Earlier this month, I introduced Bill C-372 to end the decades of greenwashing and disinformation from Canada’s hugely powerful oil lobby. The legislation is based directly on the regulations used to curb tobacco advertising. The tobacco regulations are clear and straightforward. With a few tweaks and adjustments, the regulations could help rein in 60-plus years of false advertising and paltering by the oil giants.
This is not the first effort to challenge false advertising by Big Oil. Greenpeace and others have taken cases to the Competition Bureau. But given the overwhelming numbers of ads and the massive online presence of industry front groups, it’s like whack-a-mole. C-372 frames the advertising more directly — as a threat to human health. Given the reports from the International Panel on Climate Change about the advanced state of the global climate crisis, such a position is no exaggeration.
Bill C-372 has unleashed a firestorm of political rage. My office phone has been inundated with foul-mouthed men convinced I will repo their diesel truck. Holding powerful corporations accountable for the veracity of their advertising is being misrepresented as a threat to our Canadian way of life. First out of the gate was convoy leader Tamara Lich. She was quickly followed by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Now, the Alberta and Saskatchewan NDP have stepped up to denounce my efforts.
This is unfortunate, but the fact is there is no tiptoeing around the issue of the direct link between fossil fuel burning and a destabilized planet. Bill C-372 is just a small part of a much larger fight to deal with the crisis, but it has struck a nerve. This is because it makes a direct connection to the fight against Big Tobacco. Oil giants like Exxon have long used the Big Tobacco Playbook to protect their industry from challenge. And up until now, they have gotten away with it.
For decades, the tobacco industry was untouchable because of an endlessly deep war chest for lawyers, lobbyists and ad agencies. They funded false studies, paid for front-group agitators and ran relentless ad campaigns that seduced new generations of smokers. But by the early 1990s, a concerted strategy was used to bring down Big Tobacco and make them accountable for the harm being done.
In the case of the oil industry, the health threats from burning fossil fuels are overwhelming. Every year, an estimated 34,000 Canadians die from premature deaths caused by air pollution. Globally, more people are dying from fossil fuel pollution than from cigarettes.
Canada now has the third-highest global level of childhood asthma (caused by vehicle pollution). We are just behind the competing oil states of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
For these reasons, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment has been leading the fight for an advertising ban because of the threat to human health.
Across North America, legislators and activists are studying the campaigns that finally took down Big Tobacco. Legal action against greenwashing and false advertising has scored big wins in the U.K. and Europe. In the United States, there are a series of lawsuits seeking multimillion-dollar settlements. The State of California lawsuit is proving to be a blockbuster because it has exposed massive amounts of scientific reports that these companies commissioned and then suppressed.
Canada is nowhere in this fight. We have done little to curb emissions or challenge the massive air war of misinformation that burning more oil and gas is part of the solution to the climate crisis.
The threat is not just to our health, but to our economy. Global forecasts show a dramatic shift from fossil fuel production. The International Energy Agency (hardly a think tank of environmental activism) is warning nations against further investments in oil and gas. Canada’s politicians are being hit with a massive public relations campaign to slow investments in the green transition while locking public money into oil and gas infrastructure that could soon prove economically unviable.
We are at peak C02. The climate breakdown is happening all around us. We cannot increase fossil fuel production and ensure a livable planet for our children. Exxon knew this 40 years ago. It is time for us to accept this reality today. And we need leaders who are willing to chart a credible path forward.
Charlie Angus has been the member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay since 2004. He is the NDP's critic for natural resources and Indigenous youth. He has published eight books on northern and resource issues, including his most recent book, Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals / Birth of a Mining Superpower.
The Big Tobacco moment comes for Big Oil
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15.02.2024
Earlier this month, I introduced Bill C-372 to end the decades of greenwashing and disinformation from Canada’s hugely powerful oil lobby. The legislation is based directly on the regulations used to curb tobacco advertising. The tobacco regulations are clear and straightforward. With a few tweaks and adjustments, the regulations could help rein in 60-plus years of false advertising and paltering by the oil giants.
This is not the first effort to challenge false advertising by Big Oil. Greenpeace and others have taken cases to the Competition Bureau. But given the overwhelming numbers of ads and the massive online presence of industry front groups, it’s like whack-a-mole. C-372 frames the advertising more directly — as a threat to human health. Given the reports from the International Panel on Climate Change about the advanced state of the global climate crisis, such a position is no exaggeration.
Bill C-372 has unleashed a firestorm of political rage. My office phone has been inundated with foul-mouthed men convinced I will repo their diesel truck. Holding powerful corporations accountable for the veracity of their advertising is being misrepresented as a........
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