When Canadians lose their freedoms, it isn’t through the brazen form of vote-stealing that brings tens of thousands into the streets to protest. The process here is much more gentle. It goes unnoticed by most of us — a simple partial turn of the tap on the oxygen tank.
The most recent instance was a two-paragraph addition quietly slipped into page 429 of Bill C-59, the omnibus bill implementing last fall’s economic update. The amendment’s proponents say it was designed to combat corporate “greenwashing,” a practice of falsely claiming that a company’s products or activities will protect the environment or combat climate change.
Once the bill passed the Senate, but before it became law, groups like the Pathways Alliance and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers began removing postings from their websites.
C-59’s supporters have been quick to describe the withdrawal of this web content as an admission of guilt. “If they weren’t lying, what do they have to hide,” asked Liberal M.P. Adam van Koeverden in a column for National Newswatch. He explained that “Bill C-59 is a significant step in the right direction to ensure that Canadians aren’t being lied to by massive corporations who only care about profit.”
Greenpeace expresses a similar view, asserting on its website, “There is no more powerful evidence that we need this law than an industry feeling ‘silenced’ by having to tell the truth.”
This narrative sounds straight-forward: asked to justify their environmental claims, the industry groups withdrew them.
The facts tell a more complicated story.
Despite both the right and the obligation for businesses to tell Canadians what they are doing to protect the environment and fight climate change, the provisions slipped into Bill C-59 with so little scrutiny create such risk that self-censorship becomes more attractive than trying to tell your story.
It’s the perfect Catch 22: speaking out puts you in jeopardy, but silence is deemed an admission of guilt.
First, there is the reverse onus. Unlike the criminal law, where people charged with crimes are considered innocent until proven guilty, C-59 requires the company, not those claiming it’s lying, to prove its case.
How is this to be done? The business must produce proof that its claims are “based on adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology.” And what is that internationally recognized methodology? The bill doesn’t specify it for a very good reason: these standards are subject to debate and to change as the science and technology progress. There is no universally-agreed definition for terms like “net zero,” “green,” “sustainable“, “carbon neutral,” “low-carbon“, “climate leader“, “clea,n” or “climate friendly.“
As Calgary law firm, BD&P points out, “There is currently no case law on what is required to satisfy ‘adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology’.”
The process will inevitably be political. The activist groups that fought for this provision weren’t formed to promote truth in advertising. Their goal is the elimination of the oil and gas sector itself. Why would people who are intractably opposed to the industry accept a standard that conflicts with their views? The pressure will always be there to adopt a methodology that can’t be met.
Failing to prove your innocence will come at a high cost. For corporations, the penalty is the greater of $10 million ($15 million for each subsequent order) and three times the value of the benefit derived from the conduct. If that amount can’t be reasonably determined, the cost can be three per cent of the corporation’s annual worldwide gross revenue!
For individuals, the penalty is the greater of $750,000 CAD ($1 million for each subsequent order) and three times the value of the benefit derived from the deceptive conduct, if that amount can be reasonably determined.
The Competition Bureau can start an investigation on its own initiative. In addition, six individuals acting together can request that the bureau investigate their complaint. Their target is not even guaranteed the right to know who filed it.
Even if the Competition Bureau finds the complaint unfounded, the organization is forced to pour resources into the investigation. There’s no provision to require unsuccessful complainants to cover those costs. It’s a structure that invites abuse.
In addition, as of June 20, 2025, complainants will no longer need to rely on the bureau to initiate an action with the Competition Tribunal. A single individual will be able seek leave to bring actions before the Tribunal if they can show “public interest.”
Ironically, the Competition Bureau didn’t ask for these powers. While the commissioner called for a study of how best to deal with greenwashing, he suggested that the bureau might not be the best agency to deal with it. Here’s what he told the Finance Committee on April 18:
“What I can say is that if there is a move to have very prescriptive rules about what a company can and can’t say when it comes to environmental claims or what a company must disclose in relation to environmental claims, I would suggest that the Competition Act probably isn’t the right vehicle for that kind of regulation or legislation. That might be an Environment Canada thing or a provincial thing. Ours is a law of general application that has general provisions, as opposed to specifically saying what a company can and can’t say, or what they have to provide at the time of making a statement.”
So far, the provision’s supporters have concentrated on their primary target, Canadian oil and gas. But the C-59 amendments aren’t limited to any one sector. As The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Ecojustice, Équiterre, and the Quebec Environmental Law Center celebrate in their news release, “the new rules are not limited to any one industry and could have an impact across the Canadian economy, where commonly used but controversial claims such as ‘net zero,’ ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘sustainable’ will come under closer scrutiny.”
It’s not just advertising that can put you at risk. So, too, could what you have on your website, what you post on social media, your investor presentations, your sustainability reports and even potentially your submissions to requests for project proposals.
Any business in any industry can become a target, among them, banking, mining, forestry, manufacturing, plastics, transportation and, of course, Canada’s nuclear sector. They all face activists who have now been armed with a new and potent weapon.
And what about agriculture, where producers often speak about their “sustainable” practices? The legislation doesn’t just cover large corporations or sectoral associations. It refers instead to a “a business or business activity,” which could include something as small as an individual farm. A formal complaint would only take six disgruntled individuals.
Quite apart from whether the amendments would promote dangerous self-censorship, there were some other obvious questions that didn’t get asked or answered in our elected leaders’ rush to be seen to be addressing greenwashing. For example, what is the economic impact when companies decide that the risk of costly harassment outweighs the benefits of investing in Canada? That might not worry the groups that oppose their existence, but governments and communities should be much less sanguine about the lost jobs and tax revenues.
There is also the impact upon the development of green technology. Innovating in the environmental field can be very costly, but customers are often willing to pay more for products and services that are more environmentally friendly. If you’re afraid to advertise the benefits your products offer compared to older technologies, you can’t differentiate them from the competition. And, of course, your competitors will now have the ability to drag you into costly and time-consuming legal processes.
Finally, if politicians and activist groups want to impose strict penalties on businesses that mislead the public, shouldn’t they be prepared to apply similar standards to themselves? Given Canada’s record of missed climate targets and governments’ failure to ensure that our Indigenous communities have water that’s safe to drink, it would be hard to think of any group that’s made as many false environmental promises. Asking our politicians and activists to hold themselves accountable to the same standards as they set for the rest of us might sound radical, but it might also make them a little more careful before they chip away at other people’s rights.
Perrin Beatty is president and chief executive officer at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He was first elected to the House of Commons as a Progressive Conservative in 1972, and during his 21 years in Parliament, he served as Minister in seven different portfolios, including Treasury Board, National Revenue, Solicitor General, Defence, National Health and Welfare, Communications and External Affairs.