The newly appointed head of the B.C. government’s communications branch is a former lobbyist for Enbridge Inc., the company that hopes to build the $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline stretching 1,200 kilometres from the Alberta oilsands to Kitimat on the B.C. coast.

John Paul Fraser, who DeSmog Canada has learned became acting deputy minister in charge of Government Communications and Public Engagement (GCPE) earlier this month, worked as a lobbyist for National Public Relations from 2008 until shortly before moving to the B.C public service in 2011.

He previously worked for Burrard Communications Inc. — a company founded by Premier Christy Clark’s former husband Mark Marissen — where he was registered with the Federal Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada as a lobbyist on behalf of Enbridge Inc.

Fraser is a long-time friend of Clark who worked on her election campaign and, until this summer, was assistant deputy minister for strategic planning and public engagement. He is the son of B.C.’s conflict commissioner Paul Fraser.

It is not the first time Clark has included an Enbridge lobbyist in her inner political circle. Ken Boessenkool, her former chief of staff who resigned in 2012 after admitting to inappropriate conduct towards a female staff member, was also an Enbridge lobbyist.

The question for opponents of Northern Gateway is whether having former lobbyists in government corridors of power could make a difference to how Clark treats the project. Northern Gateway was conditionally given the green light by the federal government in June, subject to Enbridge meeting 209 conditions listed by the Joint Review Panel, but Clark has never been enthusiastic about the project.

Clark has set out five conditions that must be met before B.C. gives its support, including strict environmental protections, adequate consultations with First Nations and a greater share of economic benefits. B.C. also has its hand on the controls through numerous provincial permits that will be needed if Northern Gateway manages to overcome legal challenges launched by First Nations and environmental groups.

It is possible that having high-level bureaucrats who intimately understand the Enbridge file is an advantage as they will know the odds are stacked against the project, said Will Horter, executive director of Dogwood Initiative, a democracy group fighting against the oil pipeline and tanker project.

 “There’s a revolving door of people associated with Enbridge, either directly or as advocates, coming into the close circles of the premier . . . . But they must understand that this is a big mountain to climb or even that this is a zombie project,” Horter said.

Joe Foy, Wilderness Committee’s national campaign director, worries about a system that allows those with partisan or business interests to take up high-level positions in the civil service.

“I do have a concern when we have powerful players in our government that seem to slip seamlessly between the partisan world, corporate world and bureaucracy,” he said.

“I am not suggesting there is anything untoward, but I think it shows up a fairly major flaw in our system of government, because it is very important that citizens know who they are talking to.”

Fraser previously worked for David Anderson, former federal Liberal environment minister and a Northern Gateway opponent.

Anderson said he has no idea whether his opposition to bitumen-laden tankers in B.C.’s coastal waters could have rubbed off on Fraser, but he cannot see that someone as bright as Fraser could have had much to do with the Northern Gateway project.

“I have great admiration for John Paul Fraser. Enbridge has done such an appalling, hopeless, ridiculous job in managing its public relations, they couldn’t have taken advice,” he said.

Fraser could not be contacted for an interview.

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Canada's National Energy Board (NEB) announced today that it is stopping the clock on the review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion due to the company’s new proposed corridor through Burnaby, B.C. — which will push a decision on the project back to after the 2015 federal election.

The board will take a seven-month timeout from its 15-month timeline between July 11, 2014, and Februrary 3, 2015, to allow Kinder Morgan time to file studies for its new corridor through Burnaby Mountain, according to a letter to intervenors sent today.

That pushes the board’s deadline to file its report on the project with cabinet back seven months from July 2, 2015, to Jan. 25, 2016.

“The significant thing is that this decision now won’t be made until after the next federal election. It’ll be up to the next Prime Minister to make that call,” says Karen Campbell, staff lawyer with Ecojustice.

“From a campaign perspective, it certainly gives some wind in the sails of those who want to make sure this isn’t a fait accompli before the next election,” she says.

But Campbell also cautioned that there are still a lot of shortcomings in the process that the energy board has not addressed.  

That’s a concern echoed by Gregory McDade, legal counsel for the City of Burnaby.

“There are so many other incomplete items that need work,” McDade says. “We’ve been pushing all along for a proper public hearing with cross-examination and evidence and the NEB said they couldn’t do that because of the tight timeline. Now that we have the time, why aren’t we doing a proper public hearing?”

McDade says that without cross-examination, the energy board’s review is not legitimate. He noted how Kinder Morgan failed to answer many of the questions put to them through the “information request” process, which he described as a “colossal joke.”

“Stalling it seven months doesn’t help at all if you’re not going to properly examine the evidence,” he said. “It just puts the decision off.”

Chris Tollefson, executive director of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria, says this ruling is just a small step toward fixing the problem and that the entire process needs to be put on hold until Kinder Morgan’s application is complete.

As of right now, the rest of the hearings are scheduled to move forward more or less as per the previous schedule.

“The board has now recognized that this process was not working and that the timelines were unrealistic,” Tollefson says. “What we would call upon the board now to do is to revisit its decision to eliminate cross-examination from this process.”

Any which way, the Conservatives will be in the limelight over their support for heavy oil projects on B.C.'s coast in the 2015 election, according to Kai Nagata, energy and democracy director at Dogwood Initiative, a B.C. democracy group.

"It'll be a live issue for sure," Nagata says. "The way Kinder Morgan is going, the more time the NEB gives them to alienate landowners and First Nations, the more likely they are to remind people of Enbridge."

Kinder Morgan’s proposed expansion would ship 590,000 barrels of oilsands bitumen to Burnaby each day, where it would be loaded onto 400 oil tankers each year.

— With files from Carol Linnitt

Photo: Rod Raglin via Flickr

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According to a recent poll commissioned by four environmental groups, nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of residents in British Columbia oppose Enbridge's plan to transport crude oil through B.C. using the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and oil tankers.

The hybrid telephone-online poll, conducted by Justason Market Intelligence, found that 50 per cent of B.C. residents strongly oppose the Enbridge proposal, compared to 12 per cent who strongly support it.

The poll was commissioned by Dogwood Initiative, ForestEthics Advocacy, Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research and West Coast Environmental Law. Six hundred adult British Columbians were surveyed from January 13 to January 19, 2014 through random telephone sampling and Justason's online panel.

"When British Columbians actually get the facts about oil tanker and pipeline proposals, their opposition is overwhelming," said Will Horter, executive director of Dogwood Initiative. "Other polls in the past few months have only talked about pipelines, with no mention of the crude oil supertankers that would inevitably come with them."

Image: Oil Tanker Traffic in B.C.: The B.C. Outlook Omnibus / Justason Market Intelligence

This is the first poll released about Enbridge's oil tanker and pipeline proposal since the National Review Board's controversial joint review panel (JRP) report recommended conditional approval of the project in December.

When asked whether they trust the review process, 51 per cent of B.C. residents said they distrust the process, 32 per cent said they trust it, and 17 per cent were unsure.

"These polling results bring home why the Enbridge tanker and pipeline proposal is going nowhere fast — despite the JRP recommendation," said Jessica Clogg of the West Coast Environmental Law Association. "Residents of B.C. continue to withhold 'social licence' for the project, while multiple First Nations lawsuits threaten to derail it and the government of B.C. formally opposed the Enbridge project."

According to the poll, a significant majority of British Columbians (79 per cent) feel that decisions about projects like the Enbridge Northern Gateway proposal should be made with public participation, while only 13 per cent feel that such decisions should be made solely by government.

"British Columbians simply do not accept closed door decision-making and know they deserve a say. Any politicians thinking of cutting a backroom deal do so at their peril," Horter said.

A March 2012 Justason Market Intelligence poll had nearly identical results with 66 per cent of B.C. residents opposing the Enbridge proposal, and 50 per cent strongly opposed.

"For all the millions of dollars Enbridge has spent in advertising over the past two years, opposition to this proposal hasn't budged," said Sven Biggs of ForestEthics Advocacy.

Image Credit: Travis Blanston / Flickr

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