The Sixth Estate

After the media picked up on Bruce Carson’s shenanigans, I quickly downloaded his speeches from the website of the Canada School of Energy and Environment, suspecting that important websites might soon go down the memory hole. I was right in principle, but wrong about the websites. The CSEE site is still unchanged, absent a brief message noting that Carson has taken a leave of absence. But two other relevant sites have vanished — those of H2O Water Pros (the company Carson lobbied for) and the Energy Policy Institute of Canada (the new industry climate change group that he co-chaired).

It’s possible that the sites simply went under thanks to the unexpected deluge of public interest in what were, until this past week, fringe institutions without a substantial public profile. The fact that H2O Water Pros has disappeared but its Indian Affairs project partner company, H2O Global Group, is still online speaks to that. Still, I have to wonder. If it was a mere service problem, they should have fixed it, but the sites have now been down for days. I hope they come back up. In the meantime I have the important details here.

(more…)

I wrote about Harper Government™ aide turned energy industry astroturfer Bruce Carson a while ago. Since then, things have happened quickly. Carson was caught meeting with energy industry executives to downplay climate change concerns, and then meeting with Indian Affairs aides to illegally lobby them on reserve water filtration contracts. In response, he has been referred to the RCMP for investigation, and has also been forced to take a leave of absence from the leadership of the Canada School of Energy and Environment. This is welcome news, but we shouldn’t stop yet, especially since Carson is now distorting the truth yet again.

Before I get too far, let me point out that Carson’s work is already starting to disappear down the Internet memory hole. Until recently he was an adjunct professor at Jack Mintz’s right-wing School of Public Policy, which, in a rare feat of academic entrepreneurship, is currently selling its research agenda to the highest bidder donor. That school has already quietly removed Carson from its website. The Energy Policy Institute, an industry lobby group which was led by Carson and turncoat politician David Emerson, has gone offline completely as I write this, although that may be only a temporary glitch.

(more…)