Angry in the Great White North

Liberal Party dogma says that Kyoto is good and the Alberta oilpatch is bad.

The minister who got us into this Kyoto thing, David Anderson, was quite clear:

Global warming poses a greater long-term threat to humanity than terrorism because it could force hundreds of millions from their homes and trigger an economic catastrophe, Canadian Environment Minister David Anderson said.

"Current preoccupation is with terrorism, but in the long term climate change will outweigh terrorism as an issue for the international community," he said.

Anderson said Canada would need to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 60 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. Canada has ratified the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which calls for a 6 percent cut from 1990 levels by 2012.

Anderson said it was "simply wrong" to say that putting the Kyoto accord into effect would cripple the economy.

"There is going to be some cost but I think you could do Kyoto probably five times over with the same cost as the cost of the Canadian dollar increasing by 15 cents last year. That really has an impact...and I don't think that ended our economy," he said.

Who helped David Anderson craft such a persuasive argument? Presumably his Director of Communications, Velma McColl, would have had a big role in it, if not the primary role.

On the other side, there are those who think Kyoto is a reciple for disaster. One such person would be Gwyn Morgan, the CEO of Encana, a company that makes its fortune from the Alberta oilpatch:

Over in Canada, Gwyn Morgan of EnCana took exception to the Kyoto Protocol, writing in World Energy (Vol. 5, No. 3): "The most severe impact of Kyoto would be on consumers, not producers of energy - in other words, on essentially all Canadian businesses and individuals from sea to sea. Why? Because more than 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the consumption of energy, rather than its production. Recent public polls may show support of Kyoto based on some vague, noble concept of a cleaner environment, but these polls also show that support quickly disintegrates when Canadians are asked about the inevitable personal sacrifices, major lifestyle changes, higher fuel costs and job losses. Support would deteriorate even more drastically once Canadians came to understand that Kyoto would do little or nothing to clean up our air quality, nor to stop global warming, making their sacrifices 'pain for no gain.'"

Another persuasive argument. And who helps Encana convince people that Kyoto is a sham based on vague concepts and not on science, and that the price would crush us?

Would you believe it was David Anderson's former director of communications, Velma McColl? Her current job as a lobbyst for Encana is to provide "strategic advice and counsel on any policy affecting the oil and gas industry."

Now Encana is clever to hire McColl, who obviously knows what the Liberals really knew about Kyoto, despite what they said in public, to help Encana strategize.

But not half as clever as Earnscliffe Strategy Group, the lobbying firm that has string ties to the Liberal Party, to hire McColl:

Velma McColl joined Earnscliffe in February 2004. Ms. McColl served as both senior policy and communications advisors to federal Cabinet Ministers across four portfolios - Environment, Industry, Health and Fisheries & Oceans. In these capacities, she played a leading role in issues such as climate change, energy, regional economic development, Canada's competitiveness and innovation challenges, and sustainable development.

But Earnscliffe and McColl outdo themselves, because even as McColl is helping Encana deliver the message that Kyoto is going to wreck the economy, something she helped David Anderson say would not happen, she is helping CantorCO2e, the carbon emissions trading company, argue the exact opposite, by providing "strategic advice and counsel related to environmental and climate change, policy; clean air and emissions trading."

Note that she is lobbying for both companies concurrently. One company would love Kyoto to disappear like a bad dream, and the other owes its very existence to Kyoto. She is providing each with the critical insight only a most senior member of the Environment Ministry when Canada was negotiating it's commitment to Kyoto can provide. And Earnscliffe sends bills to both.

I suppose both companies figure they must be getting the inside track.

Let's be clear. Neither McColl nor Earnscliffe are doing anything wrong. This is a case of buyer beware. Do the people at Encana and at CantorCO2e know that the same person is helping each of them, potentially at cross purposes? And it does beg the interesting question: If McColl learns something with her work with Encana, or more importantly, from a government official to whom she is discussing Encana's issues, something that would improve CantorCO2e's lobbying strategy, what does she do? Presumably she has contracts with each that simultaneously require her to keep everything she learns via her relationship with each company confidential, but also require her to use all the information at her disposal to maximize her lobbying effectiveness.

Maybe McColl has figured out a way to negotiate this tricky situation. I wonder if the people at Encana and at CantorCO2e have been appraised at how this works. Maybe they know, and they're satisfied.

Finally, you have to wonder just what would happen if the Liberals were returned to power tomorrow. With Earncliffe's history with the Liberal Party, would McColl leap back into some government role? And despite her work with Encana, would she be welcomed back? But then maybe she is emblematic of the true Liberal view of Kyoto -- an interesting intellectual argument and a good name for a dog (both David Anderson and Stephane Dion named their dogs Kyoto), but really, it's just a way to make money when you're out of government, and a bludgeon to use on the Conservatives in order to get back into government.