UPDATE: Here is the ATIP document (pdf).
You never know what you are going to get when you file an Access to Information request.
Recently, one came back that netted a draft "Oil Sands Issue Paper," and the back and forth between Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) as revisions were made. You may have heard about it here.
This is the chatter that Canadian citizens never hear, especially now that their civil servants whose salaries they pay for are muzzled by the current government.
Beyond the change-able political level in Ottawa, NRCan is famously pro-industry, so it comes as little surprise that Environment Canada needed to push back on NRCan's drafting of the 'issue paper,' saying that the draft "would make the government to be perceived as bias and thus not credible or serving the public good."
(Of course, after Copenhagen, the public is only too aware that the federal government is not credible or serving the public good).
Then, Environment Canada proceeds to provide more balanced information to revise the document, calling out risks of carbon capture and storage, and pointing out that some pollution control 'solutions' (like tailings ponds technologies) wind up moving pollution around rather than fixing it.
So, while we don't always agree with the civil servants in Environment Canada, at least in this instance we'd like to say thank you for trying to to the right thing. The government seems to have buried this document entirely, which is not surprising given its track record, but at least we know there are civil servants working behind closed doors to bring some sanity to Canada's most out of control industrial project.
Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence
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