Author: Avnish

Straight Outta Edmonton: The Market is the Solution

The Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) is about collaboration. In a bid to meet public expectations and improve the industry’s image, 12 of the largest oilsands producers are teaming up, sharing information and intellectual property relating to environmental stewardship. By harnessing their collective strengths, they hope to improve the

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Straight Outta Edmonton: The Market is the Solution

The Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) is about collaboration. In a bid to meet public expectations and improve the industry’s image, 12 of the largest oilsands producers are teaming up, sharing information and intellectual property relating to environmental stewardship. By harnessing their collective strengths, they hope to improve the

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Straight Outta Edmonton: Social Media and Legal Advocacy: Lessons from MWCI

Within the legal community, blogs, twitter, and other social media platforms have grown to become the norm, as lawyers and firms have realized the potential of these tools to expand their reach and influence. However, at least in the Canadian context, social media has played a secondary role to one’s legal practice, used to build market presence or engage in commentary, rather than being incorporated into a lawyer’s courtroom advocacy.

Being a conservative institution that values confidentiality, it’s clear why social media — with its openness and accessibility — has not been incorporated more directly into legal practice. But there are aspects of legal advocacy that complement the strengths of social media, allowing lawyers to take advantage of them.

The use of social media by lawyers involved in the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is an example of this. The public inquiry is investigating the factors that allowed serial killer Robert Pickton to murder dozens of women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside without being apprehended.

Lawyers acting for the victims’ families (@NeilChantler and @ACameronWard), Downtown Eastside (@JasonGratl), and aboriginal interests (@RobynGervaisMWI), have employed social media in novel way, demonstrating how these platforms can enhance legal advocacy. These lawyers routinely live tweet witness testimony and procedural developments, usually followed up with blog posts that provide more extensive discussion of what occurred in court and its implications (in addition to using these platforms for standard legal and social commentary).

By incorporating social media directly into the courtroom, the lawyers are advancing their client’s interests on a number of levels. Firstly, due to funding restrictions imposed by the province of British Columbia, each lawyer individually represents a large and disparate number of people. Not only does this pose challenges to ensuring that each individual client is being served, but how to communicate with them on the developments at the inquiry on an ongoing basis. This is particularly true with those representing the victim’s families, whose clients are spread out across the country. Though the CBC live streams the inquiry, clients may be unable to watch the day time proceedings or easily relate what’s being discussed to the larger issues being investigated.

In addition to the access to justice consideration raised above, the inquiry explores a matter that is clearly in the public interest. Therefore, counsel for the affected parties have an added responsibility to engage broader society in the inquiry. Legal commentary does serve this purpose, but so does tweeting and making available documents, such as weekly overviews of the proceedings. These documents in particular allow the public to directly engage with evidence presented at the inquiry and assess its significance, rather than relying on secondary news reports that can obfuscate much.

Further, by engaging in social media, these lawyers are not merely dispensing information regarding the inquiry, but are also seeking the public’s input. Consistently, we see counsel request feedback in the form of questions, comments, and suggestions, attempting to make their work in the courtroom a collaborative effort.

For legal advocates, as well as law students like myself, the innovative use of social media at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is an indication of how these tools can be effectively incorporated into one’s legal advocacy. However, employing social media is not appropriate in all aspects of legal practice. During a public inquiry, it certainly may be acceptable, but not necessarily in private civil cases. Be conscious of the limits.

For further information on the inquiry, please consult:

Hashtag: #MWCI

Counsel for Victims’ Families: Neil Chantler (@NeilChantler) and Cameron Ward (@ACameronWard), as well as their blog.

Counsel for the Downtown Eastside: Jason Gratl (@JasonGratl)

Counsel for Aboriginal Interests: Robyn Gervais (@RobynGervaisMWI) and her weekly proceedings overview found on Harper Grey LLP’s website (though not easy to navigate: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11).

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Straight Outta Edmonton: Harper’s Attack, Redford’s Consensus: Building National Support for the Oilsands

The Alberta Oilsands are a source of intense debate and discord both domestically and internationally. However, the future prosperity of the nation is inherently linked to Canada’s ability to take advantage of the resource and harness its potential. The challenge for proponents therefore becomes to cultivate broad based support, particularly domestically, as the resource’s land locked status and increasing role in the growth of national carbon emissions fosters political opposition that may well stifle development.

With Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Alberta Premier Alison Redford, we see two starkly different strategies employed to build support for the oilsands nationally.

In recent weeks, Prime Minister Harper, as well as Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, have adopted the meme first introduced by Ethical Oil and its acolytes, painting all opponents to the Northern Gateway Pipeline — which seeks to ship oilsands bitumen from Alberta to Asia via Kitimat, B.C — as foreign proxies sabotaging Canada’s economic interests. Unabashedly disingenuous as it attempts to other First Nations and non-First Nations communities along the proposed route that oppose the pipeline, as well as the numerous Canadian ENGOs whose history of advancing environmental causes in this country dates back well before the oilsands became an economic imperative.

The goal here is to impose the oilsands on the country by masking it in the language of “Canadian” versus “Foreign” interests, McCarthyizing acceptance. Far from winning over critics, the approach is likely to further polarize Canadians on the issue.

In contrast to bullying opponents, Premier Redford has quietly been working to build consensus on the oilsands, winning over provinces that her predecessors may at one time have labeled as detractors through her push for a national energy strategy. First championed at the Intergovernmental Energy and Mines Ministers Conference in Kananaskis last July, Redford has won support from western allies such Saskatchewan and British Columbia, as well as traditional critics such as Quebec, where support for the oilsands are at the lowest levels in the country.

Redford’s message to her counterparts is for them to collectively harness their province’s unique energy strengths, transforming Canada into both an energy and environmental super power. This level of collaboration will invariably require trade offs, which although currently undefined, may require Alberta to address the oilsand’s poor environmental performance sooner than anticipated.

Yet to Redford, this is likely a welcomed risk. Committing the provinces to a national energy strategy where the oilsands play a pivotal role, strengthens the resource’s economic viability at home and abroad.

Canadian history is rife with examples of the federal government unilaterally proceeding on divisive matters of national concern in a belligerent manner with little regard to opponents. Trust erodes, federalism is undermined, and matters that require consensus to proceed and sustain in the long term become polarized to the extreme.

National projects in the national interest — as the oilsands should be viewed — require consensus building, bringing critics on board through compromise, whether they are provincial counterparts, First Nations, or ENGOs. In this case, its requires the oilsands to transform from being the Alberta Oilsands to the Canadian Oilsands, with opponents buying in at various stages of development. The subsequent policy erosion will be offset with a strong, broad base of support, which will reap far greater rewards for the resource than proceeding along its current trajectory.

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Straight Outta Edmonton: Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner on Oilsands Environmental Monitoring

“The fact remains that there are naturally occurring substances in the water. And if we had never set foot in the region those kinds of results would still be there.” — Minister Rob Renner, September 1, 2010.

“The RAMP that’s been there for a long time has done an admirable job.” — Minister Rob Renner, September 1, 2010.

“This is one of the most extensively monitored regions in the world.” — Minister Rob Renner, December 9, 2009.

(Start video @4:51)


Federal Oilsands Environmental Monitoring Advisory Panel

“The minister asked the panel whether or not Canadians had a first-class state-of-the-art monitoring system in place in the oilsands. In the view of the panel, the answer is no.” — Liz Dowdeswell, panel chair.

“Until this situation is fixed, there will continue to be uncertainty and public distrust in the environmental performance of the oilsands industry and government oversight.” — Liz Dowdeswell, panel chair.

2010 RAMP Peer Review

“The existing Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program is not sufficient to detect changes brought about by the industry. The report said the program is not asking the right questions or monitoring the right things. The report said only one of RAMP’s nine objectives has been met while another has been partially met. Four others have not been met and there is not enough information to judge progress on the final three.” — Edmonton Journal, January 31, 2011.

Provincial Oilsands Water Data Monitoring Review Committee

“Failure to detect PAHs in the sample cannot be a reflection of available analytical technology between 1990 and 2007. Although it is likely that concentrations in the river are generally low, it appears the laboratories Alberta Environment used do not have the capability of measuring the low concentrations of PAC found in the water…

Taking into consideration all data and critiques, we generally agree with the conclusion of Kelly et al. that PACs and trace metals are being introduced into the environment by oil sands operations…

We think Kelly et al.’s study, in spite of some uncertain statements on loadings and risks, has been important in pointing out deficiencies in current monitoring programs in the oil sands area. We believe it is in the best interests of the public and the oil sands industry to make sure all monitoring programs are conducted with scientific rigor and oversight.”

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