Read this story form the Vancouver Sun, reporting that BC Premier Christy Clark has replaced her Chief of Staff Mike MacDonald with career lobbyist and federal Conservative adviser Ken Boessenkool – whose former clients include controversial pipeline builder Enbridge Inc. (Jan. 13, 2011)
Flagging in the polls, and with just 16 months to go before the next election, Premier Christy Clark has replaced her chief of staff with an influential Conservative strategist who has lobbied on behalf of Enbridge.
Ken Boessenkool, who has served as a senior adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, will start as Clark’s chief of staff on Feb. 15, and is expected to make just under $200,000.
The move not only provides new leadership in Clark’s office, but also helps bolster her Conservative credentials at a time she faces attacks from the upstart right-wing B.C. Conservative Party.
Boessenkool worked on three federal campaigns with Harper, reportedly playing a key role in the campaign’s inner sanctum during 2011.
He has been a key adviser to Reform party founder Preston Manning and to Stockwell Day, former leader of the Canadian Alliance Party.
Boessenkool is also an influential federal lobbyist, having worked on behalf of dozens of top-flight clients including Enbridge, which is now pushing for a major pipeline across B.C.’s north.
Read this story form The Globe and Mail about the fears some environmental organizations face of losing their charitable status as a punishment for speaking up against the controversial proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. (Jan 13, 2012)
Environmentalists are fearful that the Conservative government is planning to limit their advocacy role after Prime Minister Stephen Harper complained that groups flush with “foreign money” are undermining a controversial pipeline review.
Mr. Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver stoked activists’ fears in recent days by lashing out at environmental groups that have taken money from U.S. donors to build opposition to the $6.6-billion Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry oil-sands bitumen to the British Columbia coast.
The Conservative-dominated Commons finance committee is set to begin a review of the charity sector, and several activists say government MPs have told business groups that the committee will look at the environmental sector’s transparency, its advocacy role and the flow of funds from outside the country.
PMO spokesman Andrew MacDougall dismissed as “speculation” the concerns that the government is targeting the environmental sector. He said Ottawa is focused on streamlining the environmental-review process so that groups can’t employ delaying tactics, echoing Mr. Oliver’s pledge to introduce new rules in the coming months…
…But John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, isn’t reassured.
“I’m quite convinced that we’re the next on the hit list of this government that doesn’t know how to find compromises but only bully people,” Mr. Bennett said.
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.
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):
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.
Read this piece in the Huffington Post Canada which makes the case for why, despite all the rhetoric about jobs from the Tar Sands, Canada’s oil economy actually costs us more jobs in other areas. (Jan. 5, 2011)
Just because something is a bit complicated, it doesn’t mean you can ignore it, especially when it’s hurting you.
And yet, this appears to be the case with the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the past several years — 627,000 by one measure — mostly in Ontario and Quebec where these jobs have historically existed.
The phenomenon even has a name already: “Dutch Disease.” Canada now has a bad case of it, yet you won’t hear the government in Ottawa talk about it, since that would run counter to its blinkered agenda of accelerating the strip mining of Northern Alberta to push more oil through pipelines to China and America.
The term “Dutch Disease” was coined in the 1970s after the Netherlands discovered a large natural gas field. The country’s exchange rate became tied to the rising price of natural gas, pricing its manufacturing goods out of international markets and leading to job losses.
In 2011, the Canadian dollar traded on average above the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1976. This puts an extra burden on Canadian companies who export, since it makes their products less competitive versus products from other countries.
If what I’m about to say is wrong, you have nothing to worry about. You see, Premier, I have this radical notion that the mood of the voter has changed – you evidently don’t, making it obvious (sorry to talk as if you are a slow learner) that if you just paddle along, down the happy old stream, why the voters, so afraid of the bad old NDP, will put you right back in government in 2013.
In fact, if I’m wrong and you’re right, may I respectfully suggest that some tactics are natural:
1. Keep right on charging us the HST. No matter that if you could start it in an instance you could stop immediately. I’m sure that the voter knows that you’re really trying hard on this matter.
2. Ignore the Fish Farm issue – most of the jurisdiction is now with the Feds so just wash your hands of the whole mess. Some might suggest that you should now speak up for BC and urge the Feds to get rid of this monstrous rape of our precious wild salmon resources, but I’ll betcha most people will overlook the fact that you don’t want to piss off the feds just when you’re trying to make a deal on that pesky HST.
Even though I and others will, tiresomely remind voters that it was under your stewardship that this horrific mess came about you can depend upon the fact that the voters will still have faulty memories.
3. On the question of those private power plants you should assume that I’m wrong to say that voters are pissed over losing all those rivers to foreign companies to make power BC Hydro must pay for yet doesn’t need. I’m obviously a bad British Columbian who doesn’t realize voters don’t care about BC Hydro going broke, and trust in your bosom buddies at the Fraser Institute who say it would be a great blessing if all crown corporations and agencies went into private hands. (By the way, Madame Premier, did you know that a fairly recent “Fellow” of the Fraser Institute believes in “consensual slavery”? If, for example, a young single Mom can’t feed, clothe and educate her kids she should be permitted to enter permanent bondage to some guy with lots of loot! Look it up…I can give you the guy’s name but your government should, I know you would agree, do its own research.)
4. If I’m wrong about the pipeline issues clearly you should maintain your position. Just in order for people to understand what that position is, can we infer from recent comments that you don’t think the Enbridge pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat should be dealt with by the National Energy Board? And that I’m wrong again to point out that a spill from such a pipeline is inevitable and the ability of Enbridge to get to, much less do anything about it is nil? Again, with respect, might I suggest that your people “google” Enbridge/Kalamazoo?
5. I am always on about tanker traffic and simply oppose it as being a sure source of catastrophe. Again, with respect and just for clarity, might I infer from your statements that you don’t understand that the Enbridge Pipeline must result in about 300 tankers a year out of Kitimat, down the most beautiful and most dangerous coastline in the world? It’s like the old song about Love and Marriage – “you can’t have one without the other.” I should add, Madame Premier, that I’m sure you know about the new capacity and planned huge expansion of the Kinder Morgan line to ship Tar Sands gunk through Burrard Inlet.
No, of course, a person of your attainments must understand the big picture here and just think that in this modern world we need gunk from the Tar Sands going to China more than a pristine environment.
I do have this little query Ms. Clark: what does BC get out of all this except short term labour? Are we getting royalties? Any security against damages certain to happen?
6. I have been making a lot of noise about First Nations rights where land has not been ceded. I believe First Nations have rights and, following the Supreme Court of Canada, ownership of land not yet dealt with. Following the theory that the opposite of Rafe’s opinions are the right ones, you should continue to ignore these interests and just barge ahead – after all, we’re only talking about a bunch of Indians here and you will surely make the case that Rafe’s concerns about their rights are not in the best interests of the Province. Standing against Rafe and all those who stand with First Nations, especially where the environment is at issue will surely be understood by voters for what it is – loyalty to all your old friends. Surely that trumps concerns for touchy-feely things like birds, bears, fish, caribou that don’t make you a nickel for election expenses.
May I make another assertion on your behalf, namely that the NDP are fiscally irresponsible and that your government is business-oriented. I want you to know my stance so that you can be clear what you oppose.
Here’s Rafe’s take:
Party philosophies and positions tend to change over time and the coming of new issues – surely you and your party would agree to that. I believe that the NDP has learned much more from its mistakes than you have learned from yours.
I say that there are things the public should know about.
The NDP from 1991-2001 doubled the Provincial debt. From 2001-2011 the Campbell/Clark government more than tripled it.
I understand that your claim is that the Liberal debt was caused by events over which you had no control. If that’s the case you must be saying that when you put together your 2009 budget and ran an election on it you hadn’t heard of the 2007 stock market crash and the 2008 massive Recession.
At the same time – I hope I’m not embarrassing you Madame – when the NDP were in power the Asian Flu occurred, all but obliterating that market for our forest products. I would like to say that then-Opposition Leader Gordon Campbell pitched in and offered bi-partisan support in our province’s time of need but, alas, such was not the case.
So there we have it Premier – your view of things and those who are of another persuasion.
Disagreement on all fronts – so let’s you and me have a debate!
Looks like pretty easy pickings for you but I’m used to being beat upon and will do it just so you can demolish all my silly, left wing notions with one swing of the bat.
Surely you, a premier with all the resources of government behind you isn’t afraid of an octogenarian who’s not running for anything. (I’m not running away from anything either – are you?)
So, let’s do a TV debate on these matters – any time, any place – and let the chips fall where they may.
Read this outstanding piece by Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun, dissecting the argument from the Harper Government and oil lobby, which alleges “foreign billionaires” are unduly influencing the opposition to Enrbidge’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline and influencing the National Energy Board’s review of the project. (Jan 9, 2012)
EthicalOil.org, founded by conservative gadfly Ezra Levant, adopts this argument, declaiming against “foreign puppets” like West Coast Environmental Law, Alberta’s Pembina Institute and others challenging expansion of oilsands development, transportation infrastructure and diversified global markets for synthetic crude. Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on the bandwagon, claiming that foreign money seeks to subvert Canada’s regulatory process.
American foundations have donated about $300 million to such organizations over the last decade or so, therefore these groups must be part of a sinister conspiracy by Americans seeking to influence Canada’s policy agenda.
But wait a minute, if this crude nationalism applies to a few environmental groups, shouldn’t it also apply to other organizations that receive funding from “foreign billionaires?” Enbridge, for example, says it has organized about $100 million in backing from oil industry interests, some of them foreign-owned corporations. Are they trying to hi-jack the regulatory process?…
…The Fraser Institute reports nine per cent of its funding from non-Canadian sources — about the same amount of non-Canadian funding reported by the Pembina Institute — although exactly who the foreign donors to the Fraser Institute might be isn’t listed in annual reports. However, according to a report by Greenpeace using U.S. sources, some comes from American foundations. Another puppet?
Shell Canada, Imperial Oil, British Petroleum Canada, Ultramar Fuels, Enbridge, Sinopec International and so on are all owned and controlled offshore. Are they puppets of foreign billionaires?
If foreign control is a genuine concern for EthicalOil.org, should it turn its attention to Canada’s oil industry? More than 35 per cent of all the assets and more than 40 per cent of the profits from oil and gas extraction and related activities in Canada are under foreign control.
Watch this video from CTV, featuring a discussion with federal industry minister Joe Oliver and a lively debate between representatives of First Nations, environmental groups and the organization “Ethical Oil.” (Jan. 8, 2012)
Enbridge is proposing two pipelines to Kitimat BC to take Tar Sands gunk (more politely “bitumen”) to tankers who at 300 per year will take it to China as is, or to the United States for refining, thence China.
Today I want to deal with the pipelines only. The horrible consequences of tankers on our coast are for another column.
First off, there is no question that there will be leaks and that any leak will be serious and in a remote area. The lines will cross over 800 rivers and streams, all fish bearing – three of which are important salmon spawning rivers.
Two questions arise. When there’s a spill somewhere in the heart of wilderness, how long does it take to find it and, once found, what can you do about it?
The answer is you don’t know and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Here is the interesting point – in their promotional materials, Enbridge expressly admits that there will be spills because they talk not of eliminating leaks but of “managing” them.
That last line is critical because it’s Enbridge’s confession that they cannot prevent spills – in fact the confession is certified by this release called Enbridge Line 6B Response, wherein Enbridge talks about “risks”, opening with this:
Because of their location and the products they carry, pipelines may come in contact with water, bacteria and various chemicals, all of which can corrode steel. Both the interior and exterior of the line are potentially subject to corrosion. We combat [not eliminate – my comment -RM] corrosion by:
using high-quality materials and anti-corrosion coatings
scheduling regular monitoring and inline inspections to check for corrosion
scheduling excavation and repair programs identified by inline inspections
using cathodic protection (a low level electrical current) to inhibit corrosion of underground pipelines
using modelling tools to predict corrosion growth rates along pipelines
using inline devices known as “pigs” to clean and inspect pipelines from the inside
using specialized corrosion inhibitors within the pipeline to address internal corrosion”
Thus the candid admission that there will be spills.
Under Managing Stress Corrosion and Cracking, Enbridge says:
Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) is a crack initiation and growth process that can occur in steel pipelines. Research has shown that SCC is caused by a number of factors, including pipe material, stress and the environment surrounding the pipe. SCC typically occurs on the exterior of the pipe. This type of cracking has the potential to penetrate the steel and cause a pipeline break.
You will note that there is no action to eliminate stress corrosion
.
Under Setting Leak Reduction Targets And Performance Goals: ”
We believe that pipeline safety and reliability begin with prevention. This means recognizing conditions that have been known to cause failures in the past – then working to minimize the risk.”
Again, Enbridge does not talk about eliminating the “risk” but managing it!
This release confirms what The Common Sense Canadian has been saying all along: spills from pipelines are not “risks” at all but dead certainties.
There is more to it than this. Throughout the debate there has been no mention of outside causes such as terrorism or vandalism. Think on that a moment – 1070 km of dangerous Tar Sands gunk over a wilderness area and no one is considering these threats!
If there is a leak from any reason, how does Enbridge respond? How do they find the problem and once having found it, how do they get to it? Moreover, how do they get heavy equipment to the site, and once there, what the hell do they do about it?
No matter what is said, and by Enbridge’s confession, Pipeline ruptures cannot be stopped but are dead certainties, the only question being the damage done. In our case, by the nature of the location the resultant spills will create appalling, ongoing and long-term consequences.
Read this column form Peter Ewart on Opinion250.com about the recent Ipsos poll for Enbridge claiming to show more British Columbians support the company’s controversial proposed pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to Kitimat than oppose it. Ewart sets this poll within the larger context of a disinformation campaign in which Postmedia has played a critical roll – including its much criticized recent handling of the Gitxsan story. (Jan 6, 2012)
One of the aims of disinformation campaigns is to shake the resolve of people. And we are seeing ample evidence of this in the campaign to sell the Enbridge pipeline which, if constructed, will stretch across the lands and waterways of Northern BC and result in major oil tanker traffic in the ocean waters off BC’s Pacific coast.
Recently, an Ipsos-Reid poll, released exclusively to the Postmedia News chain, is alleging that, by a whopping 48 to 32 percentage, most people across the province are now in favour of the controversial pipeline. This poll, of course, was commissioned and paid for by the Enbridge Corporation. The results are almost the exact opposite of another poll conducted by the Mustel polling group in 2010 and commissioned by pipeline opponent group “Forest Ethics”. That poll showed a 51 to 34 percent margin against the pipeline. The gap between the two polls is stunning.
Nonetheless, despite the huge disparity in poll results, the Postmedia News chain was quick to punch out headlines such as: “New poll points to pipeline support”, as well as articles claiming that the poll could be a “game changer” for project opponents. For its part, Enbridge has issued a statement that the “new poll” will set a “’proper context’ for the launch of National Energy Board hearings into Northern Gateway that begin this month in northern B.C.”
Read this story from Embassy Magazine on the recent appointment of former top federal Conservative staffer and Ethical Oil spokesperson Alykhan Velshi’s mother to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission – which has led the Opposition to denounce the move as a patronage appointment. (Jan. 6, 2011)
The mother of a top Conservative staffer and former adviser to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is the newest member of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, raising opposition concerns over whether it was a patronage appointment.
Rumina Velshi recently retired from a decades-long career with Ontario Power Generation. She is the mother of Alykhan Velshi, a lawyer in his late 20s from Toronto, who made a name for himself on Parliament Hill over five years on and off as a Conservative staffer.
Most notably, he worked as Mr. Kenney’s director of parliamentary affairs and communications before the 2011 federal election. He defended Mr. Kenney on several controversial topics, including when the federal government blocked outspoken former British MP George Galloway from Canada in March 2009, based on what it believed was his support for the Palestinian group Hamas. Mr. Galloway later filed a lawsuit against Mr. Velshi and his boss, claiming that they had defamed him.
