Okay, okay, it’s not very surprising, but it’s still pretty chilling: Natural Resources Canada is literally taking dictation on oil sands policy from – you guessed it! – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
The Edmonton Sun reported on Tuesday that
In newly released emails and internal records, department officials said the strategy to “turn up the volume” and get “the right attitude” on oilsands advocacy was actually proposed by high-ranking officials from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers during a March 2010 meeting involving senior federal and Alberta government officials, as well CEOs from oil and gas companies.
In fairness, if the government wants to promote the oil sands, who better to go to than the people behind it? Surely the fine folks at the CAPP don’t have any vested interest in wanting to use the considerable media resources of the Canadian government to explicitly promote their business venture, nor do they have any motivation for wanting direct control of the messaging coming out from the Canadian government, except for wanting to make more money. Right?
The revelations also coincide with the recent release of an Environment Canada report, quietly posted online, that said the oilsands sector is projected to triple its carbon dioxide pollution over the next decade if companies do not improve their environmental performance. This would virtually cancel actions of other Canadian industries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Ha ha ha, oil & gas lobbyists. Don’t you ever change.