Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

In April 2023, François Poirier, president and CEO of Calgary-based TC Energy, wrote a letter to B.C. Premier David Eby, applauding the NDP government’s decision to approve Cedar LNG, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility that will be built by the Haisla Nation in Kitimat, B.C. 

Poirier noted in the letter how TC Energy was “closely reviewing with great interest” the province’s plans to cap emissions from the oil and gas sector — announced hours after approving Cedar LNG. The fossil fuel executive also asked the premier for a meeting to discuss “how the province and TC Energy can work together to support efforts to combat climate change in B.C. and around the globe.”

TC Energy is a major North American company that builds and operates natural gas pipelines and other energy infrastructure. The company built the contentious Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will supply Cedar LNG and the much larger LNG Canada facility, which plans to start shipping LNG overseas next year. Until recently, TC Energy also owned the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline, which the company sold to the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government, an elected body representing the Nisg̱a’a Nation, and Texas-based Western LNG earlier this year.

While Poirier’s letter reflects what the energy company has publicly stated about its priorities, some other correspondence reveals TC Energy also pressed provincial officials for a more casual partnership between industry and government.

“I’d like to take the time to meet with you before the … meeting to allow you and I to say hi : ) and the opportunity to learn more about the project, our partnership with Nisg̱a’a and our net-zero plans,” then TC Energy lobbyist Liam Iliffe wrote in an email to a senior staffer in the premier’s office on June 22, 2023, adding, “I’d love to grab a more casual coffee/beer in Victoria or Vancouver soon.”

Revelations about the “casual coffee/beer” invitation come in the wake of reporting earlier this year by The Narwhal about how some TC Energy executives described their strategies and tactics to influence public policy decisions on internal calls. Company officials discussed how those tactics could include setting up casual or seemingly serendipitous meetings with influential politicians and senior bureaucrats, writing up briefing notes and persuading governments that their priorities aligned with what the company wanted.

Nicolas Graham, an academic who studies corporate influence on government climate policies, says the “tone and tenor of the relationship” described in the email correspondence suggests TC Energy and the provincial government are working in a “kind of partnership” rather than working at “arm’s length.”

“It does suggest a certain closeness,” Graham, a postdoctoral fellow in the University of British Columbia’s sociology department, told The Narwhal. “Does maintaining those relationships across or between governments have an influence or impact? We can only say that it’s very likely. Industry wouldn’t do it if they didn’t think that it had an effect.”

The B.C. government blacked out passages of the email exchange, prior to releasing the correspondence through freedom of information legislation, so it’s not clear how the premier’s office responded to the request from Iliffe, a former NDP political staffer who worked for the late former premier John Horgan.

But Poirier and Iliffe got a meeting with Eby and one of the premier’s senior advisors on July 13, according to TC Energy reports filed with the provincial lobbying registrar.

TC Energy makes corrections, adds executives missing from previously submitted lobbying records

After The Narwhal reported on the internal TC Energy calls earlier this year, B.C.’s attorney general Niki Sharma asked a provincial watchdog to look into “possible non-compliance with the Lobbyists Transparency Act.” 

A review of the company’s lobbying filings also indicates that TC Energy has resubmitted at least three reports to the provincial lobbying registrar — after Sharma wrote to the watchdog — to make corrections to what it previously reported about its lobbying activity.

These corrections include removing names of at least one lobbyist who did not attend a meeting as well as adding names of four lobbyists — including Iliffe — who attended a meeting but “who were inadvertently excluded” in the original lobbying report.

While the company’s new filings said one of the corrections was needed due to an “administrative error” regarding the date of a meeting, the registrar declined to comment, noting the office is restricted from commenting on specific cases.

“While we cannot speak to the specifics of any [record], amending information to ensure the information captured in the registry is accurate is an important step lobbyists should take if there are errors identified within a report,” a spokesperson with the lobbyists registrar wrote in an email in response to questions from The Narwhal.

TC Energy did not directly respond to The Narwhal’s questions about the newly released documents. Instead, the company provided a brief statement.

“TC Energy advocates to best serve our customers and the communities where we operate through solid, robust and compliant engagement practices and policies, while meeting regulatory obligations, including lobbying registrations and reporting,” a media relations spokesperson stated. “Amendments to our reports are consistent with lobbying regulations and reflect our commitment to diligence, transparency and accuracy.”

‘We got the big money out of politics’: B.C. Premier David Eby 

Two of Eby’s staffers who were involved in the meetings and correspondence with TC Energy have since been replaced in a shuffle at the premier’s office announced soon after the provincial election.

But lobbying records in B.C. show TC Energy representatives have been meeting with a wide range of provincial officials for at least a decade. They also show how some company executives are now lobbying offices where they used to work, just as some former company officials move into politics.

Kiel Giddens, a senior TC Energy executive who won a seat for the BC Conservatives in the recent B.C. election, held senior positions within the government in the early 2010s, including a stint as chief of staff to BC Conservatives leader John Rustad during Rustad’s tenure as Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation. (One of Rustad’s tasks as minister was negotiating pipeline and LNG agreements with First Nations across the north, including contracts for the Coastal GasLink and PRGT pipelines.) Giddens was involved in 29 separate lobbying activities between 2021 and 2023, the lobbying records show.

Tom Syer, who worked for TC Energy on Coastal GasLink and is now a vice-president with Western LNG, a Texas-based company with a minority stake in the PRGT pipeline, joined Giddens at several meetings. Syer spent five years working under former BC Liberal premier Gordon Campbell as his deputy chief of staff. The lobbying records show Syer lobbied government officials on behalf of TC Energy 38 times between 2021 and 2023. He has also lobbied the B.C. government on behalf of Western LNG 50 times since taking his position with the Texas company in 2022.

“The whole idea behind revolving doors is that it increases access basically through relationships, through trust,” Graham said. “You find in the U.S. [literature], for example, that revolving door lobbyists are among the highest paid. We don’t have that information in Canada but those people are very sought after, very high paid.”

Observers say lobbying is a normal part of the democratic process, but argue Canada’s rules lack transparency and favour corporations with deep pockets. 

On the leaked recordings, Iliffe claimed TC Energy swayed Eby’s position on fossil fuel development after Eby became premier in 2022. Iliffe said this couldn’t have happened without the close relationships between industry executives and government officials.

“Sometimes governments change — you’ll have different elected leaders — but most often, the bureaucrats don’t and so you can maintain a certain level of consistency through government change by maintaining relationships within the public service,” Iliffe said on the leaked calls.

Iliffe resigned a few days after The Narwhal reached out earlier this year with questions about the leaked recordings. He said some of the claims he had made were untrue — but did not specify which — and did not respond to emailed questions about the new documents.

Graham said he’s not surprised by Iliffe’s description of TC Energy’s lobbying strategy. He said the tactics were consistent with records of industry lobbying at the federal level.

“Maintaining relationships over a long period of time is something that is easier to do if you have a huge amount of resources at your disposal to carry out these long-term lobbying campaigns,” he said. “It speaks very much to that strategic orientation of lobbying and reminds us that the state is much more than the elected government and that this cultivation of relationships can take place over a very long period of time.”

Eby, responding to questions from The Narwhal at a September press conference, denied TC Energy has outsized access to government officials and pointed to reforms to B.C.’s lobbying laws he made when he was B.C.’s attorney general under Horgan’s premiership. The reforms, which were introduced in 2017 and implemented in 2020, restrict financial donations to political parties from corporations and individuals.   

“We actually changed the system to prevent exactly that kind of thing from happening,” Eby said. “It was a system that facilitated the richest and the most powerful with direct access that they could buy to the leadership of the province. We changed that whole system. We got the big money out of politics, and we ensured that British Columbians come first.”

The reforms do not prevent corporations from petitioning elected officials and senior bureaucrats on policies that affect the private sector. In the three months leading up to the July meeting at which Poirier and Iliffe met with Eby, TC Energy representatives met with senior government officials 12 times. They lobbied on a variety of topics, including regulatory approvals, Indigenous consultation, pipeline construction and operations, new infrastructure and expansions to existing pipeline networks. Specific projects the executives discussed with B.C. officials included the Coastal GasLink and PRGT pipelines, as well as TC Energy’s NOVA gas system, a 24,386 kilometre pipeline network in B.C., Alberta and the U.S.

Poirier followed up with the premier on a direct phone call two weeks after they met in-person. They discussed “gas pipeline activities, infrastructure and gas supply development,” during the follow up call, according to lobbying records.

— With files from Shannon Waters

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