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Good for it!Last updated 19 minutes ago You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.Treating a trade association describing natural gas as “affordable energy” as fraudulent consumer marketing risks stretching the Competition Act beyond its intended purpose. Photo by Canadian Gas Association/Facebook/PostmediaSomething has shifted in Ottawa, and it is worth pausing to notice.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorThe Competition Bureau of Canada has closed its investigation into the Canadian Gas Association over allegations of greenwashing — claims brought by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and allied groups that the association’s advertising of natural gas as clean energy was false and misleading. The investigation, begun in 2022, is over. After four years, the bureau found no basis to proceed.CAPE is not taking it well. Six of its members have written to the federal government demanding intervention, claiming the bureau failed to explain its decision and pointing to what they call a “concerning systemic pattern” of dropping environmental marketing investigations. Their complaint is that the watchdog is not doing what they want.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againI read it differently. From where I sit, what CAPE describes as systemic failure looks like the return of something we had lost: the reasonable-person test.The Competition Bureau exists to protect consumers from businesses making fraudulent claims for money. A watchdog with teeth ought to mean weary consumers can count on someone looking out for them. For the past decade, however, that mandate was stretched beyond recognition. The bureau increasingly found itself drawn into environmental policy disputes as advocacy organizations filed complaint after complaint against energy companies and industry associations. The complaints cost little to advance yet consumed years of investigative bandwidth, put their targets on the defensive and rarely addressed the sort of concrete consumer harm the Competition Act was designed to prevent.Consumer protection is easy to define. Does that health supplement actually work? Does that wireless plan come with hidden charges? These are the kinds of questions the Competition Act is designed to answer. Refereeing broad claims made in a public policy debate is something else entirely. A trade association describing natural gas as “affordable energy” that “burns cleaner than any other fuel” is advancing a position in a vigorous, ongoing public policy debate. Treating it as fraudulent consumer marketing risks stretching the Competition Act beyond its intended purpose.If the pendulum has swung back, as the pattern suggests, we should acknowledge it. Parliament has already begun retreating from the most expansive elements of the 2024 greenwashing regime, including narrowing the ability of third parties to invoke the Competition Act. The bureau’s renewed emphasis on the reasonable-person test points in the same direction.I say this with some personal investment. In July 2025, I joined seven other British Columbians in filing our own complaint with the Competition Bureau — but with the shoe on the other foot.Our complaint was against the David Suzuki Foundation because it had repeatedly used a two-decade-old aerial photograph of oil wells in Wyoming to depict modern gas development in British Columbia’s Montney Formation. We objected because the industrial landscape it purported to show in British Columbia did not, in fact, exist. The image came from another country, another era and another regulatory environment. Even after the photograph’s true provenance had been established and the facts were brought to the foundation’s attention, it continued using the picture to attract readers to web pages featuring fundraising appeals alongside a report on B.C. gas extraction practices.I and my co-complainants were not asking the bureau to referee a policy disagreement. Rather, this allegation concerned a concrete, factual misrepresentation that unfairly maligned an industry central to their local economy while being used to solicit charitable donations. Fixing that was the primary aim. The second goal quickly became obvious once the complaint became public: would the Competition Bureau apply the same standards to everyone? After the furore surrounding Bill C-15, the Liberals’ greenwashing law, and the growing stream of complaints from advocacy groups, fairness had become a legitimate question.If the bureau was prepared to entertain complaints from advocacy groups challenging industry brand advertising, it was only fair to test whether the same standards applied when the complaint ran in the opposite direction.We were pleased that the Competition Bureau took our complaint seriously enough to meet with us and open an investigation. To our knowledge, the matter remains ongoing. Whatever the eventual outcome, we believe the complaint warranted careful scrutiny because it tested whether the Competition Act would be applied consistently and impartially.The bureau should be wary of becoming a venue for political campaigns pursued through consumer-protection law. If the reasonable-person test has in fact returned, it should remain the bureau’s guiding principle. Canadian consumers deserve a Competition Act focused where Parliament intended: on materially misleading representations rather than contested questions of public policy. That discipline protects consumers, businesses and advocacy organizations alike.Stewart Muir, a former newspaper editor, is president and CEO of Resource Works Society. Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.