The head office of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is on the 21st floor of a towering building in downtown Calgary. Nestled between skyscrapers, bus lanes and footbridges, it has a somewhat austere feel to it.

CAPP is the oil and gas industry’s most powerful organization, representing more than 90 producers operating in Canada. In December 2012 — two months after the Galloways’ terrifying brush with sour gas — Brad Herald, CAPP’s operations manager at the time, sent a concerned memo to his colleagues.

Responding to the Galloway incident, the Saskatchewan government had conducted 11 random audits of oil and gas facilities, many belonging to members of CAPP or the Small Explorers and Producers Association of Canada. All eleven facilities failed “with serious infractions.”

“Facilities in the area are venting H2S concentrations that may be exceeding 150,000 ppm,” Herald wrote to CAPP’s board of governors. That’s 150 times the amount that would cause instant death.

Herald suggested “inadequate operations and training” may have been the cause of “fugitive emissions,” and acknowledged that stricter regulation and compliance within CAPP’s membership was “imperative.”

But the potential public image damage from failed audits and their associated health risks also unsettled him. He made note of a petition circulating in Oxbow, Sask., and a new Facebook page dedicated to rising air quality concerns.

“This has the potential to become a broader industry reputation/social license concern and warrants immediate attention by operators in the region,” wrote Herald. “CAPP Communications is preparing key messages in the event that there is a media profile.”

Several industry and government insiders say two factions emerged within industry at that time. On one side, the larger established oil company representatives were horrified that shoddy equipment, poor installation and lack of training were rampant. On the other side were small oil producers who operate on tighter profit margins and wanted to treat the sour gas problem primarily through public relations efforts.

Soon after the memo was circulated, CAPP consulted a scientist on how to address the burgeoning H2S issue. In January 2013, records show the scientist pressed CAPP executives to take “urgent" action.

An expert on managing the risks of toxic substances, the scientist was disappointed to hear about the H2S problems, since they were easy to avoid. The scientist encouraged the industry lobby group to immediately develop and implement a code of practice for emissions controls, and to get ahead of the issue by condemning current practices in public and calling on the Saskatchewan government to ramp up inspections.

But CAPP didn’t create a new code of practice and there is no evidence that it followed the scientist's advice. In addition, there is no public record showing that it took steps to warn communities of any nearby danger at all.

Herald has since been promoted to vice-president of CAPP’s Western Canada operations.

An 'instruction letter' to industry

Five years later, in an interview from CAPP’s 21st floor headquarters, executive vice-president Terry Abel said the Galloway incident was the result of a safety failure. Sitting behind the desk of his white-walled office, he said any lack of safety compliance is “absolutely, totally unacceptable.”

“Facilities that were operating unsafely in Saskatchewan should not have been operating,” Abel explained. “The Saskatchewan government started doing a number of audits and there were indeed CAPP member facilities that weren’t following some of the rules... We initiated a process to start to work with the Saskatchewan government to better understand what was happening and look for opportunities to enhance the regulatory system.”

Executive vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers Terry Abel speaks with National Observer's Mike De Souza in Calgary on Sept. 8, 2017. Image courtesy of Global News

Two months after CAPP’s scientist advised immediate action, the province’s energy minister at the time, Tim McMillan, wrote an “instruction letter” to industry. He warned them of elevated H2S emissions at facilities and operations in southeastern Saskatchewan, and told them to meet “compliance obligations,” lest they face “escalated enforcement, penalty and/or prosecution.”

But no fines or prosecutions followed, and CAPP would later join another industry group to lobby against the use of fines as penalties for a number of regulatory infractions. McMillan now is the CEO and president of CAPP.

Enter the marketing specialist

McMillan was replaced as Saskatchewan’s energy minister in 2014 by Bill Boyd, a veteran politician with roots in the oil patch. Determined to press forward Premier Brad Wall's vision of Saskatchewan as an energy powerhouse, Boyd brought in recruitment and marketing specialist Laurie Pushor to serve as his right hand.



As Boyd stumped for industry growth, a June 2015 internal email revealed rising tension around the Ministry of the Economy's inspection mandate. The director of the petroleum development branch warned that the Estevan, Sask. field office had become so short-handed that it had “no field officers,” and a couple of summer students. He suggested that any “unnecessary tasks” assigned by the ministry could lead to sour gas inspection being “curtailed as we have no back up.”

The meetings continued, and one day after that email was sent, documents show that Boyd was scheduled to join Pushor for a discussion about “implementation” of Saskatchewan’s regulatory requirements with CAPP’s Saskatchewan Executive Policy Group in Calgary.

In August 2017, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall booted Boyd out of caucus for violating the province’s conflict of interest act. Boyd is currently charged with four environmental violations relating to alteration of Crown land near Eston, Sask. and is scheduled to appear in court later this month, CBC reports.

The allegations against Boyd have not been proven in court and Pushor remains in government as a deputy minister of the Saskatchewan Ministry of Economy.