Another day, another overwrought UCP screed – this one defending fossil fuel companies’ ‘right’ to greenwash

Another day, another overwrought screed from the United Conservative Party, this one a repeat, screeching that the federal government’s changes to the Competition Act “are undemocratic, extreme and will hurt hardworking businesses and families.”

None of these things are true. The changes are democratic both in the sense they were passed by Parliament and that they violate no fundamental rights. By no definition are they extreme, indeed, some people might argue they don’t go nearly far enough to prevent corporate “greenwashing.” 

As for the preposterous claim they’ll hurt “hardworking businesses and families,” it’s nonsense on its face. It’s a truth-in-advertising law, notwithstanding the claim of the purported author of the “statement” published yesterday on the official Alberta Government website, Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, that “this isn’t about truth in advertising,” it’s “a gag order on freedom of speech.”

If we had a political truth-in-advertising law, we could demand that Ms. Schulz tell us just which hardworking businesses she has in mind. That said, there’s probably no need. I think we all have a pretty good idea. 

But it must be getting tougher to get the folks down on the farm to fork over all those $5 donations that political parties need nowadays to keep the country, U.S.-style, in a state of constant pre-election turmoil. 

Maybe folks actually believe all the Conservative propaganda about how the carbon tax is driving the country toward nuclear winter and them personally into the poorhouse, never mind the fact that the rebates most of them get are bigger than what they’re paying in tax. 

Frankly, if cynically, we expect all political parties to publish this kind of nonsense in the emails begging for money they constantly send to their supporters, or anyone else who expresses an interest. After all, most voters aren’t going to keep making those small donations if you can’t make them either angry or afraid, preferably both. This is Lesson 1 of Political Fund-Raising 101 in the 21^st Century. 

But lately Alberta’s United Conservative Party has been using official government communications, which not so long ago were pretty well restricted to conveying information about actual government business, to gin up the fear and anger that keeps the cash flowing in. 

Ms. Schulz’s cynical statement is a classic example. As noted, it’s the second time she’s done this. The last time was on May 29, before the Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act was passed by Parliament. It addition to making arguments that at best can be called tendentious, the so-called environment minister needlessly insulted NDP MP Charlie Angus, Liberal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and, for good measure, the Bloc Québécois. 

Since Ms. Schulz’s PR scribbler used most of the same arguments and much of the same language in yesterday’s screed, I hope readers will forgive me for doing the same thing and offering many of the same responses, which remain just as valid now as they were then.  

First, what was passed in Bill C-59, as it was known before it became law, is far from a gag order. What has the UCP’s collective knickers in a twist is a provision intended to prevent greenwashing. (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.) It requires corporations to provide evidence to support their environmental claims. It’s so weak it’s unlikely to be effective even if by some miracle it remains on the books for long. 

These facts didn’t discourage Ms. Schulz’s wild claims, though. “Any company not willing to risk millions of dollars in fines and legal fees will be forced to stay silent,” she claimed then, implying, falsely, that company officials faced jail time as a result. “These amendments include extremely harsh penalties for businesses that make environmental claims,” she claims now. 

In fact, no one will ever be jailed for greenwashing the way the Competition Act is now written. First, because while a private member’s bill put forward by Mr. Angus contained a provision for jail terms, the law that was actually passed does not. The relevant section does not empower the courts to imprison anyone for the offense described. In addition, the new section creates a civil, not criminal, offence. 

To find an unlikely possibility of imprisonment you have to go to section 52 of the Competition Act, which already existed long before the UCP started trying to whip up rage about the legislation, which allows imprisonment to be ordered for the criminal offence of knowingly or recklessly making false or misleading representations.

But a determined greenwasher would have to work pretty hard – ignoring a court order, for example – even to risk a fine.

The process companies would have to observe, wrote lawyer and blogger Susan Wright back in June, “would be no different than the typical corporate securities process followed by any publicly traded company. … Not once in my entire legal career has a CEO complained that the process of complying with the obligation to be truthful is akin to ‘an undemocratic gag order.’ It’s simply part of doing business.”

“Having rules to prevent corporations from engaging in false advertising is a basic tenet of consumer protection,” observed Mr. Angus, the soon-to-retire MP for Timmins-James Bay, at the time of Ms. Schulz’s original outburst. 

“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 scoffed.

Believe what you will about the federal legislation, the disputed changes to the Competition Act have already had one positive and measurable benefit for Alberta taxpayers and the province’s reputation. 

It resulted in the UCP’s decision to shut down the ludicrous and expensive Alberta Energy War Room, officially known as Canadian Energy Centre Ltd., bringing a long-running international embarrassment to an end. The War Room’s website still exists, now run by the government, but it will fade away in the fullness of time. 

Someone realized, obviously, that unlike oil and gas companies, the principal business of the War Room was propaganda, and propaganda about petroleum extraction inevitably tends toward greenwashing.