A political truism is that governments are not beaten by opposition parties. Instead, governments defeat themselves. By allowing energy and climate policies to be designed and vetted by fossil fuel companies, David Eby’s NDP may be providing another example.
The Narwhal’s Matt Simmons and Michael De Souza report claims made by TC Energy executive Liam Iliffe, a former senior official in the NDP government. Iliffe was recorded boasting that he and the company had influenced the climate views of Premier Eby.
Liam Iliffe, a former senior advisor in the government of ex-premier John Horgan. Iliffe began lobbying for pipeline company TC Energy less than a year after leaving a senior strategic communications position in government, according to the pipeline company’s filings.
Iliffe and other TC Energy employees made numerous claims about how they had influenced the government…
TC Energy’s March 2024 quarterly report showed the company held $128 billion in assets. With almost one-quarter of the company’s outstanding shares, Canada’s five largest chartered banks are its dominant shareholders. This is just one of many situations that result in financial institutions using their power and influence to oppose effective climate policies.
TC’s work to control government policies in British Columbia mirrors its activities elsewhere. A few years ago, TC expected demonstrations over its plans for the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. According to The Intercept, the company helped write anti-protest laws in South Dakota that included penalties of up to 25 years in prison.
After the oppressive laws were passed by freedom espousing Republicans, several organizations including the ACLU sued to block enforcement. U.S. federal Judge Piersol wrote:
Imagine that if these riot boosting statutes were applied to the protests that took place in Birmingham, Alabama, what might be the result? . . . Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference could have been liable under an identical riot boosting law[.]
Months later, a settlement was reached and the state agreed to not enforce state laws that were aimed at suppressing pipeline protests by barring constitutionally protected speech.
But the industry is like the deadly Lernaean Hydra. Its political and economic power is immense and widely applied. Huge sums are spent on lobbying. If politicians cannot be controlled, they can be opposed by people friendly to fossil fuel production. Politico reported that American oil and gas interests are already drawing up favourable, ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump in case he wins a second term.
In 2023, journalist Jeremy Appel reported that an oil refinery in northern Alberta had been operating without environmental permits for twenty-two years. According to Appel, the industry is a rogue entity making its own rules.
Although the BC NDP promised to tighten rules for lobbyists when it took office in 2017, Democracy Watch criticized the changes:
because it leaves huge loopholes that allow for secret, unethical lobbying of provincial politicians and government officials, and allow all those politicians, and Cabinet ministers, to lobby government the day after leaving their position.
In a 2012 Tyee article, Andrew MacLeod gave examples of people enjoying lucrative careers by using the revolving door between government and industry. Jim Rutkowski was an official in the NDP’s government in the 1990s. After the disastrous election in 2001, Rutkowski remained as a key NDP staff member in the Legislature. He bounced between lobbying firms and governments and by a February 2024 Order in Council, Rutkowski was appointed as a Deputy Minister in David Eby’s NDP government.
If the public interest is ever to be served, the power and influence of lobbyists must be reduced to near-zero and the ability to slip easily between the regulators and the regulated must end. Don’t expect that to happen though. The people who make the rules are also the people who benefit by having lax rules.
Despite NDP promises, industry’s grip on B.C. government is tight as ever
Coal and fossil fuel companies enjoy a constant influx of staffers from B.C.’s government. One Green MLA wants to change that…
Categories: Lobbyists
in-sights.ca 
norm farrel–how come your comment section does not work–mark meiers–250-827-3843–22mt54@awink.com
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“Iliffe was recorded boasting that he and the company had influenced the climate views of Premier Eby.”
It is extremely troubling that our elected leaders are so weak-minded and weak-kneed in their convictions that such a blatant lobbying ploy could influence any real thinking. Might we not surmise that Eby’s predilections made him fertile ground for the lobbyists seeds, and one would also assume that there was the promise, at some point, of a reward for the party, if not directly to the person. It is sad, with all the evidence pointing so clearly to devastating consequences of continuing the many forms of Business As Usual, that the brightest and best of us don’t have the intellect to perceive what duty and honour would dictate as a course of action, and the fortitude to proceed, calling out bad behaviour along the way. At least we don’t have (yet) to deal with a reactionary activist Supreme Court who, for instance, yesterday issued a ruling that essentially formally blesses the practice of corruption and graft, cementing the primacy of wealth in societal governance.
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If Trump and his band of Fascists get elected, watch for a wild roller coaster ride because anything Canada could do about climate change will be meaningless. With a population 10 times as large, all the climate change regulations in Canada, will not amount to a “hill of beans”, if the USA decides to deny climate change.
As for Premier Eby, he is another gadfly Premier and what BC needs is not NDP spin but intelligent debate to deal with the upcoming fiasco and a fiasco it will be.
Eby has proven he is not up to the task (though NDP acolytes will differ in that opinion) and has proven this with his now interference with ICBC, creating a future “dumpster fire” for future government.
Eby and Co. are using climate change as a revenue generator and nothing more and what generally needs to be done is not being done.
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Josie Osborne is my MLA as well as minister of oil and gas. We had a meeting with her early in the spring (our local Transition Town initiative) and expressed our deep concerns that we’re already over the cliff. Her reply was that her ministry is making strides in sustainable aviation fuels. Didn’t do much to alleviate my gathering sense of dread. Every once in awhile, Sonya Furstenau says something, and it always seems to demonstrate a deeper understanding of our predicament and a willingness to say what needs to be said. Sadly, she is only one, and I don’t see these same qualities in other reps of the Greens, who, it must be said, are largely unelectable because of their understanding and frankness.
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It is done. The politcans have been bought; the mainstream media has been bought,
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Something happened with my comment. I was going to say the politicians have been bought, the mainstream media has been bought and the legal system has been bought and now we wait for the consequences.
According to what I have read, sometime in the near future a weather event will happen, tens of thousands of people will perish and government will begin to deal with the problem. But the big problem will be, it will be too late.
I just read a rather dystopian article about climate change, where 90% of living organisms will become extinct, within 200 years and the human population will be reduced to less than 1 billion world wide.
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