This is a piece about the flexibility of Chris Benedetti. He is simultaneously a Liberal Party supporter, a head of several environmental organizations, a consultant encouraging companies to work hard to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, and a lobbyist for a Washington-based bromine industry front group dedicated to keeping the earth-warming chemical compounds that drive their profits from being subjected to further regulation in Canada.

Yeah, that last one is the one that is supposed to make you do a double take.

Back in February, I wrote a post that was particularly well received. It discussed how Liberal Party strategist John Duffy, who like Stephane Dion had spent 2006 painting himself Green, was also a lobbyist for Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, an industry group that lobbies against stricter government regulation of bromine compounds, recognized to be among the most effective greenhouse gases in use.

By that I mean effective at trapping heat. As a bonus, bromine compounds can break down the ozone layer too.

Now to have a Liberal Party environmentalist lobbying for the bromine group was good for a chuckle or two.

As is my habit for many of my stories, I revisited the elements of this one to see if there were any changes. I knew that John Duffy's work as a lobbyist for this group had come to a close, but I was suprised to see who had taken on his former role in July. The new guy is Chris Benedetti:

It's not a household name. Chris Benedetti is a vice-president for public affairs for the Sussex Strategy Group, as well the director of the Recycling Council of Ontario:

Chris has advised a diverse range of domestic and international clients in such areas as energy; environment and environmental stewardship; public-private partnerships; infrastructure and land use; health; biotechnology; agriculture; information technology; telecommunications; international trade; and government procurement. He has spoken at numerous conferences on government relations, has been published in several leading journals and serves as the immediate Past-President of the Public Affairs Association of Canada, Senior Advisor to the Canada-Europe Round Table for Business, and as a Director of the Recycling Council of Ontario.

The bio at the Recycling Council of Ontario site is very specific about Chris Benedetti's work on greenhouse gases:

Chris Benedetti is Vice President, Public Affairs, with Sussex Strategy Group, a strategic communications and government relations firm. His depth on environmental matters ranges from designing and implementing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) initiatives, to facilitating measures to help companies reduce their overall GHG emissions. At every opportunity Chris encourages beyond compliance behaviour and the continuous improvement of environmental performance.

Now are these companies taking Benedetti's advice reducing their emissions of bromine-compounds? Perhaps, but remember that Chris Benedetti is also working for the BSEF:

Established in 1997, BSEF has only four members: the world’s major producers of bromine flame retardants, based in the US, Israel and Japan.

• Albemarle Corporation
• Dead Sea Bromine Group
• Great Lakes Chemical Corporation
• Tosoh Corporation

The BSEF has hired Chris Benedetti to make sure that they are included in any government discussions concerning the "proposed redefinition of polybrominated diphenyl ethers as defined in section 64 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA 1999)".

Do you want the chemical compounds that form the basis of your commercial enterprise to be redefined as per Section 64?

The criteria set out in Section 64 of CEPA are that a substance is entering or may enter the environment in a quantity or concentration or under conditions that:

1. have or may have an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity;
2. constitute or may constitute a danger to the environment on which life depends; or
3. constitute or may constitute a danger in Canada to human life or health.

Not if you want to stay in business!

The BSEF plays hardball:

The BSEF has a remarkably aggressive, zero-tolerance strategy towards critics exposing the impacts of toxic bromine products. In a May 2003 letter on behalf of the BSEF, the law firm Harbottle & Lewis urged newspapers and television broadcasters not to cover the warnings against BFRs issued by WWF and other environmental groups. The letter advised the media to consult Lawrie Mc Laren on issues related to BFRs and ended with the following blunt notification: "We should state for the record that our clients will be monitoring future press and media coverage on the issue of BFRs, and will not hesitate to pursue all remedies available to them should there be any incorrect or inaccurate statements in relation to BFRs that adversely affect our clients' businesses."

So on the one hand, Chris Benedetti is heading the Recycling Council of Ontario and other green efforts, and on the other he's lobbying for the bromine industry, trying to keep bromines off Section 64 of CEPA, which would lead to their regulation, and perhaps even their elimination. An industry that will take any environmental group to court to protect its interests.

And yes, Chris Benedetti and the Sussex Strategy Group has ties to the Liberal Party. Both Chris Benedetti and Sussex Strategy Group head Paul Pellegrini were aids to senior Liberal ministers (Transport Minister David Anderson and Defence Minister Art Eggleton respectively). In 2006, Chris Benedetti donated $800 to the Gerard Kennedy leadership campaign (and just under $200 to Michael Ignatieff campaign) as well as a $300 donation to the party itself. There are other links as well, but to be fair, the firm has also been hiring Conservatives (an obvious move given that the Liberals are in opposition).

So I wouldn't get too animated about that.

But Chris Benedetti definitely comes from the Liberal side of the firm, and his donations to the Kennedy campaign suggested he's still connected to the Liberals. His ties there are stronger than ties to the Green Party. Benedetti made no donations to any of the Green Party leadership campaigns during the leadership contest that took place in 2006, the same year the Liberals had their leadership contest.

Maybe the Green Party is less flexible on the issue of bromines.

In previous years, when corporations could donate, Sussex definitely favoured the Liberals. In 2003, the Sussex Strategy group cut a cheque for $400 for the Progressive Conservative Party, but one for a whopping $10,147 for the Liberals. Individual riding associations received thousands more. For instance, Joe Volpe's riding of Eglinton-Lawrence was the beneficiary of a donation of $2,985.20 in 2003. Tony Ianno was the Liberal MP for Trinity-Spadina, and got $2,566 that same year.

Before that, Sussex seemed to slightly favour the PCs, but the overall donations were far smaller. Riding donations continued to go to Liberals, though.

Make of all of that what you will, but at the end of all this we have the same old story. Yet another political operator who is portraying himself as an environmentalist, actively engaged in telling the rest of us about all the sacrifices we'll have to make to save the environment, while apparently having no problems taking money from those groups other (presumably poorer) environmentalists have labeled as polluters of the worst kind.

Of course, it doesn't mean that Chris Benedetti is doing a bad job. He might feel that government regulation of bromines is not the solution, and that other means will be more effective at limiting their use. Still, that would not be the first conclusion most people would jump to. Canadians are more than a little cynical when it comes to these sorts of things.

Yet environmentalists wonder just why Canadians are more than a little skeptical about their doom-laden forecasts for the future. It would seem that predicting the end of the world is a lucrative business, as long as you don't take your own predictions all too seriously yourself. Nothing is as effective at generating work for lobbyists like impending environmental regulation. That's not to say there is a deliberate attempt to create regulation on the one hand to generate work on the other, but without even trying, it seems to work out that way.

Putting aside the conspiracy theories, it comes down to some very simple questions.

If Chris Benedetti can't take the climate change rant seriously enough to turn down money from the BSEF, why should I take it any more seriously?

If environmentalists don't have any concerns about having Chris Benedetti running major environmental efforts, despite his links to an industry group that fiercely defends its interests against environmentalists, then should it surprise anyone that I am cynical about any of the concerns environmentalists do voice?

And just how much of what we hear from environmentalists is filtered through people with links to industry groups?

Posted by: Steve Janke at 10:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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