West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country MP, Patrick Weiler, is touting "truth in advertising" changes to Canada's Competition Act that put the onus on companies to back up environmental claims.
Speaking to Pique, Weiler said the changes—which were enacted through Bill C-59—applied specifically to the section of the act focusing on deceptive marketing practices and misrepresentations to the public.
“In that legislation, originally there were measures under the deceptive marketing practices designed to tackle greenwashing for individual products … that if you make a claim about the environmental benefits of a product, you’re going to have to support it with adequate and proper testing,” he said.
But Weiler said many claims from companies were vague and about their general practices, and not products themselves, which is “hard to test,” so the changes made to the legislation broadened that definition.
“The overwhelming amount of claims that we’re seeing are not actually about individual products, but the company overall," he said.
“So a change that I proposed at the committee level of the finance committee was to ensure we were looking at these claims about a company overall, and the change that was proposed … was that you’re going to have to base [environmental claims] on adequate and proper substantiation or evidence, based on internationally recognized methodology.
“The idea here is that if a company says [they] have a plan to be net-zero by 2050 in emissions, they have to be able to provide evidence to back that up.”
Weiler said the changes had multiple motivations, starting with fairness in the marketplace by enforcing honesty, so companies that actually do enact environmentally positive policy get to benefit from consumer support, while companies that “greenwash” themselves and their product without backing are penalized.
“Companies that are taking action and are marketing that action, they will get the benefit from it, but companies that are marketing they are doing things they are not, are not going to get that benefit," Weiler said. "It's oftentimes difficult for the consumer to be able to know what is, and what isn’t true, so this is meant to tackle that claim.”
It wasn’t just fairness and consumer protection, but also environmental reasons for the changes that are now enshrined in law.
“It’s also really important from the environmental benefits point of view, in that you are actually going to incentivize companies to do the right thing," Weiler said. "Because it is also unfair and inevitably harms the environment when companies take advantage of peoples' will to do good, when in fact they’re not actually doing that."
Under the changes, the competition bureau can launch investigations into companies suspected of "greenwashing," with penalties as high as $10 million if found to be engaging in deceptive marketing.
Weiler said the practice of making environmental claims without backing was “fairly commonplace” in the private sector, and previously “there wasn’t a way of uncovering that and holding a company accountable for doing it,” hence the change to the competition act which were requested by the Competition Bureau of Canada.
“Frankly, it’s not asking too much of companies," he said. "All it asks is that if you choose to make an environmental claim, that you be able to provide evidence to back it up if you’re challenged by the bureau. This is, I would say, a truth-in-advertising type law, and we’ve already seen pretty significant response from industry."
The response from the industry, according to Weiler, included the shuttering of the Albertan provincial entity known as the Canadian Energy Centre, which promoted the Alberta energy sector. It was merged into the Albertan government’s ministry for intergovernmental relations this month. Likewise, in a release from Weiler’s office, he noted “many oil and gas companies are taking down their communications, and putting disclaimers to clarify their false and misleading claims.”
For Weiler’s own backyard, his riding includes the LNG export project, Woodfibre LNG—a project that has long been permitted, and is under construction as of June. The project touts its green credentials with plans to be the world's "First net-zero LNG facility." Partial owner of Woodfibre, Enbridge, has claimed the project will help reduce global emissions in the past.
“This will apply to Woodfibre just as it will apply to any oil and gas company or any company in Canada,” said Weiler.
“If Woodfibre or other companies are going to make the claim they are going to reduce global emissions, it’s something they are going to have to back up, and we’ve found when this claim was made by another organization … that's actually not true,” he said, referring to a leaked ruling from Ad Standards, which is a non-government watchdog with no enforcement capabilities.
“If it’s different for Woodfibre, they’re going to have to be able to show how that’s the case—they're not going to be able to make unsubstantiated claims and be insulated from these types of actions.
“It will be interesting to see what type of public messaging that Woodfibre will have, but if they indeed say they reduce global emissions they will have to show how, much like with any other potential environmental impacts or benefits from the company.”
Asked if they would need to change the way they did advertising as a result of the changes to the competition act, Woodfibre LNG told Pique the changes would have no effect.
“Woodfibre LNG has always worked to provide information in a transparent fashion to help people better understand different aspects of our project,” a spokesperson for the company said in an emailed statement.
“Ensuring the facts and figures we use are correct and supported by relevant third party sources is a part of our process.”
The changes to the competition act are now law, and challenges to marketing are made by the Competition Bureau, which maintains control over the process, though the Bureau can be alerted to potential greenwashing by the public.
