Guest Post: Reduce ‘red tape’ and also have the highest environmental standards? Can’t be done!

Anyone who reads a lot of Alberta government news releases soon come to realize that there’s a kind of literary word salad in play – phrases that seem to mean one thing but on closer analysis are just jumbles of words intended to convey “truthiness,” the term coined by American comedian Stephen Colbert – who has just been fired and his popular late-night comedy show cancelled by CBS for sailing too close to the actual truth about America’s thin-skinned president. We are familiar with thin-skinned leaders that lie a lot here in Alberta, too. In this guest post, Professional Biologist, author and educator Lorne Fitch laments the dangerous use of deceptive language that is standard practice when United Conservative Party politicians try to reassure us about the state of Alberta’s environment on their watch. Mr. Fitch is a frequent contributor to this blog. DJC

By Lorne Fitch

The Alberta government would have us believe in impossible things, notably that it is possible to reduce red-tape while still boasting of the highest environmental standards. 

With their endlessly-repeated mantra of “responsible resource development” spewing out like hyperbolic exhaust from a rhetoric machine, language becomes ever more devoid of meaning, of evidence. 

This grandiose rhetoric resembles the plastic building blocks made famous by Lego; a variety of words stitched together. Read many government and industry press releases and you will see a smorgasbord of words that sound impressive, but are anything but clear. Plastic words that are malleable and can be made to fit every circumstance. They fill up space and glue together incomprehensible subjects to provide an illusion of clarity and honesty.

In “communication,” as practised corporately and politically, we are endlessly enveloped in literary alchemy. Listening to the centrifugal rhetoric might give you a similar feeling to chowing down on junk food. It appeals to the taste buds but offers no contentment.

Appropriating the words of science is an attempt to superficially make the dialogue resemble the terms of science. Reading the soup of words with some scientific terms sprinkled in, one can wrongly assume an association with rigorous science. However, the meaning is independent of the original source. It works to provide an illusion of expertise and of experts. The words become so flexible that they become devoid of any relevant meaning.

You might recognize some of the plastic words: balance, trade-offs, mitigation, monitoring, modernize (regulations), appropriate, progress, (comprehensive) consultation, responsible (resource development), stringent (environmental protection), best practices, world class, ethical (oil), state-of-the-art, sustainable, wise use, deregulation, and in the public interest.

Like Lego blocks these words can be combined, interchanged, and adapted to explain and justify a variety of actions. Putting several together can give you something like this: 

“We can balance growing the economy with protecting the environment and progress to world class, even state-of-the-art sustainable, responsible stewardship through cutting unnecessary red tape but ensuring comprehensive public engagement and timely consultation, informing best practices and ethical wise use with trade-offs, mitigation, and modern, stringent monitoring and environmental protection.”

We really have world class environmental rules, you say? Not so: Natural gas flaring in Alberta is no longer regulated — because industry wouldn’t comply with the rules. A growing list of petroleum companies is substantially negligent in basic maintenance and reclamation. A coal company caught flouting the rules threatened provincial staff, trying to make them comply. 

There are numerous compliance failures in reclaiming coal exploration footprints. 

Failures exist in following even the most minimal logging guidelines. An unwillingness to reduce logging has put several fish and wildlife species at risk, to the point where local extirpation is now a possibility. 

Southern Alberta rivers endure near-death experiences every summer because of government failures to even meet the absurdly low minimum flows our “world-class regulations” call for.

There is no comprehensive, continuous water quality monitoring in the province. Plus, there is a history of government taking no action where water quality issues are noted.

This list is far more extensive. It doesn’t square with the lofty pronouncements that all is well in the kingdom of Alberta.

When the provincial government uses words like responsible, highest standards, ethical, modern, and balanced, do they mean anything? Based on the evidence, not much. 

Rather than setting and adhering to high standards Alberta has opted for environmental deregulation disguised with empty words and phrases. If it exists, this is the current Alberta Advantage. 

Lewis Carroll must have been thinking of plastic words in this passage from Through the Looking Glass: “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’”

Karen Marie Moning, an American author, writes that ”Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul.” In the final analysis, Alberta’s plastic words provide little meaning and it is actions that speak loudest. Do not be fooled by those who appropriate words and intentionally bind them together in a fog of respectability meant to change reality.

Only in a fairy tale world can you reduce the presumed red-tape on development, as Alberta has, and still proclaim “world class” environmental standards are being met. Words are cheap and easy. Current evidence speaks louder. And facts actually do matter.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a past Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.