The world humanitarian peace and ecology movement is against the bitumen tar oil East pipeline.
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Leaked documents show TransCanada planning “dirty tricks” campaign to support Energy East pipeline
Feature story - November 18, 2014
Having a vigorous debate about pipelines and Canada’s energy future is something Greenpeace endorses – but what happens when one side of the debate creates fake groups to make it seem like they have more people on their side than they really do? That’s what appears to be happening regarding the Energy East pipeline and it’s a troubling development.
Today, Greenpeace Canada released leaked documents that it says shows that TransCanada is using deceitful tactics to attack environmental advocates. Greenpeace said the documents involve secret public relations and a “grassroots advocacy” strategy by TransCanada to put pressure on politicians and critics of their Energy East pipeline proposal – tactics similar to those employed by the oil industry in the U.S. to attack environmental advocates.
“Clearly TransCanada is worried about the growing opposition to their Energy East tar sands pipeline,” said Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada Climate and Energy Campaign coordinator. “These documents show that TransCanada is planning a secret dirty tricks campaign, using third parties to attack and smear its critics.”
The strategy was prepared for TransCanada by Edelman, the largest public relations firm in the world. Edelman has worked extensively for the oil industry, including running a multi-million dollar campaign for the American Petroleum Institute and the Koch brothers-affiliated American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to defeat climate legislation in the United States.
The documents, written between May and August 2014, lay out a strategy to “Add layers of difficulty for our opponents, distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources” by recruiting third parties to do and say things “when TransCanada can’t.” They identify over 40 Edelman staff members and nine TransCanada staffers who will work on the campaign, which is led from Edelman’s DC office. The advertising and pro-Energy East advocacy website described in the documents has already been launched.
“They are importing what they acknowledge is an ‘aggressive’ U.S. model of politics and have brought in American public relations experts with a history of using fake grassroots groups to attack industry critics to execute this plan,” said Stewart. “When oil companies create front groups to smear their opponents, they degrade democratic debate. Greenpeace may be fierce in the defence of our environment, but we put our names to our statements and publish the research to back them up. We expect oil companies to do the same.”
The documents state “This campaign approach has a strong heritage in the more aggressive politics and policy fights in the U.S., and those lessons and best practices will be critical to our success.” Edelman staff identified in these documents includes key individuals with experience running pro-industry “astroturf” (fake grassroots) campaigns to attack industry critics and block action on climate change in the U.S. These individuals also have strong Republican and Tea Party ties.
The most detailed document from the TransCanada-Edelman alliance is the Strategic Plan for Quebec, which highlights specific communities, organizations and community leaders that it says pose challenges for the project.
“Quebecers want clean energy, not dirty oil,” said Patrick Bonin, a Climate and Energy campaigner with Greenpeace in Quebec. “We will share these documents with the individuals and organization targeted by TransCanada’s campaign, so that they can prepare to defend themselves.”
If you think this pipeline should be judged based on its climate impact and not just public relations spin, sign here.
A summary of the documents and background information is available here.
The leaked documents are as follows:
