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.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

When I sat down Tuesday night to put some thoughts on paper about allegations of spying on Canadian environmental and pro-democracy groups, I never imagined those musings would end up being read by tens of thousands of people and spawn news coverage across the country.

But that’s exactly what happened. In my original piece, I lamented that the story wasn’t being covered by traditional news outlets — but within a couple of days the Globe and Mail, Metro, Sun News, the Victoria Times Colonist and CBC had picked up on the story. The National Energy Board, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), several politicians and Alberta’s energy minister all commented on the spying allegations.

On Monday morning, I did three CBC Radio interviews — here's a clip of me discussing the spying allegations on Daybreak North.

I’ve spent much of the past week brushing up on the ins and outs of surveillance, speaking to lawyers, reporters and trusted friends about the implications of the Vancouver Observer’s report.

Here are answers to the three most pressing questions raised by this news.

1) What evidence is there of spying in the documents obtained by the Vancouver Observer?

Most of the documents are e-mails from the National Energy Board’s security lead, Rick Garber, describing security plans for the Enbridge Northern Gateway public hearings in the first half of 2013. In one of those e-mails, Garber writes that his team “has consulted today with Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) at national and regional levels; RCMP at national, regional and local levels.”

This reference to CSIS is notable because it is the first public evidence of Canada’s spy agency being involved in monitoring the Enbridge hearings. The extent of the involvement of CSIS is unclear. In other e-mails from the National Energy Board, specific events and protests were described and assessed for security risks.

Combined with The Guardian’s recent revelations that CSIS and the RCMP have been hosting secret briefings with the energy industry, the involvement of CSIS in the Enbridge hearings raises a lot of questions.  

2) What else was notable in those documents?

The other newsworthy item in the documents is an e-mail memo with the subject line “Security Concerns – National Energy Board.” It was sent by Tim O’Neil, senior criminal intelligence research specialist with the RCMP, and circulated to a lengthy list of stakeholders, including CSIS.

In that memo, O’Neil describes “sustained opposition to the Canadian petroleum and pipeline industry,” adding opponents have “the ultimate goal of forcing the shutdown of the Canadian petroleum industry.”

Forcing the shutdown of the Canadian petroleum industry? While there are many Canadian environmental organizations advocating to pause the expansion of oilsands development at least until adequate monitoring is in place, you’d be hard-pressed to find a credible group working to "shut down the Canadian petroleum industry." O’Neil’s description indicates a troubling lack of understanding of the Canadian energy debate and the people he appears to be tasked with providing "intelligence" on.

He goes on to write: “The anti-petroleum … movement has attempted to interfere within the federal regulatory hearings and have used coordinated/mass intervention that have at times bogged down the regulatory hearings.”

Pro-democracy and environmental groups informed citizens about how to register to speak at the Enbridge public hearings. At what point did the public speaking at public hearings become "interference?"

O’Neil also states there is “no intelligence indicating a criminal threat to the NEB or its members” and “I could not detect a direct or specific criminal threat.”

The mandate of CSIS is to monitor “threats to Canada’s national security.” If no threat can be detected, one wonders why the spy agency is being kept in the loop. It raises the question of why CSIS would be involved in the perfectly legal, legitimate, non-violent democratic activities of citizens.

At the end of his e-mail, O’Neil advises recipients to discuss concerns with officials at the May 23rd Natural Resources Canada classified briefing. This is the briefing where breakfast, lunch and coffee were sponsored by Enbridge, while representatives of CSIS and the RCMP exchanged “intelligence” on such topics as “challenges to energy projects by environmental groups.”

3) What’s wrong with all of this?

The National Energy Board co-ordinating with local police forces to ensure safe public hearings is perfectly reasonable — but the involvement of CSIS raises a couple of concerns.

First, these taxpayer-funded agencies appear to be spending their time monitoring the legal activities of Canadian citizens and organizations, which raises questions about public safety resources being used in the interests of the oil industry.

Second, the sharing of intelligence with the energy industry calls into question whose best interests the government has in mind — oil companies' or the public's?

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Nov. 19th, 2013. A Tuesday. The day started out sunny, but hail fell out of the sky in the afternoon. It was a Victoria day like any other until I found out the Canadian government has been vigorously spying on several Canadian organizations that work for environmental protections and democratic rights.

I read the news in the Vancouver Observer. There, front and centre, was the name of the organization I worked for until recently: Dogwood Initiative.

My colleagues and I had been wary of being spied on for a long time, but having it confirmed still took the wind out of me.

I told my parents about the article over dinner. They’re retired school teachers who lived in northern Alberta for 35 years before moving to Victoria.

I asked them: “Did you know the Canadian government is spending your tax dollars to spy on your daughter?”

Then I told them how one of the events detailed in e-mails from Richard Garber, the National Energy Board’s “Group Leader of Security,” was a workshop in a Kelowna church run by one of my close friends and colleagues, Celine Trojand (who’s about the most warm-hearted person you could ever meet). About 30 people, mostly retirees, attended to learn about storytelling, theory of change and creative sign-making (cue the scary music).

In the e-mails, Garber marshals security and intelligence operations between government operations and private interests and notes that his security team has consulted with Canada’s spying agency, CSIS.

To add insult to injury, another set of documents show CSIS and the RCMP have been inviting oil executives to secret classified briefings at CSIS headquarters in Ottawa, in what The Guardian describes as “unprecedented surveillance and intelligence sharing with companies.”

These meetings covered “threats” to energy infrastructure and “challenges to energy projects from environmental groups.” Guess who is prominently displayed as a sponsor on the agenda of May’s meeting? Enbridge, the proponent of a controversial oilsands pipeline to the coast of British Columbia.

I asked my folks: “Isn’t that scary? CSIS is hosting classified briefings sponsored by Enbridge?” No answer. My parents are not the type to get themselves in a flap about things like this, but I prodded them: “Dad, this is scary, right?”

“It’s scary,” he admitted.

How much information is being provided to corporations like Enbridge? What about state-owned Chinese oil companies like Sinopec, which has a $10 million stake in Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker proposal?

What kind of country spies on environmental organizations in the name of the oil industry? It seems more Nigerian than Canadian.

I fought the urge to react with indignation, a sentiment I find all too common in the environmental movement. I also didn’t want to be overwrought about it. Fact is though, the more I thought about those documents, the more I began to feel a sense of loss for my country.

I’m not the touchy-feely type. Everyone from my conservative cousins in Alberta to my former colleagues at the Calgary Herald could attest to that. I grew up in northern Alberta playing hockey and going to bush parties. I think our oil and gas deposits, including the oilsands, are a great asset to our country — if developed in the public interest. Yes, that’s a big "if" — but Canadians own these resources and the number one priority when developing them should be that Canadians benefit.

For speaking up for the public interest and speaking out against the export of raw bitumen through the Great Bear Rainforest, hundreds of people like me have been called radicals and painted as enemies of the state, as somehow un-Canadian. That last bit is what hits me in the gut.

I love my country. And in my eyes, there isn’t anything much more patriotic than fighting for the interests of Canadian citizens. I’ve argued that after 25 years of oilsands development, Albertans should have something to show for it — not be facing budget crises and closing hospital beds; that Albertans aren’t collecting a fair share of resource revenues; that we should develop resources at a responsible pace that doesn’t cause rampant inflation, undermining Canadians’ quality of life and hurting other sectors of the economy; that we should prioritize Canadian energy security (half of Canada is currently dependent on foreign oil). And I’ve agreed with the Alberta Federation of Labour that exporting raw bitumen and 50,000 jobs to China doesn’t make sense for Canadians

Now, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but it’s a stretch to portray any of those statements as unpatriotic or radical. In fact, one of my proudest moments as a Canadian was encouraging citizens to register to speak at the public hearings on Enbridge’s pipeline and tanker proposal for B.C. With a team of committed people at Dogwood, in collaboration with several other groups, we helped more than 4,000 people sign up to have their say — seven times more than in any previous National Energy Board hearing.

It was this act of public participation that sparked the beginnings of the federal government’s attacks on people who oppose certain resource development proposals. Helping citizens to participate in an archaic public hearing process is a vital part of democracy— not something to be maligned.

What makes me sad is the thought that we’ve been reduced to being the type of country that spies on its own citizens when they speak out against certain corporate interests. Not only that, but our government then turns around and shares that intelligence with those corporations.

Disappointingly, a scan of today’s news coverage indicates Canada’s major newspapers never picked up the spying story, save for one 343-word brief on page 9 of the Vancouver Province. Is it now so accepted that the Canadian government is in bed with the oil industry that it doesn’t even make news any more? Now that’s really sad.

Whether you agree or disagree with my ideas about responsible natural resource development, I’d hope we could all agree Canada should be a country where we can have open and informed debate about the most important issues of our time — without fear of being attacked and spied on by our own government.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.