Canada’s largest oil and gas lobby group targeted voters in 13 Ontario “swing ridings” with rallies, billboards in “high visibility locations” in the Toronto area, and 400,000 pieces of pro-pipeline literature, an ongoing Toronto Star/National Observer/Global News investigation has found.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) conducted the advertising campaign between April 8 and May 29 — the period in which the federal government was deciding on the fate of the Trans Mountain pipeline. It included 13 rallies across the country and 24,000 letters sent to “key decision makers” including B.C. Premier John Horgan, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and federal National Resources Minister Jim Carr, a leaked CAPP document reads.

“I’ve never seen the oil industry lobby like this before,” says Keith Stewart, senior strategist with Greenpeace. “What is absolutely unprecedented, as far as I know, is deliberately targeting swing ridings in order to impact the makeup of the government.”

CAPP declined a request for an interview. In a written statement, the group acknowledged the campaign was an effort to promote federal approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

“The timing of the advertising campaign aligned with the federal decision on a federally regulated pipeline deemed in the national interest, targeting federal Members of Parliament,” said Chelsie Klassen, a CAPP spokesperson.

The advertising material urges Canadians to “tell your federal MP to support the Trans Mountain Pipeline” alongside the words, “Is Canada closed for business?”

Critics say the campaign’s timing — launched amid Ontario’s provincial election campaign and targeting 13 ridings, all in Ontario — merits examination by provincial officials responsible for upholding electoral rules on third-party registration and spending.

“With this campaign they’re targeting both the federal Liberals and provincial Liberals,” says Duff Conacher, co-founder of Ottawa-based Democracy Watch. “They would want (Premier Doug) Ford in there because they know he would be pushing pipeline instead of windmill.”

According to the province’s electoral rules, a third party — such as a corporation, partnership, business or association — that spends more than $500 in the six months before a fixed-date general election on political advertising of some kind must register with Elections Ontario.

A spokesperson for Elections Ontario confirmed CAPP was not a registered third party during the election period. Elections Ontario would not comment on whether it has received a complaint or whether it is investigating.

CAPP’s written statement denies any effort to target provincial candidates with the campaign, saying, “pipelines were not identified as a priority for any of the Ontario election candidates, further separating the advertising campaign from the election.”

The details of CAPP’s campaign are highlighted in a document, obtained by the Toronto Star, National Observer and Global News, titled, “Metrics: Canada’s Energy Citizens and TMX (Trans Mountain expansion) campaign.”

Among the results: “Facebook audience reach = 17,440,830; Facebook users engaged = 1,246,953; Facebook video views = 2 million; Twitter impressions = 519,000,” it reads.

CAPP’s public advocacy on behalf of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion was on display in other ways in recent weeks.

A “Day of Support” for the pipeline in Ottawa on May 23 led by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce brought together “provincial and territorial chamber presidents, association heads, corporate leaders, union representatives and Indigenous leaders to advocate the importance of seeing this project through to the future benefit of Canadians,” reads a story published in CAPP’s magazine, Context.

Participants met the federal Liberal minister Carr and federal Tory Leader Andrew Scheer, urging them to work with the provinces to “reach a consensus and use the appropriate legislative, legal and financial steps to ensure the Trans Mountain Expansion project gets built.”

The lobby group’s advertising was run under the umbrella of Canada’s Energy Citizens, a group created and managed by CAPP to engage with Canadians and drive public support for oilpatch-friendly policies. The Energy Citizens have a strong social media following of more than 220,000 Facebook users.

Ultimately, the federal government made a deal to purchase the pipeline.

Members of both the provincial and federal Liberal parties declined to comment directly on the CAPP campaign.

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In response to questions, the federal Liberals provided a broad written statement saying the party’s actions are based “solely on what is in the best interests of Canadians.”

Ontario Liberal Party spokesperson Patricia Favre said in a written statement that the two previous Liberal governments in Ontario passed an “ambitious agenda to fight climate change, including the largest single reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions through the closure of the coal plants, and a plan to put a cap on carbon pollution and use the proceeds to help people transition to a low-carbon economy while saving their costs.”

Kevin Taft, the former leader of the Alberta Liberal Party from 2003 to 2008 and author of Oil’s Deep State, sees the timing of CAPP’s campaign as conspicuous.

“To an outsider, it certainly looks like the campaign was designed to co-ordinate with the Ontario election campaign,” he said. “Ontario is a big player in the confederation … If they elect a government that’s friendly to them and does what Doug Ford is doing — getting out of the cap-and-trade system, getting out of promotion of green energy — that’s all good for the oil industry. That’s in their interest.”

Doug Ford announced his plan to scrap the Liberal cap-and-trade plan and fight the federal carbon tax proposal during the election campaign on April 23 — in the midst of CAPP’s advertising campaign.

Greenpeace’s Stewart said that while federal politicians may have been the target of the CAPP campaign, its timing with the provincial election provided obvious advantages.

“I think provincial officials were icing on the cake,” he said. “(CAPP) is flexing their political muscle. The minute you start targeting swing ridings, you’re trying to influence who will be in office.”

The open acknowledgement that the group was targeting 13 swing ridings is “a big shift for CAPP,” he said. The organization “generally claims to simply try to inform government, not affect who forms government.”

Liberal political commentator Amanda Alvaro said CAPP’s targeted Ontario campaign could point to a more aggressive approach in the federal election next year.

“As we’re gearing up for 2019, one of the things that would concern us the most … how do we combat such strong advertising and how do we make sure people are educated enough to understand it? Because people take ads as truth.”

Taft agrees: “Perhaps this is a warning shot. Perhaps the federal Liberals and other environmental activists should regard the activities of CAPP in Ontario as a warning as to what’s coming up in the federal election.”

Ford, who was sworn in as premier last Friday, is already delivering on a number of promises to scrap policies that some oilpatch players have said are bad for business. On July 3, he began the process of abandoning the outgoing provincial Liberals’ climate-trade agreement with California and Quebec.

And on the day he was sworn in, Ontario’s new finance minister, Vic Fedeli, said the elimination of the cap-and-trade policy would signal “Ontario is open to business.”

“It doesn’t surprise me at all that some of the wording in the oil industry’s (advertising) is the same as the wording in Doug Ford’s campaign,” Taft said. The oil and gas industry is “a huge public relations machine that is extraordinarily effective in getting its agenda set,” he added. “These campaigns are unending.”

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