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TransCanada Corp. is cutting its ties with Edelman, the United States-based public relations firm that recommended using aggressive tactics to win public support for its proposed Energy East pipeline project.
Good on TransCanada for choosing to have a “respectful conversation” instead. The $12-billion project to transport Alberta oil to Canada’s East Coast stands on its own merit without having to manipulate public opinion.
The U.S. firm had recommended using third parties to attack the pipeline’s opponents, by creating “an echo chamber of aligned voices.”
Greenpeace, which publicized the leaked documents last week, said they involved “secret public relations and a ‘grassroots advocacy’ strategy by TransCanada to put pressure on politicians and critics of their Energy East pipeline proposal – tactics similar to those employed by the oil industry in the U.S. to attack environmental advocates.” It accused TransCanada of “dirty tricks.”
On Thursday, TransCanada said it never took Edelman’s recommendations and is ending its association with the firm at the end of December because the controversy has become a distraction, particularly in Quebec.
“Media reports have incorrectly suggested that TransCanada’s communications practices are unacceptable,” the company said in a statement. “The conversation about Energy East has turned into a debate about our choice of agency partner. We need to get back to a conversation about the project itself and as a result we have agreed that it is in the best interests of the project that we do not extend our contract with Edelman.”
But before Greenpeace goes too far on that victory lap, how about some honesty?
The pipeline debate has been rife with dirty tricks for years, and environmentalists have led the way.
When environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, the Natural Resource Defense Council, ForestEthics, the Sierra Club, the Pembina Institute, banded together late in the last decade to launch their campaign to shut down the oil sands, they advocated doing so by raising the negatives, raising the costs, slowing down and stopping infrastructure, enrolling key decision makers, as shown in their July 2008 Tar Sands Campaign strategy, presented to raise money from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://business.financialpost.com/2014/11/26/dirty-tricks-on-both-sides-of-the-pipeline-debate-and-environmentalists-have-led-the-way/?__lsa=9510-25f2