Anti-Alberta inquiry is an embarrassment and must end

It began as a smear against environmentalists.

Then it became a full-fledged conspiracy theory that quickly caught on among the higher echelons of the Canadian petroleum industry.

It went like this: U.S. foundations (also known as “foreign funders”) were shovelling money into Canadian environmental campaigns designed to stop pipelines carrying bitumen and generally impede growth of Alberta’s oilsands because they were a threat to the U.S. petroleum industry.

It even became a war cry for Jason Kenney as he advanced along the campaign trail to becoming premier.

Once elected, Kenney established the Public Inquiry into anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns and almost immediately it blew up in his face.

The inquiry was designed to shame, blame and frighten environmentalists, Indigenous protestors and those who fund them. But it is the Alberta government that now looks ridiculous for pouring $3.5 million into investigating a conspiracy theory that never made sense in the first place.

As conspiracy theories usually do, this one’s particular narrative satisfied some oil industry executives, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and climate-change deniers who didn’t want to believe that public opinion outside Alberta was shifting in support of decarbonizing everything from electricity generation to cars in order to curb emissions and thwart global warming.

Kenney doesn’t want to believe that either, even though the evidence is overwhelming. So much so that it’s not unusual to see headlines in Houston, the U.S. capital for the oil and gas industry, proclaiming the end of oil’s rule and the beginning of a new era.

But, instead of facing reality, Kenney targeted environmentalists and Indigenous groups mostly in B.C., who actively opposed the Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain pipelines, because of concerns about environmental damage should there be a spill of the thick oil, and high greenhouse gas emissions produced during the extraction and processing of the oil.

Then he bought into the idea they are under “foreign” influence and the Tarsands Campaign, as it was known among environmentalists, became even more nefarious.

Of course, the same standard does not apply to the petroleum industry, which has received billions of dollars of investment from the U.S. and overseas. The same industry that spends millions every year promoting itself and its contributions to the Canadian economy.

The money spent by environmental groups is a pittance by comparison.

As can be expected, when a public inquiry is set up on such shaky ground, it will falter.

And this one is no exception. Accusations of conflict of interest have plagued the inquiry’s chief commissioner, Steve Allan, a Calgary forensic accountant who handed out solesource contracts and had been an active fundraiser for the cabinet minister who appointed him.

There have been no public hearings or publicly available progress reports. It’s almost impossible to find out what exactly the inquiry has been doing for the past 18 months. Its reporting deadline has been extended three times.

The Inquiry did commission three reports at a total cost of $100,000. Besides promoting their own conspiracy theories, the reports all presumed climate change is a hoax.

The inquiry would have been better off if it had hired Vancouver lawyer Sandy Garossino, who dug deep into the funding of the Tarsands Campaign and debunked the whole conspiracy theory in one piece of thoroughly researched journalism.

And then there is the central premise driving the inquiry: That funding from another country for environmental or climate-change campaigns is inherently dishonest and shameful. Why? Climate change and environmental issues don’t stop at national borders. Directly, or indirectly, they affect everyone.

Jason Kenney targeted environmentalists and Indigenous groups, then he bought into the idea they are under “foreign” influence

And isn’t speaking up, protesting, launching campaigns and court cases part of what happens in a democracy when people disagree on fundamental issues?

But perhaps that’s the whole point of this fake inquiry: shutting down environmental NGOs, forcing them to spend time and money defending themselves rather than actively campaigning.

It’s the inquiry that needs to be shut down. That’s what Canadian environmental NGO Ecojustice is hoping to do when it goes to court this week in a bid to quash the inquiry on the grounds it was established for political purposes. There is certainly no shortage of evidence on that point.