An NDP bill is seeking to criminalize the “promotion” of fossil fuels, and prescribe jail time even for Canadians who say scientifically true things such as how burning natural gas is cleaner than burning coal.
C-372, also known as the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act, was tabled Monday as a private member’s bill by Charlie Angus, the MP for Timmins-James Bay and a longtime member of the NDP caucus.
“Today, I am proud to rise and introduce a bill that would make illegal false advertising by the oil and gas industry,” Angus announced in the House of Commons.
He added that the oil and gas sector was trafficking in “disinformation” and “killing people.” Angus also twice framed his bill as the dawn of the industry’s “big tobacco moment” — an apparent reference to Canada’s blanket federal ban on tobacco advertising.
But C-372 goes well beyond merely banning advertising by oil and gas companies.
As a private member’s bill introduced by the member of a party with only 25 seats in the House of Commons, Bill C-372 has almost zero chance of passing. But as written, the act would technically apply to any Canadian who is found to be speaking well of the oil industry, or of oil generally.
“It is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element or the production of a fossil fuel,” reads the act.
Violate this as a regular citizen, and the act prescribes summary conviction and a fine of up to $500,000. Violate it as an oil company, and the punishment could be as strict as two years in jail or a fine of $1,000,000.
Angus defines “promotion” so broadly that it could technically apply to something as simple as a Facebook post or even an “I Love Canadian Oil and Gas” bumper sticker.
Promotion, according to Bill C-372, means “a representation about a product or service by any means … that is likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the product or service.”
The act also criminalizes a laundry list of common pro-oil and gas arguments, even ones that have a reliable basis in fact.
Section 8 of the act makes it a crime for “a person” to argue that a fossil fuel is “less harmful than other fossil fuels.”
Natural gas, for instance, generates energy with far fewer emissions or pollutants than diesel, coal, bunker fuel or any number of “dirtier” fuels. This is why the federal government taxes natural gas at a lower benchmark than higher-emission fuels.
Nevertheless, according to C-372, anybody making such an argument should face a jail term of up to two years or a “fine not exceeding $500,000.”
Section 8 also criminalizes any “promotion” which argues that fossil fuels are beneficial to “the health of Canadians, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples or the Canadian or global economy.”
As such, the section could conceivably prescribe jail terms for anybody arguing that the oil and gas sector is a key funder of the Canadian health-care system, or even that oil and gas is needed to operate ambulances and MedEvac flights.
Similarly, Canadians would face sanction for saying that the extraction and selling of oil is a net contributor to the country’s economy — a claim that is actually made quite often by the federal government itself. “Oil and gas extraction is an important contributor to the Canadian economy,” reads a recent report by Statistics Canada.
The bill would also bring the hammer down on the ability of Canadian gas stations to hold contests or issue loyalty cards.
Bill C-372 would make it illegal for a retailer to “provide or offer to provide any consideration for the purchase of a fossil fuel.”
Any contest offering “free gas” would also be criminalized, under the bill’s prohibition on offers to “furnish or offer to furnish a fossil fuel without monetary consideration.”
Although the Trudeau government often uses catastrophic language to refer to the unchecked effects of climate change, Angus’s bill goes beyond the federal government’s usual messaging by claiming in a preamble that warming temperatures are an “existential threat” and that “protection of the environment is a valid use of the federal criminal law power.”
Nevertheless, there are exceptions.
Angus allows that movies, plays and musical performances would be allowed to “use or depict fossil fuels” or even show “the production of fossil fuels” — provided that the creator can prove that they have no links to an entity that “has as one of its purposes to promote fossil fuels.”
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