Oil and gas production is Canada’s largest and fastest growing contribution to the climate crisis. Yet instead of cutting oil production, the federal government’s climate plan targets oil and gas consumers with measures like carbon taxes, but allows big oil companies to increase production, emissions and profits. . […]
Based in Calgary, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is the main lobby group for the big oil companies. She constantly pressures governments, drapes herself in the maple leaf flag and demonizes environmental activists by accusing them of being funded by non-Canadians. Yet the big oil companies are largely foreign-owned, and CAPP itself is largely foreign-funded. But that didn’t stop her from launching a campaign in 2019 against “foreign-funded anti-pipeline activists,” who allegedly supported “a concerted move to end our industry.”
Jason Kenney, leader of the United Conservative Party of Alberta, answered CAPP’s call and promised that if his party won the 2019 provincial election in Alberta, he would set up a “crisis centre” and a public inquiry to shed light on “huge sums of money” that US foundations allegedly paid to Canadian environmental groups to limit the market for Alberta oil.
Mr. Kenney won the election and launched a public inquiry. It followed the money trail and found that the annual foreign funding of environmentalists trying to block the flow of oil from Alberta was minimal, and less than the cost of the public inquiry itself.
Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage nevertheless called it a “real concern” that a group was “influencing the policy and regulatory framework using foreign funds”.
Agreed. Why, then, has his government not asked the public inquiry to examine the much larger flows of foreign oil money that are massively fueling energy and climate debates in Canada? ? All of the major oil and gas companies operating in Canada are wholly or for the most part foreign-owned. Foreign ownership is also financing from abroad.
CAPP and the big oil companies it lobbies for are responsible for Canada now being the G7’s worst contributor to the climate crisis due to its per capita carbon emissions. Emissions from oil and gas production exceed those from all modes of transportation in Canada. While emissions from the United States and Japan are around their 1990 levels, those from Canada are up 21% from that base year. Those of the European Union and Great Britain, for their part, fell by 25% and 40%, respectively.
After allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Ottawa banned such foreign interference in Canadian matters, but the federal government left a loophole in which CAPP largely slotted.
Canada prohibited “foreign entities,” including “corporations outside Canada,” from incurring election expenses, but it did not prohibit foreign corporations headquartered in Canada. This loophole must be closed.
Where does CAPP get funding to hire 36 full-time lobbyists, spend lots of money on advertising, and fund front groups, like Canada’s Energy Citizens, that pose as citizens? CAPP’s revenues are not public, but we estimate that 97% of these come from member companies of foreign origin, because membership fees are based on their oil production. However, 97% of the oil produced by the members of the board of directors of the ACPP comes from foreign companies. […]
Reduce oil production
When big foreign oil companies talk, Ottawa listens. They had, thanks to their lobbyists, 11,452 contacts with representatives of the federal government between 2011 and 2018 and held with them an average of four meetings per weekday of the first year of the pandemic. They say they agree with the idea of cutting oil production, but are demanding huge subsidies, including a recent request for $32 billion for carbon capture. CAPP claims that the oil industry is the backbone of the Canadian economy. It’s wrong. The industry directly employs less than 1% of Canadian workers.
In our report, we recommend that the federal and provincial governments adopt the measures being considered by the United States to prohibit foreign companies from interfering in elections. Foreign-influenced companies are defined as those where 5% is owned by a foreign government, 20% is owned by a single non-governmental owner, or 50% is owned by various foreign interests.
If Canada is serious about reducing its GHG emissions and respecting its international obligations, it must quickly reduce oil production, generously support oil workers in the transition, curb the influence of big oil companies by revealing that they are impersonating for Canadian corporations and prohibit their interference in election financing and policy-making here.