EthicalOil.org and the Harper Government

by Damien Gillis on 13 Jan 2012

The various spokespeople for supposed "grassroots" pro-Tar Sands and pipeline organization EthicalOil.org have steadfastly maintained their campaign has no connection to the oil and gas industry or the Harper Government. But as the links between these groups continue to pile up, that contention becomes harder and harder to swallow.

I witnessed conservative pundit Ezra Levant debut his "Ethical Oil" concept when he came to Vancouver to debate the Wilderness Committee's Ben West in late 2010. The premise Levant laid out at the Rio Theatre - essentially, that bitumen from Canada is the "fair trade coffee" of the world's oil supply because this country has a better human rights record than Saudi Arabia or Iran - was being parroted soon thereafter by newly minted Environment Minister Peter Kent.

The synchronicity of talking points between Ethical Oil, Enbridge, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (the oil and gas industry's official lobby) and the Harper Government should be our first clue that these entities are working together on some level.

"Ethical Oil" didn't just spring from nowhere - it was carefully conceived in the manner of major advertising campaigns and the work of Republican strategist Frank Luntz (who coined "the death tax" in order to push lower estate taxes, and encouraged the Bush Administration to re-frame global warming as "climate change", for instance). In fact, what we are presently witnessing around the Enbridge debate is the full-force implementation of American-style political campaign tactics - where everything is built around a single, simple concept - like "socialist" Obama-care (right!), "tough on terror", or Orwellian distortions like the "Patriot "Act - which, no matter how illogical, gain traction through relentless, monosyllabic repetition, delivered via the triple threat of corporate media, government and corporate-backed lobbies, "think tanks" and pr firms.

It remains to be seen how effective these tactics will be with Canadians. Already there has been some surprising push-back in the mainstream media - from Stephen Hume's shrewd analysis in the Vancouver Sun this week, to tough questions from CTV News and the CBC's Evan Solomon (a must-watch) and Anna-Maria Tremonti (a must-listen) in recent weeks. At least some of the nation and province's top political commentators aren't falling for the Ethical Oil routine.

The parallel messaging extends to the notion of "foreign meddling" in the National Energy Board review of Enbridge's proposal, now underway. The contention - from both Ethical Oilers and Stephen Harper, Industry Minister Joe Oliver and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty - is that because some large US philanthropies are donating money to campaigns in BC opposing Enbridge's proposal, the decision making process is being "hijacked" by "radical environmentalists" fronting for American interests. I won't go into this argument any further - for Stephen Hume and Terry Glavin of the Ottawa Citizen have both nailed the subject in their columns this week. The main point I wish to make is the extraordinary parity of messages coming from two entities that allegedly have no connection.

We don't know where Ethical Oil's funding derives from - it's certainly not from $10 grassroots donations! - but here's what we do know about the connections of this organization and its spokespeople to the federal Conservative government:

1. Ezra Levant is the former publisher of the conservative magazine the Western Standard, author of the book Ethical Oil and host of a political talk show on the Sun News Network. He is also the man who stepped aside for Stephen Harper in a 2002 byelection in Calagry Southwest so that the new Alliance Party leader could win a seat in parliament. Levant was apparently reluctant to do so at first, but eventually ceded to public pressure - thus doing a big favour for the future Prime Minister.

Prior to that bit of political gallantry, Levant had a long history of campaigning for key Reform/Alliance candidates. According to Wikipedia, "While he was a student-at-law, Levant was an active political organizer in the Reform Party, and guided the successful attempts by Rahim Jaffer (as the campaign manager for his nomination in Edmonton-Strathcona and later as his communications-director during the 1997 Federal Election) and Rob Anders to win party nominations. In 1997, he went to Ottawa to work for the Reform Party, becoming a parliamentary aide to party leader Preston Manning and being put in charge of Question Period strategy."

Mr. Levant has also worked at both the right-wing Fraser Institute and the Charles G. Koch Institute - a think tank sponsored by the Texas oil billionaire family which is one of the leading financial backers of both the Republic Party machine and the oil lobby.

2. Levant resigned his duties as EthicalOil.org spokesperson soon after he launched the book and website, handing the role over to one Alykhan Velshi. A 29-year old lawyer, Velshi has been a top Conservative staffer for a number of years. He served as Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's director of parliamentary affairs and communications until the 2011 federal election. Prior to that he worked for then-Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird.

In 2011, Velshi briefly left the Harper Government to lead EthicalOil.org, only to return to Parliament Hill in late fall 2011 as the director of planning for the Prime Minister's Office, no less.

Mr. Velshi's mom also recently obtained a plum appointment by Industry Minister Joe Oliver (he who dismissed Enrbridge's legions of opponents as a handful of environmental radicals in a recent open letter) to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The Opposition was quick to slam the hire as a patronage appointment. NDP MP Charlie Angus told Embassy Magazine, “There are a lot of credible engineers out there, but there’s not a lot of credible engineers whose sons are closely tied to the prime minister, Jason Kenney, and their ethical oil campaign for the tar sands. This is another case of who you know in the PMO."

3. Mr. Velshi handed off the Ethical Oil baton to a 26-year old conservative law student at the University of Calgary named Kathryn Marshall this past fall. According to the Ottawa Citizen, it turns out Ms. Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, Harper's former strategic planning manager.

Watch Marshall get slaughtered by Evan Solomon on Inside Politics (note how Ms. Marshall refuses a dozen times to divulge whether her organization is bankrolled by Enbridge - if you still believe the Ethical Oil argument after watching this, I'm afraid you're beyond help). [see attached video]

It is also worth noting as an aside that former Conservative minister David Emerson is today helping the Chinese buy into the Tar Sands. In 2009 Mr. Emerson became a member of the International Advisory Council for the Chinese Investment Management Corporation, which recently purchased an $801 million stake in Tar Sands properties near Peace River, Alberta. This on top of a long list of major recent Chinese investments in the Tar Sands. And of, of course, Chinese oil giant Sinopec recently revealed that it was one of 10 companies which ponied up $10 million each to sponsor Enbridge's campaign to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline - some of the others we know about are major multi-national players based in Europe and the United States. Talk about foreign intervention in Canadian pipeline politics!

You can bet the Ethical Oil crew and Harper Government will carry on with the exact same talking points and revolving door connections, all the while maintaining the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing.

It's all just a big coincidence.

And if you believe that I've got some pond-front property in northeast Alberta you might like to buy.

Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon. This article originally appeared in the Common Sense Canadian.

Comments

"Ethical Oil" Designation

by Mid-Swan on 16 Jan 2012 at about 18:18.

Giving the Tar Sands an "Ethical Oil" designation might be fine, if: 1/ One never considered the 34 hazardous chemicals found downstream by John Schindler, chemist for U of A Edmonton that have decimated the local indigenous peoples with Cancers only found with pollution from a number of dangerous substances, all found in the materials coming from the smokestacks in the Tar Sands, and setting in the area, later to wash into the river during spring runoff or summer rains. Mr. Schindler's testing was validated by the provincial govt of AB--previous testing had been carried out by chemists hired by the companies mining for oil. People in this area are dying because of the TS development, and poisons from this project will be taken north by the Athabasca River, joining the Peace River into Lake Athabasca, and together into the Slave River into Great Slave Lake, and finally via the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean. This whole area is a source of fish for our northern indigenous population, and these poisons will eventually pollute this whole water system, and the Arctic Ocean. Please remember, the proposed final size of the Tar Sands Development is 10X larger than it is now! 2/ If one did not consider the 2 barrels of Hazardous waste that accompany each barrel of Crude oil produced at the Tar Sands, wastes that are being placed in settling ponds and kept on site, as well as the other toxic materials that are earmarked for shipping to off site for disposal in other areas in a waste-to-oil facilities. The long term effects of so many million gallons of sludge stored onsite cannot be accurately determined, because of the uniqueness of the project and the lack of previous similar operations from which to draw data. 3/ The LARGE Carbon Footprint caused by burning about 1000 cubic feet of natural gas for every barrel of oil produced. $$$$$$$$$$, and the pursuit of same, create a great number of half-truths which are told to make the teller more comfortable, and to bring public opinion onside. Don't just believe big media, use all resources at hand to educate yourself to this project. Are we really so desperate in Canada that we need to despoil this huge section of our country for the sake of making rich oil companies richer? A whole valley in Idaho is under attack, because of the rebuilding of the highway for the purposes of moving huge equipment to Alberta by special transport trucks to the project. The effects of this project, along with the use of the oil produced, will be felt for years, and once we have done something as anti-planet as this, where will we stop? Where will we draw the line? When the last river is polluted?, when all the wildlife have been killed off by our irresponsible actions?, when everyone has cancer or other health problems caused by pollution? Come on people--the status quo isn't worth it, because, environmentally speaking, we are NOT maintaining the status quo. So we must be doing this just for the money, and the toys it will buy for us. We MUST ask ourselves, for each and every purchase, and every action: Is it doing HARM? If the answer is YES, we must find a better way! So, Have I earned the badge "Radical' yet??

Mixed Feelings about Oil Industry

by CK on 14 Jan 2012 at about 07:44.

My family has mixed feelings about the oil industry. I was born and raised in Castlegar but I now live in Calgary with my husband and son; we moved back to Canada after living overseas for many years. We needed to find work in Canada. Simple as. My husband, after 18 months of struggling to find gainful employment to support his family in a faltering economy, finally found a job at an oil and gas company here in Cowtown. As we said at the time, ''Greenpeace wasn't hiring''. Although we don't like some of the things the oil industry does and stands for, it's a source of income for families, be it in the oil patch iself, or engineering, or IT. As a result my family has badly-needed health benefits and a decent wage coming in. The Canadian economy (and indeed the Western Canadian economy) depends on this industry more than it likes to admit. The model of the Canadian economy is shifting from Quebec and Ontario to the West becoming a major player in what's sustaining the Canadian economy overall. I think there are some really jealous people out East who are using the oil industry as a symbol for that disdain. It's complicated, I don't pretend to know all the ins and out of this issue (I do read a lot and try to pay attn to the news). A parallel example would be in the Kootenays; what if the environmentalists turned on the mill industry here, saying it was a major polluter and not good for the environment. What if the pulp mill and Cominco would suddenly shut down, what would that do to Kootenay towns?? Now, extrapolate that to Ft. Mac, Calgary and Edmonton and other towns who benefit from so called ''dirty oil''. If the oil industry would shut down all together (as the environmentalists seem to want to do) then imagine the knock-on effect. Pretty brutal. But at the end of the day, the oil industry is a major employer here in Alberta. Like it or not.

If not oil, something else.

by Phil F on 14 Jan 2012 at about 11:35.

It is disingenious to say if it wasn't for dirty oil, there would be no jobs. First, environmentalists are most concerned about tarsands oil because it is so much more damaging to the environment, and contributes so much more to global warming than conventional oil. There is still some conventional oil in Canada, so the oil industry wouldn't grind to a halt. The fact remains, if this country were to turn its back on oil and coal we would still require energy. And providing that energy would create jobs - more jobs than the oil industry could ever hope to produce. The number one reason energy companies don't want to invest in "green energies"? High costs, and low return on investment. In other words, they make more profits with oil. Waaaayyyy more profits. But the average Canadian hasn't yet realized that huge corporate profits have nothing to do with job creation - in fact they are inversely proportional. Here's why: if it costs a company $1 billion in infrastructure to create an income stream of $500 million/year to make "X" amount of energy, it's more profitable (more money for the CEO's, and investors) than if they have to invest $5 billion in infrastructure to get the same income stream selling the same amount of "green energy". Now of course the company is going to lobby hard for the first scenario, but the second scenario would create more jobs because the company would have to pay $5 billion to build that infrastructure. Now those jobs wouldn't necessarily be in the same spots, they may be spread more evenly throughout Canada. They're also not going to be environmentally perfect - nothing is, but they'll be better than the tarsands by a long shot. Requiring more energy savings is also a job builder. We can build hyper-efficient homes that cost essentially nothing to heat or cool, but they cost more (i.e. more people need to be hired to build them) - that's why they aren't being built. But if we changed the building code to force builders to make more efficient homes, we would create more construction jobs, as well as engineering jobs to devise more efficient homes. No one is blaming your family for taking what jobs they could get, but rest assured that if Canada were to change its policies to more scientifically and environmentally sound ones - we could only be better off economically as well. What benefits the few (tarsands oil extraction), doesn't really benefit Canada as much as other avenues.

Public Hearings/Consultation

by Kirk Duff on 13 Jan 2012 at about 12:31.

My experience tells me that all sides of an issue are coloured by those that support or oppose that side so arriving at my own position on an issue is not always easy when I don't possess the requisite subject matter expertise. So like most of us I listen to people that I trust for advise. I don't personally care who the groups are that oppose or support all or part of natural resource development and related delivery systems. What I do care about is who financially supports either side, who does the actual research for either side and who actually stands at the microphone for either side. With this information I can then decide for myself where the biases are and for which side I choose to trust or support. With most issues there does not exist a perfect answer or solution. What always exists though is a 'best' answer or solution usually achieved through compromise. Reality check: the world still depends on oil - we have it - there is alot of money to be made supplying it. Question: How do we do it with respect to our enviroment, citizens and economy? The discussion is off to an interesting start.

Correction:

by Phil F on 14 Jan 2012 at about 11:48.

We depend on energy, not so much oil. Yes, yes we drive cars powered by oil. But at current rates of vehicle fleet changeover, we could reduce our use of oil by half in less than 10 years if we wanted. Plastic needs could be met by recycling, and plant-based hydrocarbons. It is technologically feasible. But it would devastate the profits of oil companies - the primary funding source of the Harper government. It would cost more, but it would create a lot of jobs. If we had a government and a country determined to step away from fossil fuels, perhaps the only thing that would slow the transition would be the lack of the necessary workforce. Trying to do it too fast would create worker shortages and inflationary pressures, which left unchecked could create its own economic problems.

Sounds like good advice for

by Carol on 13 Jan 2012 at about 19:19.

Sounds like good advice for any controversial issue. I will most likely be using it for some of my own issues.

Watch the video and become

by Adrian Barnes on 13 Jan 2012 at about 10:28.

Watch the video and become very afraid of the direction in which our country is going: the Conservatives, Endbridge, and 'grassroots' groups, hand in hand. It's Orwellian. And Kathryn Marshall has the deadest eyes I've ever seen...