Angry in the Great White North

The president of the National Liberal Women's Commission is Nicole Foster Woollatt. But besides being a top level Liberal Party executive, Woollatt moonlights as a lobbyist, and has been doing so since 2004. Of the 83 entries in the lobbyist database for Woollatt, the majority of her clients have been mining and oil companies. The petroleum interests have just about all been from the Alberta oil patch. The ones marked with the asterisks currently have Woollatt on their payroll as a lobbyist:

• UTS Energy Corporation
• Shell Canada*
• Devon Canada Corporation
• Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
• Thermo Design Corporation
• BP Canada Energy
• Energy Innovation Network*
• Petro Canada*
• EnCana
• Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers*
• Irving Oil
• Alliance Pipeline*
• Canadian Centre for Energy Information
• Synenco Energy*
• Coalition of Canadian Energy Trusts*
• Canadian Energy Infrastructure Group*

Synenco is a great example. Woollatt is still registered as an active lobbyist for this energy concern, and has been since August 2006. And what are Synenco's goals promoted by Woollatt's lobbying efforts?

Welcome to Synenco Energy. We are among a select group of innovative companies working hard to increase crude oil production from the world's second largest oil reserves, Alberta's oil sands deposits. These deposits contain about 178 billion barrels of recoverable oil using existing technology - enough oil to meet Canada's needs for about 250 years at current consumption rates.

Our major focus today is the Northern Lights Project, an oil sands mining and bitumen extraction project north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, and an upgrading facility near Edmonton, Alberta.

Synenco Energy is proud to be a partner in this unfolding oil sands story. As a company we are committed to developing new projects that ensure Alberta, Canada and the world benefit from this important source of secure oil.

Working hard to increase crude oil production from the oil sands? Oil to be sold to the Americans, no doubt. Does Mark Holland know about this?

Woollatt lobbied for Alliance Pipeline, 50% owned by American energy interests, which manages a pipeline moving oil from Alberta to Chicago. The horror!

None of this appears on Woollatt's official Liberal Party bio or on Woollatt's website.

This is interesting, because Stephane Dion has few fans in Alberta because he wants the oil industry to limits its activities, even scale back production:

Dion has already made it clear he intends to strongarm Alberta's energy sector, bending it to his will for both economic and environmental reasons.

But that same sector has hired Woollatt to help bend Ottawa to its will. That must put Woollatt in a difficult situation:

• She is being paid to influence the government, but she is currently working hard to defeat that government.
• She is working to elect a leader who has made it clear that Alberta oil sands development will be brought under severe restrictions should he come into power, but her corporate bosses are almost certainly eager to make sure he never gets that chance.

I'm not sure I could ever square those circles, but it looks like Woollatt is making a go at it.

I would be curious to know what position, if any, Stephane Dion has on having actively employed oil industry lobbyists in positions of influence within the Liberal Party. Former Liberal MP Wajid Khan was told by Dion that he could not advice Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper on the mideast -- Dion did not believe he could trust Khan to serve two masters who are working to very different agendas. Khan was told he had to make a choice, and promptly quit the Liberal Party. I wonder if Woollatt would be given the same choice.

Update: Just to show how twisted this all is, consider the following:

"We will revisit the oil-and-gas tax regime to make sure it is fair and competitive and also effective for greenhouse-gas emissions and the competitiveness of the economy," Mr. Dion said. "The first thing I will do is look at the capital-cost allowance and I will say to the industry: If you want to have that, you need to come with projects that will be close to zero emissions, and then you will have that -- and even more -- if it is well done."

His remarks drew a lukewarm response from industry leaders and economists.

Pierre Alvarez, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said he is concerned his sector, under a Dion-led government, would be singled out for harsher treatment.

"What we would rather do is have a conversation with Mr. Dion about, 'What is the broader context for climate-change policy? What goals are we trying to achieve?' " Mr. Alvarez said. "And we would do that in a collaborative way, as Mr. Dion dedicated himself last time [when he was the federal environment minister] when we arrived at a common understanding of where industry would go.

Mr Alvarez of the CAPP would like to have a conversation with Stephane Dion. Perhaps Nicole Foster Woollatt can help. She is currently listed as a consultant lobbyist for CAPP. So when she meets up with Stephane Dion at Liberal Party headquarters and drops a hint that maybe Dion ought to have a meeting with Alvarez, is she giving him good political advice aimed at promoting the Liberal Party environment platform, or is she working for Pierre Alvarez, who is on record as really looking forward to having a chance to challenge some of what Stephane Dion is saying, face to face?

And if she doesn't mention anything to Stephane Dion, is Alvarez and the CAPP getting its money's worth for lobbying services? He wants a conversation with Stephane Dion. She works closely with Stephane Dion. What's the problem?

Makes you wonder.