An environmental plan devised for or by the oil industry

The Prime Ministers Office or PMO is the head office of the government.

The corporate board room where the top executives (senior advisers) gather with the CEO (Harper) to devise their strategies and pass down the marching orders to their managers (ministers) and front line troops.

It’s Canada’s version of the White House.

If you want something done in this country, similarly to the corporate world, you send your top sales people or lobbyists to the head office for face to face meetings with the decision makers, Harper’s senior advisers.

With July being the first month in which all lobbyist meetings were required to be disclosed, it appears that of all the various lobbyist groups requesting face to face time with the PMO, fifty percent of those granted a meeting were from the oil and gas industry.

Harper's senior advisers filled their calendars in July with one-on-one meetings with some of the country's biggest oil companies, including Shell, Petro-Canada and Suncor.

Newly released federal records show half of the lobby groups who got some face time with the PMO last month were energy companies, or their industry associations.

Responding to the obvious criticism from the Liberal opposition and environmental groups, Harper’s chief spokesperson, Kory Teneycke replied that the PMO does meet with environmental groups regularly, but could not say if there were any requests for meetings from environmental or consumer groups in July.

Although the meeting records maintained by the Registrar of Lobbyists, lack details of what was discussed, Teneycke’s further reply does provide some hint into the purpose of last month’s energy meetings.

“The environmental regulations we're bringing out will be very tough on industry."

It would appear that the Tory’s who have for the most part managed to delay the implementation of any environmental restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, pushing everything out eight to ten years, are finally starting to put together an environmental plan to combat the Liberal’s Green Shift and the NDPs Cap and Trade.

Unfortunately they seem to be following the lead of the US oil centric administration by first calling in the oil industry to discuss those plans.

However based on the past performance of Harper’s government, one would have to question whether the oil companies were there in July to be advised or to do the advising.



Reference: Montreal Gazette here.