Mar. 30, 2011 - Issue #806 : Insidious
A revealing scandal
Carson scandal reveals intent behind committee appointment
Imagine that you were a entrusted by the provincial government with setting up a panel which would develop a "world class" system for monitoring the environmental and health impacts of Alberta's tar sands industry. Who would you want on that panel?
Keep in mind the reason for the panel is a number of high profile reports, including one from a committee that your own government set up, have determined that environmental monitoring has been virtually non-existent and that what little data is being collected is entirely unreliable.
If you were sincere about monitoring environmental impacts, your panel would almost certainly include world-renowned academic experts in the fields of public health, hydrology and water quality, ecosystem health and environmental monitoring. You would also likely want to include some representatives of the indigenous communities that are being directly impacted by the water, air and ecosystem quality you are pretending to monitor. It might be a good idea to include a researcher from one of the environmental organizations that's been looking at environmental impacts for the last 10 years, and possibly a researcher or engineer from the energy industry who understands the technicalities of the extraction processes being used.
Unfortunately, this is the Alberta government and when it comes to the oil industry and the environment, sincerity and logic go out the window in favour of spin and manipulation.
So when Environment Minister Rob Renner took on the task of pulling together such a panel in late January, he did include some scientists, but included no representatives from indigenous communities or environmental organizations. He did appoint a vice president of operations from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) to the panel, and as co-chair he appointed Hal Kvisle, former president and CEO of TransCanada Corporation, and a board member of Talisman Energy and ARC Resources.
In fact, the make-up of the committee was so contrary to its stated objectives that one of the appointed scientists actually resigned before the first meeting, citing the lack of Aboriginal voices and scientific expertise on the panel, as well as confidentiality rules designed to keep her from consulting more broadly with experts outside of the panel.
The absolute worst appointment Mr Renner could have made to the panel, however, and the one that most reveals what he hopes to get from this panel, was Bruce Carson—the person who has been in the news these past two weeks as the result of an RCMP investigation into his influence peddling in the federal government on behalf of a water treatment company partially owned by his 22 year-old fiancee.
The fact that he was trying to secure deals to install her water treatment services on reserves should have been enough to keep him from being appointed to a panel ostensibly dealing with water quality on reserves, but it's actually much worse than that.
Carson is a former advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on issues of energy and climate change. And by advisor, I mean he helped build spin on tarsands production in order to avoid growing criticism by environmentalists. He worked closely with Harper, then Environment Minister Jim Prentice, Natural Resources Canada and a variety of industry groups to help develop the government’s obstructionist position at international climate change accords, and to develop the government's multi-million-dollar communications campaigns promoting tar sands developments as clean.
He was also a federal Conservative campaign strategist, helping the party develop and sell its election platforms on energy and the environment, and he has worked extensively as an advisor to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. The main qualification listed for him on the Alberta Environment web-site is that he is executive director of the Canada School for Energy and the Environment, a federally-initiated federally-funded think tank comprising researchers from the universities of Alberta, Calgary and Lethbridge—an appointment he received while he was still campaigning for the Conservatives, advising the government and working for CAPP.
In defending his decision to grant Carson a leave from the panel rather than dismissing him when the RCMP investigation came to light, Rob Renner said, "he brings some excellent skills to the committee and from that perspective he was added to the list of eminently qualified people to give us advice on this committee."
That statement highlighting Mr Carson's skills and expertise makes it crystal clear what Mr Renner is hoping to achieve with this panel: more spin, public relations, and denial, and less credibility, reliability and genuine environmental monitoring. Once again the government has taken what was a straightforward opportunity to act in good faith and turned it on its head to the detriment of Alberta's and the public's interest. V
Ricardo Acuña is the executive director of the non-partisan public policy research organization the Parkland Institute.
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