"(I) would like to follow up with you at your next convenience on the Energy Security Benchmarking Project - how to assign a premium or energy security factor on world energy supplies," wrote Susannah Pierce in a July 7, 2010, email to MacKay. "As you are aware, world energy supplies are not assigned values based on security risk/democratic process/independent vs national oil company control. (I) would like to explore with you the government's support for developing a study that would factor in security factors and assign to world basket of crudes."
A spokesperson for the oil and gas company said it is not pursuing the matter with government, but Keith Stewart, a Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner who obtained the records, suggested the lobbying played a role in the Harper government's ongoing strategy to defend the oilsands industry's environmental record against international climate change policies by attacking foreign interests.
Pierce, who in 2010 was head of government affairs for the oil company in Canada, noted in her email that an index system was being developed already to rate crude oils based on their global warming footprint, and she invited MacKay to pursue the discussion on the other criteria.
MacKay responded with an email more than one month later, saying he was not personally available, inviting her instead to speak with one of his senior advisers.
"I was pleased to meet you at (the) party, and I appreciate your kind words concerning my attendance," he wrote on Aug 16, 2010.
MacKay's office and the Department of National Defence were not immediately able to say whether the government wound up researching the proposal.
The exchange began after Pierce met MacKay at a reception for a charity created following the 2006 death of a Canadian Cpl. Andrew (Boomer) Eykelenboom who was killed in action in Afghanistan.
The criteria outlined by Pierce corresponds to arguments promoting the Canadian oil industry that were brought together in a bestselling 2010 book - Ethical Oil: The case for Canada's oilsands - by Sun TV host Ezra Levant, published about two months after her initial email to MacKay.
Stewart noted that some of the arguments have been adopted subsequently by government as it lobbies against foreign climate change policies and legislation in the U.S. and Europe that target oilsands developers or require that they reduce the environmental footprint of their operations.
"We should be concerned when a company like Shell tries to get governments to do their public relations and lobbying for them, but more concerned when they do it," Stewart said. "We now have a federal environment minister (Peter Kent) parroting the lines first proposed by an oil company."
Shell Canada spokesperson David Williams said it was not unusual for the company to talk to the government about energy matters, but noted it was not actively "pursuing government to create such an index," to measure oil based on ethics and security standards.
Original Article
Source: the star phoenix
Author: Mike De Souza
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