Party of One (37 page)

But Carson had other problems. On March 5, 2014, CBC’s Laura Payton learned that the RCMP had seized Carson’s banking records. It was an important story. Emails obtained by the
Mounties during the water filtration system investigation showed that Carson had allegedly attempted to lobby very senior members of the government on other matters. These included the clerk of the Privy Council, Wayne Wouters, and the PM’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright. The lobbying was done on behalf of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada (EPIC), for a national energy strategy. Information to Obtain
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documents filed in court reveal that Constable Marie-Josée Robert alleged Carson’s “continuous association” with public officials allowed him to accept money for “consideration for his co-operation, assistance or exercise of influence in connection with business matters with the government on behalf of EPIC.” The officer believed Carson was, in fact, lobbying government.

On November 16, 2009, Carson had emailed Wayne Wouters, clerk of the Privy Council, about meeting him the following week: “—will be in Ottawa from monday to wed inclusive next week— you got half an hour for a visit—bc.” Wouters replied the same day: “Sure. Set it up with my office.” Other email exchanges occurred with top civil servants in Natural Resources and Environment Canada, followed by meetings. On November 26, 2009, Carson emailed the deputy minister of natural resources, Cassie Doyle, telling her he’d had one of his regular meetings with the clerk of the Privy Council and that they had spent most of their time talking about energy: “I brought him up to speed on various initiatives I am involved in—in this area—especially the so-called ‘think-tank’ one I wrote to you about a month or so ago after a meeting in Winnipeg.” The officer noted in her affidavit that although the executive committee of EPIC had decided early in January 2010 not to lobby the federal government, Carson’s lobbying activity actually increased after that decision.

In a November 2010 email, Doug Black, one of EPIC’s founders, praised Carson’s efforts, and said money was “No issue. . . . We
are making progress and you are the secret sauce.” Carson earned $160,000 between February 2010 and February 2011 for his work with EPIC. Carson was the principal author of the institute’s policy, and according to Gerry Protti, now chair of the Alberta Energy Regulator, Carson was “probably seen as one of the most knowledgeable people in the country on how to navigate the federal process.” Shortly after Nigel Wright became Harper’s chief of staff in January 2011, Carson made contact: “Nigel—I don’t think we have ever met—but we have a few mutual friends. . . . thought I would share with you a report I just finished on energy . . . would love to meet with you at your convenience—bc.” Wright replied, “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you. Feel free to give me a call any time. I’ll read the report over the weekend.” In February, Carson briefed Wright about EPIC and reported to Doug Black that Wright seemed generally supportive. According to the court documents, Black responded to Carson in an email, “Excellent. Need Nigel on side.”

Carson’s lawyer, Patrick McCann, denied his client was lobbying government or anyone else, and said Carson would fight the new charges if they were laid against him. He emailed CBC: “The initial search for a Canadian energy strategy involved a number of think-tanks and the Energy Policy Institute of Canada all trying to determine what a Canadian energy strategy—in an embryonic way—would look like and what it would do. In pursuing this, Mr. Carson consulted with federal and provincial governments. This did not constitute lobbying.” Under the Federal Lobbying Act, Carson was banned from lobbying for five years after he left the PMO on February 4, 2009. He was founding co-chair and then vice-chair of EPIC, as well as head of CSEE. EPIC was created in August 2009 to gain support from industry leaders, academics, and the public before going to government with their ideas for a Canadian energy strategy.

EPIC had big names on board, including former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, former president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives Thomas d’Aquino, and former Harper cabinet minister David Emerson, who became a co-chair. Doug Black had helped to create EPIC in 2009, and became chair of the board on January 1, 2012. Black was appointed to the Senate by Harper on January 25, 2013, and resigned from the EPIC board on June 30, 2013. The Conservative senator from Alberta says he did not lobby any government official following his appointment to the Senate.

After the RCMP seized Carson’s emails from his CSEE computer and the University of Alberta servers during the water company investigation, they believed they had found evidence of other alleged crimes. On May 12, 2014, Carson faced new charges: three counts of lobbying while prohibited and one count of influence peddling. It was alleged he used his contacts in Conservative circles to further his work with both EPIC and CSEE. He was scheduled to appear in court in Ottawa on the second set of charges on June 18, 2014.

Daniel Gagnier, the Liberal Party of Canada’s national campaign co-chair, now heads the Energy Policy Institute of Canada. Gagnier was chief of staff to Jean Charest when he was Quebec premier, and was also a board member during Carson’s time at EPIC. The political winds may be changing and it is possible that the oil patch was beginning to hedge its bets by appointing a powerful Liberal to head the board of EPIC.

In retreat from corruption in his innermost circle, Stephen Harper made the dubious decision to mock Liberal leader Justin Trudeau as a man unfit for leadership and “in over his head.”Trudeau responded by listing all the bad appointments Stephen Harper had made: Arthur Porter, Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau,
Bruce Carson, and even Nigel Wright. After Question Period, Trudeau observed, “We see this prime minister doesn’t have a gift for making good choices when he makes partisan nominations in areas where we shouldn’t have partisans.” With Harper’s record of elevating jailbirds, con men, and fraudsters to positions of influence, his own judgment had been called into question.

twelve

FORKED TONGUE

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n July 5, 2013, a report marked “Secret” landed on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s desk. The document was written by his special envoy on West Coast energy infrastructure, Douglas R. Eyford, a Vancouver-based litigation lawyer. Eyford had been sent to find out how the stakeholders, in particular First Nations peoples, viewed Ottawa’s push for oil and gas development on their lands. Entitled “Interim Report to the Prime Minister,” the document is full of general statements about how Ottawa needed to proceed rapidly on its most urgent initiative—energy and pipeline development in the West. The looming energy bonanza is incomprehensibly huge and the matter had suddenly become urgent.

Canada’s energy exports totalled about $110 billion in 2012, roughly 25 percent of the country’s total exports. While most Canadian petroleum goes to the United States, the industry is changing rapidly as the US develops its own domestic supplies. The Harper government wants to diversify markets—which makes economic sense. The industry has been developing refinery capacity
in Quebec and upgrading existing capacity in New Brunswick at the Irving Oil Refinery.

Both Alberta and BC see energy infrastructure projects as key economic drivers. Canada is the world’s fifth-largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, and Alberta has the third-largest crude oil reserves in the world. With approximately 101 tar sands projects in Alberta, the industry generates one in fourteen jobs in the province and provided about $4.5 billion in royalties in 2011– 2012. BC had shifted its natural resources focus to natural gas,
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and the government estimated in 2013 that the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry could create $1 trillion in economic activity over the next thirty years. BC’s goal is to have the first LNG facility in Canada up and running by 2015, with three more in operation by 2020.

With more than six hundred resource projects on the drawing board over the next ten years, time is of the essence. Several projects are in the planning and development stage—two interprovincial oil pipelines; five LNG export facilities; four intraprovincial gas pipelines; and an oil refinery near Kitimat, BC—so the stakes are enormous. The oil pipelines alone would require a direct capital investment of $11 billion, and would result in an estimated $94 billion of additional investment in the oil sands over the next twenty-five years.

The existing Trans Mountain Pipeline has been shipping Alberta oil to the west coast for export for about sixty years, and Kinder Morgan wants to triple capacity with a new, twinned pipeline. The five LNG facilities proposed for the west coast will require a capital investment of $278 billion by 2020. But as Douglas Eyford told the prime minister, because of an abundance of energy from new technologies such as fracking, the clock was ticking: “This opportunity is time-limited due to intensive global competition and changing market dynamics.”

Eyford was preaching to the converted on the importance of the developments. Stephen Harper is, first and foremost, a son of the oil patch. He had already done everything in his power to clear the path for the rapid development of Alberta’s tar sands, and in particular, to win approval for the controversial $7-billion Northern Gateway Pipeline. After a series of public hearings, from which some environmental groups were barred, the project was approved, as expected, by the National Energy Board (NEB), albeit with 209 conditions. On an internal document from the Department of International Trade and Development that was leaked in January 2012,
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the NEB was listed as one of the “allies” of the Harper government. “Opponents” of the government listed in the document included “green” groups, which Ottawa had already accused of being “foreign-funded” radicals. Once again, the government’s sneaky side was on display.

The Harper government has bent over backwards to accommodate Big Oil. Ottawa gutted seventy environmental laws and regulations in its widely denounced omnibus legislation that would otherwise have set some limits on sustainable development. Harper has lowered corporate tax rates to just 14 percent, and failed for seven straight years to bring in promised emission regulations for the oil sector. The Harper government also spent millions in taxpayers’ money portraying Big Oil as the industry that would pay for Canada’s future social services. Opponents of the tar sands were spied on by the government and publicly portrayed as dangerous threats. But despite all he had done for the petroleum industry, the massive developments Stephen Harper desired were in jeopardy.

In British Columbia, a giant Douglas fir lay across Stephen Harper’s yellow brick road to speedy resource development: Canada’s Aboriginals. The natives found themselves facing the usual peril; standing between a white man and his money has always
been a dangerous place to be. Historically, Aboriginal Canadians have not benefitted as much as others when natural resources have been developed on their territories, whether for the fur trade, the fishery, or the logging and mining industries—and now oil and gas.

In Alberta, forty-five Indian Act bands are included under three historic treaties: Treaties 2, 7, and 8. In BC, 203 Indian Act bands are represented by 21 tribal associations. The majority of the Aboriginal groups in BC have not negotiated treaties, but over the last decade the government of BC and some Aboriginal communities have established government-to-government frameworks. The parties then work through non-treaty agreements to develop resources. Doug Eyford reported that the Harper government was getting failing grades for its handling of the delicate negotiations with industry stakeholders, the provinces, and, in particular, BC First Nations. Between the lines, his message was clear: it might be time to put away the bulldozer and start listening. “Generally, the messages were respectfully delivered,” Eyford told the prime minister, but they were “firm and critical.”

The energy industry, meanwhile, was worried that investors, especially in Asia, would look elsewhere if government didn’t solve the Aboriginal issues. As an experienced lawyer, Eyford knew that an “effective relationship among federal and provincial governments, industry stakeholders, and First Nations” was critical to future energy developments proceeding. Over 150 Aboriginal communities in Alberta and BC would be affected. It was a matter of settled law by the Supreme Court of Canada that Ottawa had a constitutional obligation to consult First Nations. From a native perspective, it all came down to credibility, something that the Harper government often manufactures with slick ads during hockey games when the facts don’t do the job. But the public relations onslaught portraying rapid resource development as a boon for all wasn’t working with First Nations peoples.

Eyford noted that television and print advertising was not advancing the discussion, and that it “appears to perpetuate divisions.” Harper’s envoy noted that it was also not helpful that some in the media relied on “a small group of commentators with narrow perspectives.” Commercials were no match for the treaty rights that are affirmed in section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982. Eyford wrote, “The legal duty to consult is grounded in the core precept of the honour of the Crown and the recognition of the unique relationship that exists between the Crown and Aboriginal people in Canada.”

In 1995, Canada recognized that First Nations have an inherent right to self-government under section 35. It was a right that had been smothered in feckless negotiations and broken promises, and a new mood of defiance was awakening in the native community. Eyford warned, “Some First Nations have indicated they will engage in civil disobedience and direct action if the Northern Gateway project is approved.” The grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Derek Nepinak, seconded that observation: “There is enough momentum, there is enough diversity in the groups and the grassroots movement, there is enough geography covered to put a stop to resources development in Canada until we get what we need to break the chains of poverty.”

Generally, First Nations were cautiously supportive of the LNG projects, perceiving natural gas to be more benign than bitumen. What they opposed were the bitumen pipelines and tankers because of the potential for catastrophic damage to the environment, including thousands of streams and rivers and the formidable waters of the Douglas Channel, through which oil tankers would be navigating. Galvanizing their opposition to Northern Gateway was the grossly inadequate response by Enbridge in 2010, when three million litres of tar sands–diluted bitumen were released into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan after
the company’s pipeline ruptured. The heavy, viscous crude is mixed with corrosive chemicals such as benzene to allow it to flow, and benzene is known to cause cancer in humans.