Comparing oil sands waste to yogurt is allowed in Canada

An unusual proxy battle in the green movement’s wider effort to slow Canadian oil sands development is over — and the industry won, more or less.

“The Alberta oil patch has avoided potential embarrassment after Advertising Standards Canada ruled that an advertisement that compared toxic oil sands effluent to yogurt did not mislead viewers,” The Globe and Mail reported on its website Tuesday.

“The Sierra Club of Canada had complained that the ad was a ‘greenwashing’ attempt to untruthfully make the oil sands sound environmentally benign. The ad featured a Suncor Energy Inc. ... employee named Shelley Powell, who in a spot about tailings — a key issue confronting the oil sands — said they are ‘essentially like yogurt,’” the piece adds.

Huge waste ponds at oil sands mining sites are among the biggest environmental issues associated with development of the plentiful resource.

Here’s more from the story: “The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which created the ad, said Ms. Powell was attempting to describe the consistency of tailings. Advertising Standards Canada, which uses volunteers from advertisers, ad agencies, media and the public to consider contentious promotional material, agreed.”

“'Following an extensive review of the commercial, the majority of Council did not find the particular claim in question was misleading in terms of the [Canadian] Code [of Advertising Standards],’ Janet Feasby, vice-president of standards, wrote in a letter Monday. ‘They found that Ms. Powell’s reference to yogurt referred only to the apparent physical consistency of the tailings and did not humanize or soft pedal the more controversial aspects surrounding tailings.’”

But there’s more to the story. The industry group has pulled the English version of the controversial yogurt ad, but the French version remains in its website, The Globe and Mail piece notes.

The Sierra Club Canada flagged the developments Tuesday in a press release. The Globe and Mail story and the press release note there’s more to the Advertising Standards Canada letter.

“It should be noted, however, that Council’s decision was not unanimous. Council was pleased; therefore, to learn from the advertiser that this commercial had been withdrawn and replaced by another that does not make any reference to yogurt,” the letter states.

The Globe and Mail piece notes that the industry group “said the French version more clearly communicates that ‘yogurt’ is meant solely as a consistency comparison. The industry plans to begin re-airing the English version, minus the yogurt reference, soon.”

Sierra Club Canada, meanwhile, thinks the industry trade group should focus its efforts elsewhere. “Rather than spend so many resources trying to convince the public that everything is A-ok, CAPP should agree to a moratorium on new developments,” said Sheila Muxlow, director with the Sierra Club Canada Prairie Chapter, in a prepared statement Tuesday.