Bruce Carson : "the secret sauce"

~~~updated below~~~

"You are the secret sauce," Doug Black, President of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, wrote to EPIC co-founder and Harper's disgraced "fixer" Bruce Carson.

Bruce Carson, former PMO staffer, has banking records seized by RCMP 

According to CBC yesterday, an RCMP affidavit alleges Carson illegally lobbied many of his former government colleagues - including Nigel Wright and Wayne Wouters, Clerk of the Privy Council - on behalf of EPIC, an industry lobby group of 38 energy resource members including Shell, Suncor, Enbridge, EnCana, Imperial Oil, Cenovus, ConoccoPhillips and Canadian Natural Resources, for a salary of $10,000 a month. 

Black responded, "Excellent. Need Nigel on side."

Interestingly, Bruce Carson and Nigel Wright share the same lawyer, Patrick McCann. 
Doug Black was appointed to the Senate last year.

EPIC's mandate was to produce an industry-led national energy strategy, which they did in 2011, and by June 2013 the 100% industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator was set up with yet another EPIC vice chair and energy lobbyist as chair - Gerard Protti, founder of CAPP.

The EPIC leadership line-up from 2011:

Doug Black – EPIC President 

David Emerson – Chair 

Bruce Carson – Vice Chair 

Elyse Allan – Vice Chair - CEO of GE Canada  

Gerard Protti – Vice Chair - VP of EnCana, founder of CAPP 

Daniel Gagnier – Vice Chair - VP of Alcan

There's another interesting relationship in that line-up as well.

When Carson appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources in April 2010, in addition to plumping for building a pipeline to move oil from Alberta to BC - Enbridge and TransCanada Pipelines are both member orgs of EPIC - Carson also made a pitch for smart meters. 

Nine months later on Jan. 25 2011, BC Hydro gave the first contract for its smart meter program to Corix Utilities, which (is) was at the time half-owned by CAI Capital Management Ltd. 

As it happens, yet another EPIC founding chair, David Emerson, was previously made a senior advisor to CAI Capital Management and then the following day he was named CEO and board chair of B.C. Transmission Corp., which "plans, operates and maintains the province's publicly-owned electrical transmission system" for BC Hydro. 

(BC Transmission was privatized by the BC Libs in 2003 and then reabsorbed back into BC Hydro at massive public cost in 2010)

                        

h/t Joyce Miller at Watershed Sentinel back in 2011 for Corix research.

Photo at top from Canada Ministry of Environment webpage shows Carson attending a meeting with then Environment Minister Jim Prentice and US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu two months after leaving Harper's office. 

updates : Welcome, Gazetteers!
with thanks for your wonderful link to Tyee Will McMartin's piece on Emerson, smart meters, CAI, and Corix.

APTN : Senior Trudeau advisor linked to Bruce Carson's alleged illegal lobbying: RCMP document

That would be Liberal National Campaign Co-Chair Daniel Gagnier from our 2011 list above - president of EPIC since sometime in 2012 and still  going  strong.

Poor old EPIC. Seems every time they get a little publicity, their website goes offline. It's been down since last night so here's a screencap taken yesterday.

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Tarsands tailing ponds leaking; scientist muzzled

Federal study confirms oilsands tailings found in groundwater, river

The least surprising thing about this CP story on Environment Canada research indicating water from tarsands tailings ponds is leaching into groundwater and seeping into the Athabasca River is the by now depressingly familiar way the lead Environment Canada scientist was muzzled from speaking about it.

First : News of the study, published here in the Environmental Science and Technology journal in January, followed up by a good outline of the study from the CP reporter.

Second, muzzling of the lead scientist by an Environment Canada media relations guy who nonetheless provides the reporter with an opinion of his own :

"Environment Canada said it was unable to provide an interview with the report's main author, Richard Frank.
In an email, department spokesman Danny Kingsberry downplayed its findings.

despite the study's published conclusion that :

"These samples included two of upward flowing groundwater collected < 1 m beneath the Athabasca River, suggesting oil sands process-affected groundwater is reaching the river system."

This is apparently what EC spokesy Danny Kingsberry does for a living.

Third : No problem however getting interview quotes from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers that "the quality of water in the Athabasca River remains good" and 

"While the research technique used in this study shows some potential, further detailed work is required to evaluate its accuracy and adequacy for tracking oil sands process water." 

All of which reminded me of that parliamentary Environment Committee that destroyed the results of its own 18 month study of the tarsands pollution and water three and a half years ago. 
Dr. David Schindler, founding director of the Experimental Lakes Area project, had just testified about his own damning research into airborne tarsands contaminants found in the snow pack along the Athabasca River. He explained his project was "set up to examine the claim of industry and the Alberta government that no pollution from the oil sands industry gets into the Athabasca River."  
He further offered his opinion that oil companies' reports on contaminants are duly submitted to Environment Canada but EC is being muzzled and prevented from making the findings public -- after which the Environment Committee went in camera for the next seven sessions before destroying their report to the public and agreeing to cease their study of the oil sands and Canada's water resources altogether. 

Most of the members of that committee are still sitting in the House, including Justin Trudeau who I hear is giving quite a lot of interviews lately. Maybe some enterprising journo/accredited blogger could ask him wtf happened there. 
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Joint CAPP/Postmedia tarsands promotion

Postmedia - CAPP Showcase - January 2013 from Postmedia 3i on Vimeo.

Thurs AM update : Postmedia just yanked the vid.

Transcript :

"Postmedia is proud to present its 2013 media partnership with CAPP.

We are a media company national in scope but community-focused. Canadians know our brands, trust our content, and welcome us as a vital member of their communities. 

In 2013, we'll join Canadians in discussing what really drives Canada's economic engine - energy.  With a multi-media strategy that includes a digital sponsorship of the Energy Channel across our national network. Our editorial coverage will be tied to multiple touchpoints for CAPP including : 100% of all advertizing on energy pages, sponsorship logo, live conversation feeds, social media feeds, CAPP's partner representation, videos, promotional links, homepage takeovers, and more. 

CAPP's messaging will extend to our massive mobile and tablet network so that vital energy information is never more than a click away. Our print coverage will include weekly energy editorial across our entire newspaper chain, along with monthly joint ventures and quarterly special reports on subjects CAPP needs to bring to the forefront of Canadian consciousness. 

We'll direct our audience to the CAPP Energy Channel, Direct Mail, with a combination of promotional advertising and social media amplification.
The CAPP and Postmedia program will be executed with seamless project management and continuously optimized throughout to ensure your success. 

Be where your audience is : Postmedia."

Vancouver Observer posted slides from an alternate joint PostMedia/CAPP presentation that turned up on twitter yesterday.

Postmedia includes National Post, Financial Post, Vancouver Sun and Province, Times Colonist, Winnipeg Free Press ***, Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald, Windsor Star, Edmonton Journal, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Montreal Gazette, and canada.com.

In November, 19% of Postmedia was acquired by a second New York hedge fund, raising the total percentage of its foreign ownership to 54%.

*** Ooops - sold in 2011. Serves me right for copying the list of papers directly off the Postmedia 2013 presentation at top. I guess they were referring to their *brand*.
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Keystone XL vs owning the tarsands

Former U.S. ambassador to Canada David Wilkins calls it "catastrophic", FinMin Flaherty said "the delay may kill the project" so Canada will look into sending our oil to China via BC instead, and TransCanada Corp is "deeply disappointed". So goes the official reaction to the US State Dept decision to delay Keystone XL for further examination.

But the vast majority of comments from the public under these news stories boil down to this :
Why doesn't Canada do its own tarsands refining?
Why isn't Canada building its own refineries and keeping the jobs here rather than just shipping the raw material abroad?

The response from purported industry insiders under these comments runs as follows :

that no investors are willing to undertake building tarsands refineries because it would be very very expensive; not enough profit margin; that there would be considerable Canadian nimby, environmental, and FN opposition to building them leading to a protracted approval process of uncertain outcome; that Canada does not have the expertise to build them; that Canadian labour costs are too high.

I guess it's too obvious to include that multicorps and foreign companies operating in the tarsands likely want to optimize corporate control and profits by owning both ends of the supply line. 

Or that we're importing 1,088,000 barrels of oil per day against the 1,929,000 that we're exporting because even though TransCanada CEO Russ Girling says : 

 “We can route a pipeline through the Andes, over the Rocky Mountains, through the Everglades, through the Sand Hills”

 apparently we can't route one to eastern Canada.


Foreign ownership :

StatsCan : Total assets, operating revenues and operating profits under foreign control

Oil and gas extraction and support activities - 2009 

• Assets - 35.9% under foreign control
• Operating revenues - 51.1% under foreign control 
• Operating profits : 41.3% under foreign control

"American-controlled enterprises continued to dominate the shares of assets, revenues and profits under foreign-control. These enterprises increased their share of both revenues and profits to 59.1% and 58.3% respectively." 

"In the oil and gas extraction industry, foreign-controlled enterprises increased their share of revenues to 51.1%. This occurred as revenues declined nearly twice as fast in 2009 for domestic enterprises as they did for foreign enterprises."

Looking through the producing members of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, I notice nearly 20% of them list their head offices outside Canada, mostly in Texas. 20% doesn't sound like much but many of them are the bigs, including Koch, ExxonMobil, Shell. 

Meanwhile China's investment in the tarsands is up to what - $13-billion now? 

 
Leo De Bever is head of Alberta’s $70-billion pool of public sector funds, including pension funds, endowments, and the $15-billion Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

"My simple point is that you lose ownership, you lose control. Those who control the resource always have the incentive to dig it up as soon as possible,” Mr. De Bever said. 

Mr. De Bever said it would make more sense for Canada to accelerate the development of technologies to produce the oil sands, improving environmental impacts and efficiency, rather than accelerate extraction.
“That is where that tradeoff of digging up now versus digging up later comes in,” he said. “If you know that in a few years you can make it drastically more efficient, it makes the resource more valuable.”

“If you want a strong Canadian economy, to some degree large Canadian institutions have got to take it upon themselves to be not just passive investors,” said Mr. De Bever. “Doing the right thing is not part of my mandate. Doing the profitable thing is. But if  I can do the right thing and the profitable thing, I would do so.”

Sounds like a "no-brainer", doesn't it, Steve?

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Ethical Oil Ethics For Dummies

Ethical Oil's new spokesy Kathryn Marshall had a little think yesterday about whether the tarsands are still ethical even if bits of it are owned by China and its unethical oil company, and even if Ottawa and Alberta are successful in their bid to hawk the stuff to communist China.

"Is Canadian oil suddenly less ethical, " she asks, "when it's produced and used by unethical countries?"
No! she answers, it's still ethical! 
You're shocked, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, over at the Christian Science Monitor :

"The whole notion of ethical oil sets up a false dilemma because the very viscous Canadian crude needs to be cut with lighter oils from places like Saudi Arabia in order to be transported down a pipeline, says Chris MacDonald, a visiting scholar for the Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics at the University of Toronto. 

"So what's the point of having ethical oil if you are mixing it with this 'conflict oil'?"

Andrew Nikiforuk @ The Tyee : 

"By 2025, for example Canada could be importing more than two million barrels of foreign or so-called "unethical" oil a day, just to transport bitumen to U.S. refineries."

 The problem of adding imported diluents to tarsands crude is of considerable concern to CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, says Nikiforuk. Seems foreign diluents could be subject to US country-of-origin duty charges both when it is imported into Canada from non-NAFTA sources via US ports, and again when it is shipped from Canada back to US refineries.


CAPP, November 2010 : Rethinking NAFTA Certification of Canadian Heavy Crude Oil

• After 2005 regional condensate/pentanes + supply was no longer sufficient to satisfy diluent needs
• This has led to a rapid increase in diluent imports
• Initially, diluent imports were small and were sourced from the U.S.
• With development of the EnCana/Cenovus Kitimat terminal, non-NAFTA diluent began entering the western Canadian diluent pool
• Export to U.S. of Dilbit and Diluted Heavy Crude in 2009 – 970,000 BPD
• Export to U.S. of Light Crude in 2009 - 300,000 BPD
• If U.S. duty were charged on both streams, annual cost to industry - $30,000,000

Huh.


When former Ethical Oil spokesy Alykhan Velshi slagged Saudi Arabia's human rights record in a 30 second ad which resulted in Saudi cease and desist lawyery letters sent to CTV/Bell Media, Velshi's former boss Immigration Minister Jason Kenney leapt to his defence, and Dame Ezra, author of Ethical Oil : The Book and The Website, milked the speechey hell out of it over at SunTV. 


This time I'm betting Steve is thinking : Just STFU about ethics, Kathryn, we're trying to do a deal here.

Tune in next week when Kathryn considers whether it's ok for ethical oil to steal a loaf of bread to feed a hungry child ... 

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Update : The CAPP Industry presentation "Rethinking Nafta Certification of Canadian Heavy Crude Oil" link appears to no longer be available so here's a google cache copy and a pdf copy . 
Info quoted above is from pages 5 to 10.
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Framing the future of a national energy export strategy

Corporate oilbidness sponsorship of next week's annual conference of federal and provincial energy ministers caused a few ripples in our  national  media yesterday.

The Government of Alberta Natural Resources webpage lists $180,000 in corporate sponsorship fees for the
"Framing the Future of Energy and Mines"
Energy and Mines Ministers' Conference,
July 16 - 19, 2011

Gold Sponsorship - $30,000
Silver Sponsorship - $20,000
Bronze Sponsorship - $10,000
Just like the Olympics!

Particular mention was made of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers' $30,000 gold sponsorship fee to a government conference where a national energy strategy will be discussed.

Yo, media guys! You know what would have been more useful? Coverage of CAPP's sponsorship of a federal cabinet ministers' meeting in Alberta last week to promote the tarsands.

Last week CAPP hosted Environment Minister Peter Kent, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney, Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose, and Minister of State of Foreign Affairs Diane Ablonczy in a roundtable discussion following tours of Syncrude and Suncor.

Kenney said the tour enabled them to "go back to parliament and around the world, and defend Canada's oilsands as an environmentally responsible production of energy".
He said the tarsands "constitute the future engine of the Canadian economy" :

"We're talking in 25 years about over $2 trillion in economic growth estimated to be some $700 billion in federal and provincial government revenues. ... There was a lot of bad mouthing about this industry and our government has consistently stood up in defence of the Alberta oilsands ... we will stand up for this incredible growth of our prosperity."

Kenney also pledged his ministry's continued intention to "fine tune its immigration program" to deliver the skillsets the tarsands requires.

Fun fact : There are more than 20 Alberta MPs in the federal caucus.
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