Environmental groups increasingly using competition law to fight fossil fuel sector
CTV
In the last year, Canadian green groups have lodged at least four formal complaints with the Competition Bureau, alleging false or misleading environmental claims by fossil fuel companies or -- in the case of a complaint against RBC -- those who finance them.
Splashed across billboards and city buses, on newspaper spreads and Facebook feeds, the "Let's Clear the Air" ad campaign by the Pathways Alliance group of oilsands companies is a multi-million-dollar public relations blitz by an industry keen to show it's committed to helping fight climate change.
It's also the target of the latest strategy by Canada's environmental movement, which has expanded its war against the fossil fuel industry to a new battleground: the federal Competition Bureau.
In the last year, Canadian green groups have lodged at least four formal complaints with the bureau, the independent law enforcement agency tasked with protecting consumers by fostering a competitive marketplace.
The complaints allege false or misleading environmental claims by fossil fuel companies or -- in the case of a complaint against RBC -- those who finance them.
Under Canada's Competition Act, it only takes six signatories to a deceptive advertising complaint to compel the bureau to launch an investigation.
While no conclusion of wrongdoing has been reached in any of the ongoing cases, the environmentalists hope their new strategy will raise awareness of what they call "greenwashing" -- a perceived tendency by companies to market their products and practices as more sustainable than they really are.
"We're at a point, I think, with climate change where there are very few actual deniers left out there," said Keith Brooks, program director of Environmental Defence, which is a co-signer to Greenpeace Canada's complaint against the Pathways Alliance as well as the lead complainant alleging deceptive marketing in a campaign by Enbridge Gas.
