The Vancouver Observer reported last week that senior officials from the Department of National Defence, the RCMP, the National Energy Board and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the national spy agency, have been holding regular meetings with representatives of the Canadian energy sector.
This appears to be the federal government and its security apparatus handing over information it has collected about environmental groups, First Nations and anyone else who actively opposes the oil sands, pipelines and fracking.
The reaction to the articles was swift, with environmentalists, First Nations leaders and opposition parties all condemning Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government for being in cahoots with big oil.
All citizens should be concerned about any over-enthusiastic monitoring by those in power of individuals who have the nerve to oppose the interests of government and big business.
Yet there are reasons to justify these regular meetings.
Although energy production is done private companies, that work is considered an essential part of the national infrastructure. For example, under Canadian law, blowing up a pipeline isn't just damaging private property, it's considered an act of terrorism. The act is not just vandalism against the owner of the pipeline but an attack on national security and a threat to public safety.
Since both the major energy sector players and the federal government have a shared interest in keeping Canada's energy supply safe, it makes good sense for them to work together to do so. They aren't interested in lawful opposition but they are watchful for the people who share similar views so passionately that they're willing to commit crimes as part of their opposition. That's an important distinction.
Furthermore, it's important to note that the flow of information is just one way, from the national security agencies to the energy companies. These meetings, as the Vancouver Observer articles point out, are about the "exchange" of information, although they don't explain what the energy companies are bringing to the table.
It doesn't take much of an imagination to guess.
Every major company in the world employs a corporate security division to protect its workers, its work sites, its buildings and its computer systems from harm. Like governments, large companies deal with sensitive data that needs to be protected. Corporate security specialists don't just wait for attacks to happen, they take steps to prevent attacks from happening in the first place.
Those steps could involve relatively harmless activities, such as taking pictures of everyone at demonstrations and putting names to faces on a database to the obsessive monitoring of web sites and social media. Or it could be more invasive efforts, such as the infiltration of opposition groups, in person and online, to collect intelligence, sow dissent and spread misinformation.
Such shenanigans cut both ways, of course. Opposition groups aren't just watching press clippings to find out what Canadian energy companies are doing. They are also collecting intelligence, both passively (letting other people not directly affiliated to the cause do it) and actively, and then sharing it with one another.
Somewhere along the line, monitoring becomes surveillance becomes spying becomes agitation. It's important to stress that no one is saying anybody is doing anything illegal in the process.
Most importantly, that's where the government gets to play both sides. If opposition groups uncovered criminal wrongdoing by an energy company, law enforcement would still use that information to start an investigation and press charges if necessary.
Once something like that would become public, the language used to describe it is critical.
A disgruntled member of a Canadian security agency or a major energy player who would anonymously drop mounds of embarrassing data into the hands of opposition groups is both a whistle blower and a spy.
Energy is at the centre of this conflict but with so much at stake in this heated battle, information is the weapon of choice.
