The UCP’s New Target: Limits on Fossil Fuel Greenwashing

Say what you will about Alberta’s United Conservative Party government, you have to admire their sheer brass.

Consider the impassioned protests of the province’s so-called environment minister, Rebecca Schulz, whose job apparently principally involves enabling and even encouraging environmental destruction by fossil fuel extraction corporations, at the prospect of federal legislation that would try to hold Big Oil to the alien concept of truth in advertising.

Quelle horreur!

Last week, under the headline “Bill C-59 gag order must be stopped,” Schulz, or more likely someone in the UCP strategic brain trust, published an overwrought screed on the government’s official web page claiming Ottawa’s Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023, is a major attack on free speech.

What is proposed is not a gag order, of course, and the bill contains a long list of what could be referred to as housekeeping items. As for the utility of the truth-in-advertising measures included in its pages, there’s probably not much given the short time likely remaining to the Liberal federal government.

Still, the bill, tabled last fall, has been amended to include a provision to try to prevent “greenwashing” by requiring corporations to provide evidence to support their environmental claims. Greenwashing is usually defined as a form of marketing spin intended to persuade members of the public that a product, service or activity is more environmentally friendly than it really is.

The bill has been barely reported by mainstream media, and what little analysis there is tends to be hidden on specialty political publications behind expensive paywalls.

So this has provided an opportunity for the UCP to make outrageous claims about the legislation that are more difficult to challenge than they would have been had the media done its job.

Schulz’s hysterical broadside fingers NDP MP Charlie Angus for amendments to the implementation legislation inspired by his unsuccessful private member’s bill that managed to “sneak” into C-59 “through the back door.” Well, OK.

After complaining that the bill is supported by the Bloc Québécois, NDP and Liberals — pretty broad support given Parliament’s current makeup — she complains that it will allow environmental activists (bad) to sue oil and gas companies (good) “over ‘misleading environmental benefits.’”

“Companies that wish to defend their environmental record will have to prove that their claims can be substantiated by an ‘internationally recognized methodology,’ a vague and undefined phrase that creates needless uncertainty for businesses,” she continues.

“Any company not willing to risk millions of dollars in fines and legal fees will be forced to stay silent. And that is exactly the outcome that Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault and the federal Liberal-NDP-Bloc Québécois alliance wants to happen.”

The “Liberal-NDP-Bloc Québécois alliance”? Meaning in this case support for the same bill. I’m frankly surprised the UCP’s screed writer didn’t call it an “axis of evil.”

In a statement published Friday, the Environmental Defence advocacy organization accused Schulz of trying “to create controversy out of legislation that simply demands companies tell the truth,” which under the circumstances seems fair.

“Greenwashing is a pervasive issue, and there should be consequences for companies lying about their green credentials,” the Environmental Defence statement continued. “The important amendments made to Bill C-59 will help protect consumers from greenwashing and help tackle misinformation about the causes of and solutions to climate change.

“Alberta should not be siding with big polluters over the public.”

Well, as to that last sentence, perhaps Environmental Defence missed how siding with big polluters over the public, even when the public includes traditionally conservative voters, is embedded deeply in the DNA of the United Conservative Party. If you doubt me, just consider the party’s approach to coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

Angus, who plans to retire from Parliament after the next election, said much the same thing on X. “Having rules to prevent corporations from engaging in false advertising is a basic tenet of consumer protection,” the MP for Timmins-James Bay observed in response to a copy of the minister’s statement published on social media, which includes a laughable graphic of a well-fed white guy with a nice necktie and a piece of duct tape slapped over his mouth.

“You can tell that Big Oil is feeling the heat when they need to call on the UCP to protect their longstanding tradition of false advertising,” he tweeted. “Tsk. tsk.”

This, in turn aroused a riposte from Schulz.

Angus and Guilbeault “like to pretend this is about corporate advertising, but it’s really about shutting down dissenting opinion,” she huffed. “They will fine, jail and bankrupt anybody who disagrees with them. If they had any integrity, they’d let their ideas be debated without putting their thumb on the scale.”

The bill is now headed to the Senate. No one will ever be jailed or bankrupted as a result of its provisions, even if the Liberals miraculously hang onto power.

But let’s give the last quote about this to Sarah Elmeligi, MLA for Banff-Kananaskis and the Alberta NDP’s environment critic, who also weighed in Friday on X.

“Did a UCP Minister just complain about limiting debate? Wow. Considering that ALL UCP MLAs just voted for the most time allocations in Alberta history, limiting debate on several important bills to a couple of hours, I find that a bit rich.”

Readers will recall that the UCP has used “time allocation” — closure, that is — to shut down debate more than 50 times since the party came to power in 2019. The NDP used it four times over four years.

And squelching debate in the legislature is only part of the story with the UCP — they also want to silence dissenting voices on campus, in municipal councils, in academic research and independent agencies. The list of ideas the UCP doesn’t want debated is very long indeed.

So, yes, Schulz’s drum-beating is pretty rich.

But the UCP has no shame, and hence it cannot be shamed. Which is a shame.