[Cja] Fwd: Dominion: Canada's Secret Oil Offensive in Europe & please support the Media Co-op

[Julie Gorecki]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: martin lukacs <martonlukacs at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 6:14 PM
Subject: Dominion: Canada's Secret Oil Offensive in Europe & please support
the Media Co-op
To: martonlukacs <martonlukacs at gmail.com>



Hello friends,

This is an investigative article I just put together exposing how the
Canadian government has been secretly playing salesman and PR agent in
Europe for the Alberta tar sands: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3991

It's published in the Dominion, which is part of the Media Co-op network I
work for as an editor and organizer.
We're trying to build a sustainable, alternative, grassroots media movement
across Canada. We think we need this kind of movement now more than ever!

But none of our work would be possible without our member sustainers. It's
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in hope and in struggle,
Martin

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3991 May 25, 2011 Canada on Secret Oil
Offensive: Documents Foreign ministry's tar sands team rebranding Alberta
oil in Europe

by Martin Lukacs <http://www.dominionpaper.ca/author/martin_lukacs>

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

 <http://www.dominionpaper.ca/images/3992>Clayton Thomas-Mueller from the
Indigenous Environmental Network during a protest against the Alberta tar
sands in London, England, in 2009 – part of the "resurgence of highly
critical public campaigns" that the foreign ministry's secret team is
monitoring. Photo: Mike
Russell<http://www.dominionpaper.ca/photographer/mike_russell>

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MONTREAL—The Canadian government has been carrying out a secret plan in
Europe to boost investment and keep world markets open for the Alberta tar
sands, collaborating with major oil companies and aggressively undermining
European environmental measures, documents obtained by The Dominion reveal.

In 2009 the federal government launched a strategy to “protect and advance
Canadian interests related to the oil sands," fearing that growing protest
could curb European investment in the industry and that EU restrictions on
tar sands imports could be mimicked globally.

“Oil sands are posing a growing reputational problem [in Europe], with the
oil sands defining the Canadian brand,” states one document released under
the Access to Information Act. “Canada’s reputation as a clean, reliable
source of energy may be put at risk.”

Led by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAIT), alongside Natural
Resources and Environment Canada, the Albertan government, and involving
eight foreign missions, a European “Oil Sands Team” has gone on the
offensive against threats to the tar sands: they have monitored green
groups, responded to “significant negative media coverage,” helped Canadian
policymakers lobby European parliamentarians and organize trips to Alberta,
worked to “enhance cooperation” with oil companies, and coordinated regular
meetings between top European oil executives and Albertan and federal
ministers, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The “pan-European oil sands advocacy strategy” was launched in December 2009
around the time of the United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Hundreds of civil society groups there gave Canada a “Fossil of the Year”
award for being "the absolute worst country at the talks," fingering a
powerful tar sands industry as the driving force behind Canada’s hardline
stance against ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The extraction of Alberta’s vast deposits of bitumen, which hold the second
largest supply of oil after Saudi Arabia, has been widely criticized as the
world’s most environmentally destructive and carbon-intensive industrial
project.

One of the main targets of the strategy has been a EU energy law—the Fuel
Quality Directive—that would slap a dirty label on tar sands oil as a way of
promoting cleaner transportation fuel in Europe.

Europe does not import tar sands oil from Canada, but Canadian policymakers
are worried <http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/10/20/EuropeDecidesFate/> a measure
categorizing tar sands oil as an undesirable fuel could spread to other
continents. With the Albertan fossil fuel industry—and supportive provincial
and federal governments—increasingly looking to Asian markets to sell their
crude such precedents would spell trouble.

The obtained documents further reveal that the diplomatic campaign by the
Canadian government to “prevent discriminatory treatment of the oil sands
under the EU Fuel Quality Directive” was much more co-ordinated than
previously understood.

The mission in Brussels took the lead: lobbying the European Commission,
engaging in “regular information sharing with industry,” organizing
“high-profile events,” and Ministerial visits. The mission provided
“reporting with intelligence, analysis and advice” to the Canadian and
Alberta governments while the larger Oil Sands Team played a “very useful
coordination mechanism” in the campaign.

They appear to have been so
aggressive<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/ottawa-fights-eus-dirty-fuel-label-on-oil-sands/article1958987/>that
a European parliamentarian told the Globe and Mail in March that
Canada’s lobbying had been “unacceptable.”

The Canadian government was also concerned that a dirty label on the tar
sands could galvanize pressure to curb investment by European companies who
have been subject to increasingly noisy environmental campaigns calling for
divestment.

With the end of cheap, easily accessible oil, European oil giants have
scampered to extend their lifespans by turning to unconventional gases and
investing billions in the Alberta industry.

A mid-year report of the Oil Sands Team, covering activities between January
and July 2010, paints a picture of a Canadian government eager to work
closely with these companies to ensure the money keeps flowing.

One section reads less like international lobbying records than a joint
playbook. In Oslo, Canada’s mission “holds regular meetings” with largely
state-owned Norwegian oil giant Statoil to “update on each others activities
and co-ordinate where appropriate.” Statoil has invested more than $2
billion in tar sands operations.

A Wikileaks cable has revealed that in November 2009, a month before the
European strategy was launched, then-Environment Minister Jim Prentice
described his shock to U.S. Ambassador Jacobsen on witnessing Norwegian
public sentiment against investment in Alberta’s “dirty oil,” during a visit
to the country. The experience had “heightened his awareness of the negative
consequences to Canada’s historically ‘green’ standing on the world stage,”
and he believed the Canadian government’s reaction to the dirty oil label
was “too slow” and “failed to grasp the magnitude of the situation.”

Each barrel of bitumen Statoil produced in the Alberta tar sands in 2010
released 85 times more carbon than a barrel of conventional North Sea oil,
according to company figures.

At Statoil’s annual general assembly last week, shareholders representing
nearly 20 per cent of private capital voted in support of a
resolution<http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/%3Cbr%20/%3Ehttp://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/recent/Major-European-investors-support-GreenpeaceWWF-anti-tar-sands-motion-at-Statoil-AGM/>calling
for the company to withdraw from tar sands operations.

This was the third year in a row that motions campaigned for by Greenpeace
and the Indigenous Environmental Network have dominated the meetings. In
November 2010, Statoil buckled to campaigners' pressure and sold 40 per cent
of its Alberta tar sands portfolio.

When Prime Minister Harper flew to France for a few hours on June 4, 2010,
to meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy in the run-up to the G8 and G20
meetings in Canada, he found time for an unpublicized meeting with
Christophe de Margerie, the CEO of France’s oil major Total. Top Total
executives have also met with Canada’s Deputy Minister of Trade and
regularly meet with Canada’s ambassador.

The released documents do not reveal anything about the nature of the PM's
discussions. The company, however, recently announced they plan to spend
$20-billion in the oil sands by 2020 in hopes of boosting their production
to 200,000 barrels day.

In recognition of the tar sands' new importance to their portfolio, Margerie
and the company's international advisory board
spent<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/oil-sands-key-factor-in-global-pricing-head-of-total-says/article2029052/>last
week in Alberta. During a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce,
he
acknowledged that environmental criticism has impacted the company's
reputation. "In terms of image, it's not good," he said.

Shell, the biggest energy company in the world, holds the most land leases
in the tar sands and plans to triple production to more than 750,000 barrels
a day. They have been named in five
lawsuits<http://www.ienearth.org/archive_tar_sands_documents.html>related
to environmental damages and violations of Indigenous rights, and
have faced shareholder resolutions demanding disclosure of the social and
environmental risks of their projects.

The Hague mission is “enhancing its engagement with the sector, and with
Shell recently.” The London mission is “in regular contact with the private
sector including meetings with Shell, BP, and Royal Bank of Scotland [RBS]
as well as Canadian oil companies,” and participated in Shell’s Stakeholder
dialogue where they were able to “gather intelligence.” Brussels has “worked
with Shell by hosting complementary events” including a multi-stakeholder
workshop and dinner.

The released documents indicate that government officials believe their
efforts have failed to fully “defend Canada’s image as a responsible energy
producer and steward of the environment including climate change issues.”
They cite tight budgets and a lack of resources. The oil sands team,
according to DFAIT, is composed only of 11 officials, working part-time,
spread across Ottawa and the European missions.

The report states that they will need an injection of “significant
resources” and also suggests that “a professional PR firm may be able to
assist us in moving forward strategically with the use of approved but
sharpened messaging.” With a "recent increase in the NGO campaigns targeting
public [sic], we anticipate increased risk to Canadian interests much beyond
the oil sands (e.g. recent campaign targeting tourists to Alberta).”

Rethink Alberta <http://rethinkalberta.com/>, co-ordinated by an
international network of green groups, has run a billboard campaign in
Europe and is mailing postcards to travel agents and tourism operators to
discourage tourists from visiting Alberta.

European countries have seen a “resurgence of highly critical public
campaigns,” including protests that “have become a regular occurrence in
London mostly towards BP, Shell and RBS but also towards the High
Commission.”

The report also points to “growing media attention to environmental aspects
of oil sands developments in Europe,” resulting in “enhanced media
monitoring” by most Canadian missions. Media coverage in Paris was
especially bad in their eyes: “the negative articles are essentially about
pollution, the wildlife, and the health of native peoples and the
destruction of the boreal forest.”

Their campaign against the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive law also appears to
be failing. The law aims to force fuel suppliers to cut carbon emissions by
six percent by 2020. In initial evaluations EU officials assigned tar sands
production a high carbon footprint, meaning suppliers would shun tar sands
oil in favour of lower-emission fuels from conventional sources of
petroleum.

Canadian policymakers jumped into action against the initiative because they
worried other countries like the United States and China—who has previously
mimicked European emissions standards on air pollution in the 1990s—might
adopt the model.

“Our fear is that if something happens in the EU and it is spread in other
countries—not only members of the EU—we could have roughly one-third of the
world’s population subscribing to regulation or legislation that mitigates
against our oilsands,” Alberta International and Intergovernmental Relations
Minister Iris Evans told <http://www.canadians.org/energyblog/?p=329> media
in the fall of 2010.

Canadian and industry officials have vigorously contested that the carbon
footprint of tar sands is higher than traditional sources, but European
policymakers gained new ammo when an EU study released this February
concluded that production creates 23 per cent more emissions.

After aggressive lobbying from Canadian officials resulted in the removal of
the dirty fuel label on tar sands crude in the fall of 2010, a re-emboldened
European commission announced this spring that they would move ahead with
the plan to discourage tar sands fuel imports.

Ensuring open markets, however, is also the objective of the ongoing
free-trade negotiations between Canada and the European Union, which would
involve eliminating environmental “barriers” to trade like the Fuel Quality
Directive. Negotiators have frequently raised the issue of the Fuel Quality
Directive and recent media reports indicate they even
threatened<http://ca.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idCATRE71K2FL20110221?sp=true>to
scrap the agreement if the issue was not resolved to their
satisfaction.

DFAIT officials told the Dominion that the advocacy plan is an “official
level” strategy at the departmental rather than ministerial level, meaning
Cabinet would not have any oversight.

The seeds for it may have been
planted<http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/rpp/2008-2009/inst/ext/ext02-eng.asp>in
a Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s (DFAIT)
planning document from March 2008. DFAIT's Report on Plans and Priorities
for 2008-2009 states that one of its priorities is to “enhance international
commercial opportunities for Canadian companies.” It suggests developing an
“energy advocacy strategy to brand Canada as a leader in best practices for
the development of oil sands reserves, energy research and development,
advanced energy technologies, energy-efficient technologies, renewable
energy and alternative energies.”


Martin Lukacs is an independent journalist and a member of the Dominion
editorial collective.
Own your media. Support the Dominion. Join the Media Co-op
today<http://www.mediacoop.ca/join>
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