UPDATED: The Power of Imagination

I can imagine that giant ball being put to a better use, like capturing the hot air that the oil industry is so adept at spewing out, much more of which seems in the offing.

As reported in today's Star,

TransCanada Corp. plans to browbeat detractors of its ambitious Energy East pipeline with intense pressure so that they are distracted and forced to redirect their resources, according to documents obtained and released by Greenpeace on Tuesday.

These documents — dozens of pages — also describe the company’s public relations strategy, which includes detailed background research into environmental agencies that are opposing the pipeline and hiring “third parties” who will be able to do things when TransCanada cannot.

Among the groups targeted are the David Suzuki Foundation, Equiterre, Avaaz, Ecology Ottawa and the Council of Canadians, all well-known opponents of the potential environmental despoliation the Energy East pipeline represents.

That TransCanada is planning a dirty tricks campaign is strongly suggested by the fact that it has engaged

the U.S. public relations firm Edelman, the largest in the world, to promote the massive oil pipeline project.

As revealed by the CBC,

Edelman suggested a "campaign-style approach" and borrowing tactics from opposing environmental groups that "press their advantage" and successfully use online campaigns to leverage "large and passionate audiences that show a propensity to vote and take other political action."

Part of the strategy being promoted by Edelman seems to be borrowed from the Stephen Harper/Joe Oliver playbook:

It suggests a three-pronged approach — promote the pipeline, respond aggressively to any criticism and apply pressure on opponents using "supportive third parties who can put pressure on, especially when TransCanada can't."

It's the last tactic that bothers Keith Stewart from Greenpeace, who originally obtained the documents. He said Edelman is proposing to discredit opponents to Energy East by using sympathetic allies who are being fed information by TransCanada.

"When they actually try to do it in a sneaky manner, having attacks on their critics being co-ordinated by TransCanada but not putting their name on it, that's where I have a real problem," said Stewart in an interview with CBC.

Too bad TransCanada has gone out of country for this service. I'm sure Harper Inc. would have been glad to lend its well-honed expertise in such matters.

UPDATE: You can read much more about this at DeSmog Canada.

Believe It Or Not

Readers of a certain age will remember an erstwhile popular feature carried in many newspapers, Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Each day we would be invited to view a vignette depicting something bizarre or outrageous that frequently strained credulity:



Were it still publishing such tales, I would offer the following for Ripley's consideration:

A $30,000 donation by TransCanada Corp. to the Northern Ontario town of Mattawa comes with a condition attached — an apparent vow of silence on TransCanada’s business activities.

One of the clauses in the agreement says this:

“The Town of Mattawa will not publicly comment on TransCanada’s operations or business projects.”

Commenting on TransCanada’s business is a sensitive point, as the company has several controversial pipeline projects on the go, in addition to Energy East.

According to Mattawa mayor, James Backer, TransCanada offered the town $30,000 toward a new rescue truck, if it agreed to provide services. (The pipeline runs just outside the town's boundaries.) It was all quite innocent.

But wait; there's more!

The ever-beneficent pipeline giant says that it is all just one big misunderstanding, and that the clause was inserted to protect municipalities from stress:

TransCanada spokesman Davis Sheremata said the no-comment clause was inserted to protect town councils from feeling pressured to support TransCanada projects elsewhere.

“In recent years, we have found that communities we enter into partnerships with have at times been targeted by opponents of our projects in Canada and the United States, and have felt pressured to make public statements on our behalf in support of projects not related to them and sometimes located thousands of miles away,” he said.

“The language in the agreement was designed to prevent municipalities from feeling obligated to make public comments on our behalf about projects that did not impact them and about which they had no experience or knowledge.”

“If the Town of Mattawa or any other municipality expressed a concern that the contract would in any way have limited their ability to take part in a full and open discussion about the Canadian Mainline or Energy East, we would have removed it,” he wrote.

As Ripley's used to say, "Believe it or not, folks."

A Tale of Intimidation At TransCanada Corporation

Despite the best efforts of the Harper government to make its own addiction to the fossil fuel agenda the Canadian people's as well, increasing numbers are voicing their concern and opposition to the expansion of the Alberta tarsands through new pipelines. And evidence is mounting that those concern are wholly justified and not simply the hysterical reaction of 'lefties, eco-terrorists and the enemies of growth' that the Harper cabal would have us believe.

The 1,047 pipeline incidents in Canada between 2000 and 2011, although only a small part of the tale, provide ample reason for that wariness and suspicion.

Now there is even more reason to worry. As reported in the Toronto Star, there has been an ongoing and concerted effort by TransCanada Corporation, the country's preeminent pipeline company, to silence employees raising safety concerns about the company’s existing and brand new North American pipeline infrastructure:

They include warnings on the original Keystone pipeline, plagued by at least 35 incidents in the U.S. and Canada since it launched commercial operations in June 2010, and they also raise questions about the company’s testing and welding procedures on its infrastructure in Ontario as well as other lines that have reported at least four separate ruptures and four separate leaks to the federal regulator, the National Energy Board, in recent months.

Records released by the Senate energy and environment committee show cases where engineers were told in internal emails to stop searching for potential pipeline defects.

Reminiscent of the O-ring alerts ignored prior to the doomed Challenger shuttle mission, the records tell a sordid but hardly surprising tale of corporate intimidation, suppression and termination. Only one target, engineer Evan Vokes, responded to Star requests for comment:

“Please stop the investigation you seem to be doing on your own,” wrote David Taylor, a TransCanada manager of materials and engineering, in a June 27, 2011, email to Vokes. “This discussion has been going on for over a month, you need to accept where we are and become aligned with where we are going as a company.”

Vokes, a man of obvious integrity, refused to heed the increasingly threatening tone of the emails, and he was ultimately fired in 2012 without cause after he informed the company he would complain to authorities. Before his termination, however, he did what any man of deep conscience would do. He persisted:

... a few months before he lost his job, Vokes sent out a written warning to managers about the dangers of allowing the installation of a pressure vessel — a pipeline component generally used in compressor stations — on a natural gas line serving the oilsands industry near Fort McMurray.

A few weeks earlier, his manager, David Taylor, warned Vokes that there could be consequences if he continued to critique safety oversight weaknesses of TransCanada operations.

Taylor had issued other warnings previously:

“Also there is no need to comment about other projects and infer that they did something wrong,” said Taylor in an email to Vokes on Aug. 10, 2009. “As we chatted on Friday those things can and generally do come back to haunt you down the road!”

You can read the full story of TranCanada's corporate malfeasance and how it thwarted the efforts of some of its other employees to promote greater safety by clicking on the Toronto Star link provided at the start of this post.

A Timely Reminder

In light of the National Energy Board's rubber stamping of the Enbridge Line 9 reversal with very few safeguards, here is a timely reminder of the inherent dangers of pipelines:

Post by West Coast Native News.

The Commercial NBC Refused To Air

According to Salon.com, this anti-Keystone pipeline ad was pulled at the last minute by NBC. I guess the CBC isn't the only network that has grown sheepish of late.

I'm Sure It Is Just A Coincidence ...

...but if I were paranoid, I might see a connection between this and this.