Something 'Impossible' Just Happened
Maybe it isn't as hard to reign in misinformation as we've been told---
The federal government recently proclaimed an omnibus bill that had a provision that tightened-up the truth in advertising legislation that was already on the books.
Let’s first start with a few reporting issues.
First, the thing about an omnibus bill is that they are really hard to understand because they generally consist of a lot of subtle changes to already existing legislation. For example, here’s the wording that is the basis for this article:
236 (1) Subsection 74.01(1) of the Act is amended by striking out “or” at the end of paragraph (b) and by adding the following after that paragraph:
(b.1) makes a representation to the public in the form of a statement, warranty or guarantee of a product’s benefits for protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental, social and ecological causes or effects of climate change that is not based on an adequate and proper test, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation;
(b.2) makes a representation to the public with respect to the benefits of a business or business activity for protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological causes or effects of climate change that is not based on adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation; or
Second, the government does go to the trouble of explaining what these changes mean in other websites it manages.
Improvements to the deceptive marketing practices provisions
Under the Competition Act, it is illegal to advertise or market something in a way that is false or misleading.
The changes strengthen the Competition Bureau’s ability to act against bogus discount claims and drip pricing by:
- Requiring that businesses be able to establish that their discount claims are genuine.
- Clarifying that it is misleading to omit mandatory fees from advertised prices, unless those fees are imposed by government on purchasers, such as sales tax.
Previously, some firms had interpreted the Competition Act as allowing them to pass their own business taxes and regulatory compliance costs onto consumers as mandatory hidden fees.
The changes also tackle unsupported environmental claims, commonly known as greenwashing, by:
- Requiring that claims about the environmental benefits of a product be supported by adequate and proper testing.
- Requiring that claims about the environmental benefits of a business or business activity be based on adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with an internationally recognized methodology.
- The Bureau is assessing the impact of these requirements and expects to provide guidance, in due course, that will offer transparency and predictability for the business and the legal communities in the enforcement of the law.
I can only hope that the above explanation is an actual representation of what the bill will actually do, because short of hiring an expensive lawyer (and trusting her too!) that’s about the only way I can make heads or tails of what is going on. Unfortunately, a lot of good-looking legislation can be undone by refusing to allocate sufficient resources to actually enforce it, or, by someone twisting the letter and ignoring the intent of the bill. That means that even if the Liberals stay in power, it will be important to see if they choose to actually enforce these new rules—or just stand at the sidelines and go back to stating their inability to actually do anything.
I first came across this story in the festering, on-line cesspool known as “LinkedIn” where some trolls were posting heart-wrenching laments about the latest assault by the God-cursed Liberals against the free-speech of oil industry executives. Not being a fan of those ‘vampire squid’ types, I thought I’d look into what really happened.
For a long time, I had noticed on YouTube a number of extremely irritating video advertisements to the effect that if you really care about the environment, you should support the tar sands—because they were making great strides in dealing with the Climate Emergency. Here’s an example (it was saved on-line by someone I’ve never heard of before and had almost no followers—so he shall remain anonymous.)
I mentioned that this clip has been saved, because almost as soon as the new legislation was passed, the Pathways Alliance stopped showing these ads on-line and scrubbed them from their website and anywhere else these had been available. This wasn’t all that disappeared. Luckily, a lot of stuff on the site that has been removed is still available care of the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine”. In addition, various video bits and bobs still exist on YouTube because other people have already downloaded and republished them where it can no longer be erased by the Pathways Alliance people.
For example, here’s a page that has been scrubbed by the Alliance, but which still exists in the Wayback Machine. Embedded in that page there was a video, which luckily was downloaded and posted by The Canadian Process Equipment & Control News :
Let’s try to deconstruct some of this.
Here’s an introduction to the scrubbed webpage I linked to above through the Wayback Machine:
How we’ll achieve our plan:
There is no single path to net zero. That’s why we’re pursuing multiple technologies and approaches to achieve our goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
A major component of our plan, and one we can implement the fastest, is carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCS) technology. CCS involves capturing CO2 emissions at the source, then transporting the CO2 to safe storage deep underground in geological formations. CCS is a safe, proven and reliable technology and Canada is a leader in using it.
In addition to CCS, we will continue to advance other existing and emerging technologies, such as direct air capture and switching to lower carbon fuels such as clean hydrogen and electricity to power oil sands operations.
Because of the amount of long-term capital investment required to build carbon capture and storage infrastructure, and the speed needed to meet 2030 targets, the countries that are doing this successfully are all using a collaborative model where governments are co-investing alongside industry. Also It also requires supportive fiscal/regulatory system.
So here’s the important two sentences: “A major component of our plan, and the one we can implement the fastest, is carbon capture”, and, “Because of the amount of long-term capital investment required to build carbon capture and storage infrastructure, and the speed needed to meet 2030 targets, the countries that are doing this successfully are all using a collaborative model where governments are co-investing alongside industry”.
What this means—devoid of all the euphemisms and other public relations nonsense—is we don’t want to reduce the amount of oil we’re producing so we are holding out for ‘carbon’ capture technology instead of reductions. And, since we know it’s the far more expensive option, we want the taxpayer to pony up the money to pay for it.
Let’s see what ‘carbon capture’ means. Here’s a government of Canada image that shows what it could mean:
Like most public relations materials, this is image has been designed to ‘accentuate the positive and negate the negative’ (to quote an old Bing Crosby song). The ‘positive’ means that if the government funds this system, both the tar sands and the average Canadian will be able to continue with ‘business as usual’. But the negative part is this is going to cost an astronomical amount of money to do and the results will be minimal.
I tried to find some source that separates out and calculates the amount of taxpayer money that has been lavished on carbon capture, but the only thing I could find was a report titled: BUYER BEWARE: Fossil Fuels Subsidies and Carbon Capture Fairy Tales in Canada, written by Julia Levin and published by Environmental Defense in 2022. Here’s a quote from the introduction:
Though there is no inventory of public funding that has been made available for carbon capture and storage projects, this report provides the first estimate of public funding for CCUS [Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage] projects in Canada. From what was possible to track, since 2000, the federal government has provided $2 billion, the Government of Alberta has provided $2.6 billion and the Government of Saskatchewan has provided $1.2 billion, bringing the total amount of subsidies for CCUS to $5.8 billion, which has resulted in a yearly capture rate of less than 4 MT (representing 0.05% of Canada’s emissions), most of which is used for enhanced oil production. The CCUS handouts are poised to grow exponentially, with a new investment tax credit set to be released shortly. (p-2, Buyer Beware)
To people like me who’ve spent decades following the issues involved in the Climate Emergency, it’s pretty obvious that while in the long haul there is a case to be made for a small amount of carbon capture technology—it would only be an extremely marginal operation aimed at creating niche feedstock for specific parts of the economy. (For example, creating carbon-neutral aircraft fuel or plastics.) The idea that we can continue to run the current enormous fossil-fuel economy and off-set it through carbon capture is beyond insane—and could only be promoted by someone who is willfully ignoring the numbers involved.
And this gets us back to the new anti-greenwashing law. There’s that key line in it that says:
makes a representation to the public with respect to the benefits of a business or business activity for protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological causes or effects of climate change that is not based on adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation
In other words, you can’t pull a bunch of public relations bullshit out of your ass and heavily promote it in order to convince a large swathe of the public that something is actually a feasible solution to a public environmental problem (like the Climate Emergency).
Just to underline this point. Immediately after the new regulations were proclaimed, the Pathways Alliance scrubbed their site of their previous statements about Carbon Capture and issued this press release:
CALGARY, AB, June 20, 2024 /CNW/ - As the largest oil sands companies in Canada, and members of the Pathways Alliance, we are steadfast in our commitment to environmental performance and operational emissions reduction. To support our commitment, we have strived to be transparent about our actions and plans, which we believe is critical to building trust and driving improvement.
However, our ability to remain transparent has been significantly compromised as a result of Bill C-59, which was recently passed and includes amendments to the Competition Act related to environmental and climate disclosure. With these changes, it is possible that certain public representations by a business about the benefits of the work it is doing to protect or restore the environment or address climate change will violate the Competition Act and subject it to significant financial penalties unless the business can adequately and properly substantiate their claims according to "internationally recognized methodology," which may or may not exist.
Creating a public disclosure standard that is so vague as to lack meaning and that relies on undefined "internationally recognized methodology" opens the door for frivolous litigation, particularly by private entities who will now be empowered to directly enforce this new provision of the Competition Act. This represents a serious threat to freedom of communication.
These amendments create significant uncertainty and risk for all Canadian companies regardless of sector, that communicate publicly about environmental performance, including actions to address climate change. As a result, we have been forced to remove information on environmental and climate performance, progress, and plans from our websites, social media platforms and other communications channels at this time. These actions are a direct consequence of this legislation and are not related to our commitments or belief in the accuracy of our environmental communications.
The result of this legislation, which has been quickly put in place with little or no consultation, is to silence Canadian businesses taking climate action. We will continue to impress on the federal government the need for clarity regarding these new amendments so that we and all other industries can share the important work we are doing to preserve and restore the environment and address climate change.
It appears to me that the sticking point they are freaking out about is that phrase "internationally recognized methodology". The thing is, however, that just about every technical product or service in our world is the result of ‘internationally recognized methodology’. The building we live in, the roads we drive on, the sewers, water treatment systems, etc, are all designed by and built under the supervision of duly qualified engineers. The medicine the doctor prescribes are tested and the results published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Even businesses are evaluated and graded according to specific criteria through the International Standardization Organization (ISO).
It appears to me is that this concern about “internationally recognized methodology” is just an excuse to avoid admitting that the Pathways Alliance got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They don’t want to admit that they were spreading disinformation in order to hide the fact that the tar sands need to be shut down if Canada is going to have any semblance of credibility in the fight against the Climate Emergency. Perhaps in a future article I’ll write something about what the motivation is behind this and why the federal Liberals have chosen to play along with this charade for so long. (As you might imagine, I have my suspicions.)
Outstanding piece.