environmental assessments for in-situ oilsands projects under the federal government’s new rules. @cathmckenna https://t.co/WjhonE2XgN

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 3, 2018

Without federal assessments, ‘there’s no credibility to the system at all’

Greenhouse gas emissions aren’t the only potential impact of in-situ projects.

As recently reported by DeSmog Canada, Fort McKay First Nation in northeast Alberta is currently fighting a proposed in-situ project that is feared to jeopardize a nearby sacred region.

Specific concerns include the introduction of linear disturbances like roads and cutlines — which can further endanger caribou — and constant water withdrawals.

“They’re massive water polluters with large impacts on land and endangered and threatened species like woodland caribou,” Scott said. “They obviously need to be part of any review. It’s just essential. Without that, there’s no credibility to the system at all. They need to be on the project list as a default.”

There’s growing interest by oilsands producers in the use of “solvents” for in-situ projects, which would greatly reduce the amount of natural gas required for extraction but have unknown impacts on groundwater quality.

Duncan emphasized it’s the primary responsibility of the federal government to address Indigenous rights.  In addition, she emphasized that only the federal government can regulate navigable waters, fisheries and trans-boundary waters.

Even though the previous environmental impact system implemented under Harper exempted in-situ projects, Duncan said it’s imperative that they be included in the project list.

“It’s still having a huge impact on the landbase that is by and large traditional Indigenous lands,” she said.

Committee required to review legislation without knowing what it will apply to

The proposed legislation is currently being reviewed by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. After it’s approved, it’ll return to the House for third reading and eventually royal assent.

In late February, the Liberals introduction a “time allocation” motion over bill C-69 in the House of Commons, limiting debate to only two days before sending it off to the Liberal-stacked committee.

But Duncan said the committee process itself is also being fast-tracked, with limitations on hearing witnesses and proposed amendments.

In response, she gave notice of a motion to break up the bill for review and send sections to relevant committees: parts addressing the Canadian Energy Regulator to the Natural Resource committee and parts about navigable waters to the Transport committee.

Those calls were rebuffed.

Now, her committee has to review over 800 clauses by late April.

Some have speculated that the continued exemption for in-situ for Alberta is a subtle trick to ensure the emissions cap remains regardless of who wins the next provincial election.

Scott suggested that would be a “terrible strategy.”

“The Alberta cap is an ineffective way of dealing with climate impacts of oil and gas operations,” he said. “Exempting projects with the environmental impacts of in-situ tarsands projects really shows the impact system was broken entirely.”

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It all started with the Asti Trattoria Italiana restaurant in Fort McMurray, whose slogan is “Live, Love, Eat.”

But there was no love lost for restaurant owner Karen Collins two weeks ago when the B.C. government announced it will set up an independent scientific advisory panel to examine how diluted bitumen can be safely transported and cleaned up, if spilled.

Pending the review, B.C. said it would restrict increases in the transport of the substance — a mixture of thick unrefined oil from the oilsands and highly flammable gas condensate — through the province, a move widely seen as an attempt to stall the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Calling the review “just crazy,” Collins pulled eight B.C. wines off her menu, which includes coastal delicacies such as seafood strozzapreti and croccanti di salmone (pan seared salmon filet).

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley thought that was such a great idea that she announced a B.C. wine boycott.

This week the wine-pipeline fracas intensified, with new twists that included childcare, a natural gas pipeline from B.C. to Alberta and a “B.C. Wine Smuggling Escape for Albertans” arranged by a luxury tour company, complete with a private jet to fly people to the Okanagan and Cowichan valleys and home again with 50 hand-picked bottles of B.C.’s finest (#PinotNotPipelines).

The B.C. Liberals, with new leader Andrew Wilkinson at the helm, sallied forth with a news release and peppy speeches in the legislature, accusing the NDP of destroying thousands of jobs and demanding that Premier John Horgan “swallow his pride” and fly to Edmonton immediately to sort out the squabble.

In the midst of all the brouhaha, political spin took the front seat while some salient facts were left at the side of the inter-provincial road faster than you can say, “bring me the B.C. bubbly.”

Let’s take a look at some of the developments this week in the War of the Rosés. Spoiler: it’s not really about wine.

The wine and pipelines week in review

The week began with the NDP government taking out a full-page ad, featuring three giant corkscrews, in last Saturday’s Globe and Mail.

The ad, which also appeared in The Province, urged people to buy B.C. wine “and raise a glass to protecting B.C.’s coast” (#toastthecoast).

(Presumably, if things go sideways for the NDP, the hashtag could always be reordered to say #thecoastistoast.)

On Tuesday — the same day the B.C. government proclaimed April as B.C. Wine Month — it was revealed that the federal government had suddenly cancelled a joint announcement with B.C. about an early learning and childcare funding agreement.

Ottawa claimed a scheduling conflict, and there was much speculation that the move had far more to do with B.C.’s new tactics to stall a pipeline pushed by Ottawa than any calendar alignment.

“The media are reporting that the child care transfers from Ottawa to British Columbia are in danger of drying up,” Wilkinson told the legislature.

But the Trudeau government denied that the rescheduling had anything to do with B.C.’s plans to restrict the transport of diluted bitumen. Ottawa said a child care deal will be announced soon, adding that the amount of federal money won’t be affected by B.C.’s stand against the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Then, on Wednesday, the B.C. Liberals issued a press release saying that “Horgan’s trade war” has “imperiled” a $2 billion private sector gas pipeline investment in British Columbia that would create 2,500 jobs.

“This trade war is about to escalate beyond a $70 million wine industry loss into a $2 billion loss, with thousands of jobs at stake,” Wilkinson told the legislature.

As proof, the Liberals circulated Alberta’s February 8 submission to the National Energy Board about the North Montney Mainline Extension, a $1.4 billion natural gas pipeline linking B.C. natural gas operations with eastern markets.

The Alberta government filed the NEB submission, in support of a tariff on the B.C. gas, after Alberta producers complained that TransCanada’s project would flood a glutted gas market and drive down prices for their own product.

“This is not a coincidence, the Alberta government has never expressed opposition to the proposed pipeline until last week,” Peace River South Liberal MLA Mike Bernier said in the news release. “The trade war is expanding and the job losses are mounting.”

Whoa Nellie.

Back in reality, the Alberta government immediately debunked the Liberals’ press release. Mike McKinnon, press secretary for Alberta energy minister Margaret McCuaig-Boyd, told DeSmog Canada that “our filing has nothing to do with the recent dispute with the government of B.C.”

“This is about standing up for Albertans and our energy industry,” McKinnon said in an emailed statement. “The filing is consistent with Alberta’s past positions relating to fair and just toll principles as well as consistent, well-established and accepted pipeline tolling principles.”

In the midst of all the brouhaha, political spin took the front seat while some salient facts were left at the side of the inter-provincial road faster than you can say, “bring me the B.C. bubbly.” https://t.co/aeXbKWxDGJ @sarahcox_bc #oilsands #toastthecoast #bcpoli #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/9XTirAheEe

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 17, 2018

What about those “mounting” job losses?

We asked Unifor, the union that represents about 12,000 workers in Canada’s energy sector, about the Trans Mountain pipeline and jobs.

And whaddya know? Unifor told us that if the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion goes ahead, up to 600 workers in Burnaby stand to lose their long-term jobs —- “good, family supporting jobs, the kind of jobs that help build our economy,” according to Joie Warnock, Unifor’s western regional director.

The jobs are at the Burnaby refinery on the Burrard Inlet, formerly owned by Chevron and purchased in April by Alberta’s Parkland Fuel Corp. The facility, which refines crude and synthetic oil into products such as jet fuel, gasoline, diesel and heating fuels, relies on the existing Kinder Morgan pipeline for its raw product.

But the pipeline expansion is targeted at the lucrative Asian export market, and Warnock said that likely means there will no longer be sufficient supply for the refinery — one of only two oil refineries left in B.C. — to bid on.

“That’s what makes us very concerned.”

Unifor is opposed to the export of raw bitumen, Warnock said, and wants to see raw bitumen exports prohibited because they are “not a good jobs strategy.”

“It doesn’t create jobs in Canada. We want to see more Canadian content, more Canadian value, added at every stage in the energy sector.”

The union also pointed to a piece published in The Province last August by B.C. economist Robyn Allan, titled “The search for Trans Mountain’s mythical 15,000 construction jobs.”

Allan took aim at statements by former B.C. Premier Christy Clark, Notley and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who all asserted the pipeline expansion would create 15,000 new construction jobs.

Kinder Morgan itself told the National Energy Board that the project would employ about 2,500 construction workers, for two years, Allan pointed out.

“Trans Mountain’s 15,000 construction workforce jobs are a scam,” wrote Allan. “The more realistic figure is less than 20 per cent that size.”

So what’s really going on here?

Any delay in expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline “puts a lot on the line” for Notley, according to UBC political science professor Kathryn Harrison, whose research focuses primarily on environmental policy.

Notley, who is facing a re-election campaign next year and formidable opposition from the new United Conservative Party, has tried to strike a careful balance between continued support of Alberta’s oil industry and taking action to reduce the province’s sizeable carbon footprint.

“She really needs to show Alberta voters that she is strongly committed to doing everything in her power to get pipelines through,” Harrison said in an interview. “At the same time she is making a commitment to address climate change through phasing out coal-fired power plants and introducing a carbon tax.”

“Those are two things that are very hard to reconcile,” Harrison said, especially given that the problematic growth in Canada’s carbon emissions comes from increased production in Alberta’s oilsands.

Trudeau, for his part, has been “much more candid” in pointing out that support for the Kinder Morgan pipeline is pretty much a quid pro quo for Alberta backing a national carbon pricing plan, said Harrison.

“It’s quite an extraordinary compromise to say we need to expand the production of fossil fuels and build national infrastructure [for their export] — and that is the condition of a national climate action plan.”

Time for a pairing?

Perhaps the calmest head in the wine-and-pipelines mêlée goes to the B.C. Wine Institute, which issued a press release last week saying “oil and wine don’t mix,” and expressing disappointment that Alberta is “aggressively boycotting B.C. wineries over a yet-to-be-determined British Columbia government policy in a different sector.”

The wine institute is now promoting a “grazing” event in Vancouver that will pair B.C. wine with Alberta beef.

The motto for the evening?

The Only Beef is on the Table.

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The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has approved a tailings management plan from oilsands giant Suncor, despite the plan relying on “newly patented, unproven technology” that will require decades of monitoring.

Wednesday’s decision came only six months after the AER rejected Suncor’s proposed plan for the same project because it relied on unproven technology and a 70-year timeline for reclamation. The regulator only later agreed to re-review the plan.

So what changed? Uh, nothing.

“Suncor really hasn’t budged an inch in terms of actually changing anything,” said Jodi McNeill, policy analyst at the Pembina Institute, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

Critics are also concerned that the approval will set the tone for the remaining seven tailings management plans: all of which depend on unproven technologies in some capacity.

“Suncor has been operating for 50 years: they shouldn’t be given another 15 years to monitor and confirm tailings treatments that may or may not work,” said Tzeporah Berman, former co-chair of the Alberta Oil Sands Advisory Group, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“It is not a matter of the AER asking for more details. It’s that oilsands companies should not continue to operate if they once again have shown they don’t know how to clean up the mess they make. They have other technologies they can use. They just don’t want to pay for them.”

Alberta Approves Suncor #Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on ‘Unproven Technology’ https://t.co/sdUMYLdBBs #oilsands @james_m_wilt pic.twitter.com/rEZb8wfHDu

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 27, 2017

Industry Has ‘Taken Advantage of Flexibility’ of Regulator

It’s been a long and windy road to get to this point.

Directive 085 was introduced by the AER in mid-2016 to replace the failed Directive 074, which was implemented in 2009 and saw every way company overshoot its respective tailing target without any consequence. The new regulations were intended to be less prescriptive and more flexible from plan to plan, working in tandem with the AER.

As evidenced by the approved Suncor plan, oilsands companies haven’t changed their ways at all.

“Industry just hasn’t held up their side of the bargain: they’ve come back with really vague, inadequate criteria and plans to water cap fluid tailings with extremely long reclamation timelines,” McNeill said. “They’ve taken advantage of that flexibility rather than using it as a way to come to the table with ambitious plans.”

The technology that McNeill referred to, water capping, would see fine tailings covered by freshwater to create an “end pit lake” that would eventually transition into a healthy aquatic ecosystem.

Glenn Miller, professor of natural resources and environmental science at the University of Nevada, has previously described end pit lakes as “a grand experiment that is highly uncertain and problematic.”

Suncor Must Provide Plan by 2023, Only 10 Years Before Planned Mine Closure

Suncor’s revised application included a supplementary chemical treatment called Permanent Aquatic Storage Solution (PASS), intended to keep the fine tailings consolidated at the bottom of the pit.

“It’s just another supplementary component of water capping, “McNeill said. “And it doesn’t address the fact that water capping oilsands tailings itself is unproven, risky, extremely unpopular amongst stakeholders and unapproved by the regulator.”

McNeill said that if that fails, Suncor’s fallback plan would require hundreds of years of monitoring and there would be a “really high likelihood that it’s going to sink into an unmanaged swamp.”

Key Tailings Testing Facility Still MIA

As previously reported by DeSmog Canada, the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) — a research alliance of most oilsands producers — has long talked about constructing a massive test facility called the Demonstration Pit Lakes Project, featuring more than a dozen mock tailings ponds.

According to COSIA’s website, the facility was scheduled to open in 2017. Yet there’s still no indication that construction has even started on the project. That means the key testing facility planned to determine the viability of end pit lake technology is totally MIA, despite it needing at least 15 years of testing and monitoring to adequately evaluate.

The AER noted in its approval that the Government of Alberta is expected to create policy on water capping and end pit lakes, with Suncor proposing “final closure outcomes” for the plan by 2023.

But even if the Demonstration Pit Lakes Project opened tomorrow, that would only allow for five or six years of monitoring: less than half of what’s required for proper evaluation.

“They’re all banking on the results of these different COSIA projects to guide the use of those technologies,” McNeill said. “The difficult thing there is it’s ultimately going to take decades to really understand all of the implications of this.”

Oilsands Companies Have Only Contributed $900 Million of $20 Billion in Securities

Compounding the problem is the lack of security deposits in the province’s Mine Financial Security Program, established to prevent Albertans from having to pay clean-up costs if a company goes bankrupt.

Currently, there’s only $1.4 billion in the fund, which is around $19 billion short of what’s required for the conservative estimates of potential costs.

“The longer they are allowed to exist the more likely it is the taxpayers of Alberta and Canada will be stuck with the enormous cost of cleaning them up,” said Kevin Taft, former Alberta Liberal Party leader and author of the recent book Oil’s Deep State, in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “When the bills come due for the tailings ponds in 15 years of more, Suncor may not even be in business.”

McNeill added that there’s a very concerning vagueness around timelines and penalties for non-compliance: “There’s no hard stop, no speed limits.”

Suncor Approval May Set Precedent For Remaining Tailings Plan Reviews

Ultimately, the AER receives its marching orders from the provincial government.

And even though Premier Rachel Notley was an ardent critic of tailings management while opposition environment critic, her government has failed to tighten acceptable parameters for reclamation or address long-standing criticisms of the AER, including lack of enforcement power, a mixed mandate and overly close relationship with industry.

“This shows that the AER still doesn’t have any teeth,” said Mike Hudema, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Canada.

“We’ve had four straight premiers pledge to remove tailings ponds from Alberta’s landscape because of the toxic dangers that they pose. And what this announcement says is that we’re going to continue to see tailings lakes not only grow in size but be around for the next century.”

McNeill added that Pembina Institute has had “a lot of difficulty in getting any level of responsiveness” from the province when it comes to handing down stronger directions to the regulator.

“This is what happens when a regulator is fully paid for and apparently run by the industry,” Taft concluded.

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The Alberta government has shuttered its arm’s length environmental monitoring agency after a report concluded the program was a “failed experiment.”   Minister of Environment Shannon Phillips announced Tuesday the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA) would be disbanded and environmental monitoring will return back to the government.

“It ensures government is directly accountable for environmental monitoring and that issues or gaps in monitoring are responded to immediately,” Phillips said at a press conference.

Phillip’s ministry commissioned a report that described the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency as overly expensive, poorly co-ordinated and plagued by bureaucratic bickering.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that AEMERA is a failed experiment in outsourcing a core responsibility of government to an arm’s-length body,” wrote report author Paul Boothe, director of the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management at Western University’s Ivey School of Business.

The agency was created in 2012 as a reaction to criticism about Alberta’s lack of environmental monitoring in the oilsands — but ultimately, the program failed to attain the “world-class” monitoring standard the government touted.   “Critical dollars were being diverted away from monitoring and science to overhead and administrative duplication,” Phillips said.   Under AEMERA, provincial scientists were meant to collaborate with Environment Canada to monitor the oil industry’s impacts on air, land and water. It was funded by $50 million from industry and another $28 million from the province.   The new structure will have two panels: a science advisory panel and a traditional ecological knowledge panel. For the first time, environmental monitoring results will be made available to the public.   “This openness and transparency is essential to allow Albertans to rationalize the minister’s decisions and ensure they are making decisions in the best interest of Albertans,” says Andy Read, an analyst with the Pembina Institute, a sustainable energy think tank. 

Risk of Political Interference Remains

Experts warn legislative changes are needed to avoid political interference.   “It’s not enough just to fold this and roll it into environment and parks,” says Martin Olszynski, an environmental law expert at the University of Calgary. “If they’re committed, the next piece has to be legislative change with provisions around making monitoring mandatory.”

Olszynski says he would like to see enforceable deadlines for the delivery of data through legislation.   “This kind of monitoring is costly, and it will always be costly,” says Olszynski. “It would be very easy to fold that division without a public bru haha.”   Even AEMERA, which amalgamated individual monitoring programs across the province and was meant to operate as an independent organization, was never full free of political influence, Read said.    “They were still reporting to and needed approval from the minister to release environmental information,” Read said.     Boothe’s report confirmed that: “A lack of clarity around the government’s expectations regarding AEMERA’s ‘arm’s-length’ nature contributed to the poor relations between partners.”   Three years after its creation, AEMERA had not expanded to become a province-wide environmental monitoring program and had failed to find a stabile funding structure.   There remain unanswered questions about the new monitoring system when it comes to the role of stakeholders within the province and the relationship with the federal government.   “It’s still somewhat of a gap,” Read said, pointing out the decision has implications for groups such as the Wood Buffalo Environmental Agency.   “You need to build trust with regional representatives across Alberta,” Read said. “That’s crucial in even identifying what monitoring needs are.”

Role of Federal Government Unclear

One of the report’s major criticisms of AEMERA revolved around the role of the federal government and the agency’s inability to accept Environment Canada as a partner. As of now there is no clear path on how the federal government will be involved in the new structure.   “This is a classic issue and tension in environmental law in Canada,” Olszynski said. “It’d be nice if everyone could accept that it is shared jurisdiction.”   The announced changes maintain AEMERA’s funding model, which weren’t adequate for the province-wide mandate of the agency.   Read says the polluter-pay model has to be implemented province-wide to ensure adequate funding to deliver on monitoring the entire province.   “We definitely will be paying attention to how they establish themselves to collect funding,” Read said.    The Alberta budget will be announced on April 14 and the government expects the new monitoring system to be operational by this summer.

Photo: David Dodge via Flickr

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Many Indigenous leaders have expressed disappointment that only the leaders of the national organizations representing Inuit, Métis and First Nations were allowed to fully participate in the talks at a climate strategy meeting with the prime minister and premiers earlier this month. Other Indigenous leaders in attendance for the meeting in Vancouver were relegated to the role of spectators.   “Limiting conversation to three Indigenous voices from over 600 Indigenous communities across Canada is a vast under representation,” Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a climate and indigenous rights activist, said. “At a bare minimum, the regional chiefs should be at the table as well, but also Indigenous leaders and experts who work on climate should be as well.”   Regional chiefs were also frustrated that their input into the pan-Canadian framework for clean growth and climate change is limited, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise of a “renewed, nation-to-nation relationship” with Indigenous people in Canada.   “We thought we’d have a chance to speak, but it was the national chief who was permitted to speak for about ten minutes. Ten minutes for all First Nations in Canada? That is a slap in the face to First Nations and embarrassment for Canada,” Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day told DeSmog Canada. “Climate change is a matter of life and death. Our kids and grandkids will suffer if we fail to act and we only have a 20-year window to act. Clearly, we all need to work together.”

Treaty 6 Grand Chief Tony Alexis, an Alberta regional chief, said First Nations had been merely “asked to come and visit” the climate meeting. Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Fort Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta declared the federal government and premiers had “failed terribly” in addressing Indigenous concerns about climate change and protecting the environment.

“We Were Not Welcome At The Table": Chief Day   Two days of meetings took place in Vancouver: a meeting on March 2nd for Indigenous leaders, premiers and the prime minister and a meeting the following day exclusively for the provinces, territories and the federal government. Last-minute invitations to join the Alberta and Ontario provincial delegations allowed Day and Alexis to be present at the final meeting.   “We were not welcome at the table. If the meeting is an indication of how things will proceed moving forward, Indigenous peoples and Canadians should be concerned,” Day said.   Not all provinces appear comfortable with Indigenous leaders playing a significant role in the crafting of a Canadian climate framework either.   “From what I heard some provinces indicated during the meeting they would like to limit Indigenous involvement in the climate framework. I find this very concerning, not to mention deeply disrespectful,” Laboucan-Massimo told DeSmog Canada. “It is of immense importance for Indigenous governments to be engaged from start to finish at the four climate tables, and I hope that all levels of government respect that.”   Before the summit in Vancouver had begun, the federal government came under fire for failing to invite two other national Indigenous organizations — Native Women’s Association of Canada and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples — to the talks. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair blasted Trudeau in Parliament for the “slight” and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger pointed out in the past all five national organizations have been invited to attend first ministers meetings.   Indigenous Peoples To Be Consulted On The Climate Change Framework   A “broader engagement process with Indigenous peoples” is meant to take place alongside the work of four federal-provincial working groups studying key climate policy areas such as clean technology, carbon pricing mechanisms and greenhouse gas reductions strategies. If the recommendations are approved at a first ministers meeting this fall, they will make up the bulwark of a national framework shaping Canada’s responses to climate change.   The details of the consultation process have not been made available yet, but both Day and Laboucan-Massimo agree the process needs to be as comprehensive as possible for Indigenous concerns to be heard and incorporated.   "I think a climate change accord in Canada is necessary going forward. It would spell out how a constructive dialogue between Indigenous people and the federal government could take place," Day said.   Indigenous knowledge could also strengthen a national plan to address climate change. Scientists have already begun using Inuit knowledge and observations for studying weather patterns in the Arctic. Firsthand information like this can be used to test climate models.   “Because of the innate connection to the land, Indigenous people notice changes in the ecosystem, animals and water that others may dismiss. We’ve had centuries of observation, experience and intimate relationships to the land that has built this unique knowledge and sensitivity,” Laboucan-Massimo told DeSmog Canada. Laboucan-Massimo is a member of the Sakaw Nehiyawak (“Northern” or “Bush” Cree in English).   Laboucan-Massimo also sees the low-carbon economy as much more in line with Indigenous worldviews than fossil fuels economies.

“For the first time since the age of industrialization, there finally exists a technology that produces energy that is not in complete contradiction with Indigenous values and our way of life,” Laboucan-Massimo said. “The time is now for our communities to begin integrating renewable energy technology such as solar photovoltaic to help us become less reliant on fossil fuels.” 

Image: Melina Laboucan Massimo at a solar installation in her community of Little Buffalo in northern Alberta.

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Canada’s oil exports increased by 65 per cent in 10 years under former Prime Minster Stephen Harper’s leadership according to analysis of the most recent figures issued by BP’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy.

Between 2004 and 2014, Canadian exports soared from 2,148,000 barrels per day to 3,535,000 barrels per day.

The BP data, compiled by Carbon Brief in its Global Oil Trade interactive, shows that the majority of this oil went south of the border — exports to the United States increased by 60 per cent during this time from 2,119,000 barrels per day to 3,388,000 barrels per day.

Exports to U.S. and the EU

In fact, almost 96 per cent of all Canadian crude exported in 2014 went to the U.S. The U.S. shale gas boom saw a rapid decline in the amount of oil the country imported, particularly from Mexico, Africa and South America. But this didn’t stop the flow of oil coming in from Canada.   The next biggest recipients of Canada’s oil over the last 10 years have been Europe, Japan, and South and Central America.

Europe is the second largest export market for Canada. Recently, the EU came close to labelling oilsand’s crude as high-carbon due to its energy-intensive extraction and refining process.

So it’s interesting to note that Canadian crude represents just a small fraction of the total oil imported by Europe (86,000 barrels per day in 2014 compared to 162,000 barrels per day from India, 1,575,000 barrels per day from West Africa, and 6,028,000 barrels per day from former Soviet Union countries).

Ultimately, the move to label the oilsands a highly carbon-intensive energy source was thwarted by serious lobbying efforts by the Canadian and Albertan governments under the former Conservative majority under Stephen Harper.

Harper’s Legacy

Since 2006, the Harper government pushed aggressively for the country to become an “energy superpower."

In 2014, Canada was the world’s fifth largest oil exporter, behind China, the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia.

While Canada's oil exports increased many environmental protections were weakened or eliminated, under the Harper government, including protections for fish, rivers and lakes. Legislative changes made under omnibus bills C-38 and C-45 eliminated thousands of environmental assessments and repealed Canada's only law for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.    During roughly the same 10-year period that Canada’s oil exports increased, not a single meeting was held between provincial, territorial and federal government ministers to specifically discuss climate change.

As Glen Murray, Ontario’s Liberal minister for environment and climate change recently told The Canadian Press: “The previous government in 10 years couldn’t produce a paragraph [on climate policy], never mind a framework, so there’s a lot of work going on [now].”

Climate Challenge

Canada has pledged as part of the Paris climate deal agreed in December to cut its annual greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution to 524 megatonnes by the end of the next decade.

But as the most recent emissions data released last month by Environment and Climate Change Canada shows, the country is way off course in meeting the weak greenhouse gas reduction targets set under the previous Conservative government.

Under Harper, Canada indicated it would reduce its greenhouse gas output only by roughly 14 per cent by 2030 based on 1990 levels.

The Trudeau government said it plans to improve on this target, but has yet to state by how much. Canada currently exceeds 1990 levels by 18 per cent. Canada has also agreed to phase out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century and eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050. 

The federal government is set to meet with Indigenous leaders and premiers in Vancouver on March 2-3 in the hopes of laying out the framework for a national climate strategy. And as part of this, Canada’s oil production, and its ever-increasing global exports, will undoubtedly have to be factored into the decision making process.

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The federal government announced on Wednesday the upstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with pipeline projects will be taken into consideration when federal cabinet makes its decisions on pipeline projects.

“We are considering direct and upstream greenhouse gas emissions,” Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, said. McKenna along with Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr made the announcement.

“Today’s announcement is a great step forward and shows the federal government is listening to Canadians,” Kai Nagata, Dogwood Initiative’s energy and democracy director, told DeSmog Canada. “The dark days of the National Energy Board are coming to an end.”

The new measures will apply to pipeline projects currently under regulatory review, such as Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline projects, according to Carr. Five principles that proposed pipelines will be measured against were unveiled. One of those includes "meaningful consultation" for Indigenous peoples.

“This is a real test of this government’s commitments to uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples," said Clayton Thomas-Muller, 350.org’s Stop it at the Source Campaigner. "At the heart of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the right to free, prior and informed consent. That means Indigenous Peoples have the right to say ‘No’ when it comes to projects like pipelines and its responsibility of the government to listen.”

The changes are too little, too late, according to Ecojustice lawyer Karen Campbell.

“These interim measures are a welcome band-aid, but they are not enough to inject science and evidence-based decision-making into the Kinder Morgan review process," Campbell said. "The outcome of the National Energy Board review must still be to reject this project, until the flaws in the application are remedied, and the full regional impacts of the project are fully considered.”

Both ministers were clear upstream and direct GHG emissions will be “a factor in the decision making process." How much weight a project’s GHG emissions will be given compared to its economic benefits is unclear.

“Climate plays into the economic viability of these projects,” Adam Scott, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence Canada, said. “How do these projects fit into a world of high carbon taxes and shifting away from oil?”

Like Nagata, Scott says he is “very encouraged” the federal government is listening to Canadians. However, he is concerned Carr, although acknowledging the problems with the current National Energy Board, is still allowing the review of Energy East to go ahead without reforming the board first. The National Energy Board is Canada’s federal pipeline regulator.

“There’s no legal reason for Energy East to go through the old broken process,” Scott told DeSmog Canada. “The review hasn’t even started yet and the board has not determined if TransCanada’s application is complete.”

Wednesday’s announcement has little effect on the workings of the National Energy Board itself. The Environment Ministry, not the Board, will conduct the assessments of a project’s greenhouse gas emissions. The five principles are transition measures to be kept in place until an overhaul of the NEB can take place.

McKenna said revamping the board could take “a number of years.”

The federal government will also extend the timeframes in which decisions on Energy East and Trans Mountain must be made. Legislative changes under the previous Conservative government mandated that proposed pipelines made it through the regulatory process within 15 months.

An extra six months will now be tacked on to the review of the Energy East pipeline. For the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is in its final round of hearings, no federal decision will be made until December of this year.

“The fact there’ll be no construction on Trans Mountain this summer is good news for people of B.C.’s Lower Mainland,” Nagata said.

The extra time is meant to give the federal government more time to assess emissions, consult with Indigenous peoples and the general public in what Carr describes as “setting up a process beyond the NEB’s mandate and timelines.”

Nagata welcomes this decision as well, but questions still remain.

“How do you put a timeline on meaningful consultations with First Nations?” Nagata asked.

Another unanswered question and an issue most Canadian politicians tend to dance around is how does an oil pipeline pass a climate test?

“A climate test on pipelines is only meaningful if it respects the commitment to 1.5ºC that Prime Minister Trudeau made in Paris, and that would mean taking pipelines and tar sands expansion off the table,” Cameron Fenton, 350.org’s tarsands organizer stated in a media release.

“There’s no such thing as a climate-friendly pipeline. The science is crystal clear: in order to prevent catastrophic climate change, fossil fuels, and especially tar sands, need to stay in the ground,” Fenton said.

Alberta-based energy think tank Pembina Institute estimates the annual greenhouse gas emissions from the Energy East pipeline (1.1 million barrels per day capacity) are the equivalent of putting an additional seven million cars on the road.

Twenty-seven climate experts in a 2014 open letter projected Trans Mountain “alone is expected to lead to 50 per cent more carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year than all of British Columbia currently produces.”

Wednesday’s announcement comes on the heels of a recent backlash by pro-pipeline politicians against Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, who announced last week that 82 Montreal-area municipalities oppose the Energy East pipeline.

For the last month, First Nations, environmental organizations and politicians such as Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan have called on the federal government to suspend the current regulatory reviews of existing pipeline projects until after the promised overhaul of the National Energy Board.

Image Credit: Screenshot CBC News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image Credit: City of Calgary via flickr

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Montreal Mayor Denise Coderre announced Thursday the city's formal opposition to TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline. The 4,600-kilometer west-to-east oil pipeline project would see 1,600 kilometres of new pipe built along the St. Lawrence River in Quebec and in New Brunswick.

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

Groups opposed to the 1.1 million barrels-a-day project, which is significantly larger than TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline, welcomed the announcement.

“Today, 82 municipal counsellors, representing 3.9 million citizens in the greater Montreal region, have issued a resounding ‘no’ to the Energy East project and to TransCanada Corporation,” Steven Guilbeault, Senior Director at Équiterre, said in a media release.

Coderre’s announcement came after 82 municipalities comprising the Communauté Municipale de Montréal (Montreal Metropolitan Community) voted this morning on whether to approve or oppose the project. Energy East’s proposed route would go through the northern municipalities of the greater Montreal-area.

“We’re really happy,” Audrey Yank, spokesperson for Montreal-based citizens-group Coalition Vigilance Oleoducs told DeSmog Canada. “It feels like a another small victory to give us hope.”

“TransCanada is asking us to bear all the risks of Energy East in exchange for very small benefits,” Yank said.

Energy East has faced stiff opposition in Quebec for over a year now. TransCanada’s plan to build an export tanker terminal in Quebec near the calving waters of endangered beluga whales was met by public outcry. Even Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, who is not an Energy East opponent, suggested publicly TransCanada should look some place else for its terminal.

In the face of growing Quebec public opposition to the pipeline, TransCanada scrapped plans for building a terminal anywhere in Quebec last November.

But by canceling plans to build a terminal in Quebec, selling the project to Quebecers on the basis of economic benefits has become difficult. The Montreal Metropolitan Community conducted public consultations on Energy East last fall and the majority of those who participated were against the project.

In a 2015 poll, 57 percent of Quebecers expressed their opposition to Energy East.

Montreal is the first major city to come out against the project to transport oilsands (also called tar sands) bitumen across the country from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick. Winnipeg and Ottawa also sit along Energy East’s purposed route, but neither has shown the same degree of opposition as Montreal as of yet.

Ottawa-resident Mike Fletcher is hoping this will change soon.

“Ottawa has more risk and potentially less benefit than Montreal from this horrible proposal. The pipe through Ottawa is used, as opposed to proposed new pipe in Montreal,” Fletcher told DeSmog Canada.

“But so far Ottawa's reaction has been mixed. We are glad that the City will produce a letter of comment to the National Energy Board, but most of our municipal elected officials need to square up against Energy East,” Fletcher said. The 3,000 kilometres of the proposed pipeline situated west of Quebec is an existing natural gas line TransCanada plans on converting to oil.

Fletcher has played a key role in local group Ecology Ottawa’s campaign against the Energy East pipeline over the last two years. Ecology Ottawa was one of several environmental organizations targeted by a botched TransCanada PR campaign to undermine pipeline opponents in 2014.

Provincial governments in Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick support the project. Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba have all been guarded in their statements about Energy East, neither denouncing nor fully endorsing their provinces acting as a thoroughfare for the pipeline.

Ontario’s energy regulator examined TransCanada’s application for Energy East and concluded the project was not in the best interest of Canada’s most populous province.

Audrey Yank from Coalition Vigilance Oleoducs is concerned that Montreal’s analysis of the Energy East project does not cover the potential impacts the pipeline could have on climate change. 

“It appears the analysis does not address green house gas emissions. Climate change should be part of the analysis, especially after the Paris climate talks,” Yank said.

“We can’t build fossil fuels infrastructure that lasts 40 or 50 years if we need to get to a zero-carbon economy by 2050,” Yank told DeSmog Canada.

Montreal’s announcement comes amongst a flurry of protests and calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to keep his election promise to initiate new regulatory reviews of Energy East and Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline in B.C. that will include climate impacts, and stronger recognition of First Nations’ concerns.

Image Credit: Ville de Montréal via Flickr

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With U.S. President Barack Obama expected to deny a permit to the Keystone XL pipeline this fall, Canada’s oil industry is looking for someone to blame.

The National Post’s Claudia Cattaneo wrote last week that “many Canadians … would see Obama’s fatal stab as a betrayal by a close friend and ally” and that others “would see it as the product of failure by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to come up with a climate change plan.”

The latter is the more logical conclusion. Obama has made his decision-making criteria clear: he won’t approve the pipeline if it exacerbates the problem of carbon pollution.

Even the U.S. State Department’s very conservative analysis states the Keystone XL pipeline would “substantially increase oilsands expansion and related emissions.” The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed.

While Canada’s energy reviews take into account “upstream benefits” — such as jobs created in the oilsands sector as a result of pipelines — they don’t even consider the upstream environmental impacts created by the expansion of the oilsands.

For all the bluster and finger-pointing, there’s no covering up the fact that Canada’s record on climate change is one of broken promises.

Oil and Gas Regulations Promised Since 2006

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised since 2006 that he’ll regulate oil and gas emissions. Those regulations still haven’t materialized nearly a decade later —and there’s only one person to blame for that.

In recent years, Harper has taken the approach that Canada can’t regulate its oil and gas sector unless the U.S. does too. This argument is fundamentally flawed.

First, it presumes that Canada should outsource its climate policy to another country. On issues from health care to acid rain, Canada has moved independently from the U.S. and prospered as a result.

Secondly, copying U.S. climate policy has never really made sense from a greenhouse gas perspective because the countries have very different emissions profiles.

Chiefly, the oil and gas sector only accounts for about three per cent of U.S. emissions, so it isn’t a top priority for the country to regulate. Instead, the U.S. is focused on reducing emissions from power plants — including coal and natural gas-fired electricity — which account for one-third of emissions.

In Canada, the oil and gas sector accounts for nearly 25 per cent of Canada’s emissions, hence the need for a focus on that sector when addressing emissions.

What’s more, while coal-fired power plant emissions in the U.S. are already dropping, oilsands emissions are projected to more than double from 2010 to 2020, making them Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas pollution.

Canada and the Copenhagen Accord: More Broken Promises

Let’s not forget: when Canada has aligned itself with the U.S. on climate commitments, it has broken those promises.

As part of the 2009 Copenhagen agreement, both countries agreed to reduce their carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020.

The U.S. has implemented a plan to meet those commitments by aggressively tackling its biggest source of emissions (coal-fired power plants), along with a range of other actions, including taking on methane emissions, which account for the majority of emissions from its oil and gas sector.  

Meantime, Canada is on track to substantially miss its Copenhagen commitments, due in large part to its unchecked support of oilsands expansion.

Instead of actually addressing growing emissions from the oilsands sector, the Canadian government has focused on PR — spending millions to lobby internationally for approval of new pipelines and undermining clean energy policies in Canada, the U.S. and the European Union. More than that, the federal government has eliminated environmental protections and undermined public review processes.

Harper would have better served the interests of all Canadians (including the oil industry) by investing that time and energy into writing climate regulations, instead of sticking his head in the sand.

Harper Treats Climate Change as Race to Bottom

All in all, it’s little wonder that Obama is expected to refuse the Keystone XL pipeline when Harper has treated Obama’s chief concern, climate change, as a race to the bottom by employing the faulty logic that because we can’t solve the whole problem, we should do nothing.

If our leaders had employed that same logic in the 1940s, Canada would never have sent troops to the Second World War, where Canadians accounted for just two per cent of the Allied effort.

After a summer of unprecedented wildfires and drought across North America, it’s never been more apparent that climate change is already costing us all.

Citibank just released a new report showing that taking action now against the growing threat of climate change would save $1.8 trillion by 2040. And yes, that report takes into account the potential lost revenue from leaving resources in the ground — including 80 per cent of coal reserves, half of the world’s gas reserves, and a third of global oil reserves — and still concludes that the global economy would see a net gain.

While the fossil fuel industry continues to pay off pseudo scientists and unethical PR firms to create confusion about climate change, the science is clear. And the time to act is now.

The federal government’s utter failure on climate change has given rise to fruitless, polarized pipeline debates, such as the prolonged one over TransCanada’s Keystone XL. The only person who can be blamed for that is Harper himself.

Main image: A 2009 Greenpeace billboard calls on world leaders to secure a fair, ambitious and binding deal at the Copenhagen Cimate Summit. Via Flickr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“In a logic schism, a contest emerges in which opposing sides are debating different issues, seeking only information that supports their position and disconfirms their opponents’ arguments,” describes Andy Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at the University of Michigan.

“Each side views the other with suspicion, even demonizing the other, leading to a strong resistance to any form of engagement, much less negotiation and concession.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, something most Canadians can actually agree on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: CAPP

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