'Stonewalled': Trans Mountain hides dealings with private security and spy firms

A federally owned pipeline company is withholding records that would expose its dealings with private security and intelligence firms by citing blanket exemptions under access-to-information law.

Calgary-based Trans Mountain responded to a request to see its contracts with these agencies, along with reports delivered under those deals, by refusing to release a single piece of paper, prompting CBC News to lodge an official complaint.

"Trans Mountain Corporation cannot provide the records you have requested as they are exempt under the [Access to Information] Act," wrote Shelley Sapieha, information and records management adviser, in a letter copied to the company's general counsel Kevin Thrasher.

Disclosing these records could reveal information obtained during investigations aimed at the detection, prevention or suppression of crime, which is shielded by Section 16 of the Access to Information Act, Sapieha's letter says.

The records could expose the identity of a confidential source; information on criminal methods or techniques; technical information about weapons or potential weapons; or information on infrastructure vulnerabilities, all exempt by that section, the letter says.

The corporation also cites sections 17 through 20 which, respectively, shield information that could threaten individual safety; information on Canada's economic interests; personal information; and confidential information supplied by a third party.

While Canada's intelligence, defence and police agencies regularly use these sections to withhold files, they also routinely release secret papers in declassified form despite them.

The company's bid to withhold records comes as little surprise to people who obtained what they call alarming and frightening glimpses into its intelligence holdings.

"The reason they claim that exemption is: without any evidence, and this is a Canadian tradition, they continue to pathologize any form of Indigenous resistance as being criminal or terroristic," said Joe Killoran, a criminal defence lawyer in Kamloops, B.C.

"There's no evidence to support that."

Killoran filed access-to-information requests during his court defence of the Tiny House Warriors, a Secwépemc-led activist collective blocking development of the Trans Mountain expansion near Blue River in the B.C. interior.

Activist group spied on

The expansion would twin the existing 1,150-kilometre pipe stretching from Edmonton to Burnaby near Vancouver. The Trudeau government bought Trans Mountain in 2018 for $4.5 billion. Since then, the expansion's estimated cost has soared to $21.4 billion.

Members of the Tiny House Warriors were tried and convicted of mischief for storming 2018 meetings in Kamloops led by former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci, which the courts ordered after Canada failed to perform its constitutionally mandated duty to consult with First Nations.

After an initial denial followed by delay, on June 5, 2019, Killoran got access to the some of the company's files.

"They then provided me with documents that were heavily redacted, but which nevertheless showed that Trans Mountain engages in what appear to be violations of the Privacy Act, collecting information, and monitoring the social media activity of people opposed to the Trans Mountain pipeline."

The files, which CBC News reviewed and reported on in 2019, indicate Trans Mountain employs retired Mounties and unknown security operatives who conduct physical and open-source surveillance, track activist movements, analyze their motives, and work with members of the RCMP's Community-Industry Response Group, or C-IRG.

The force established the C-IRG to deal with protests against major industrial resource extraction projects, namely the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink pipelines, according to its founding documents.

The files label activists as "persons of interest" (POIs), and Killoran points to sections that seem to question their sincerity and seek ways to politically discredit them, citing them as evidence of what he considers paramilitary tactics.

Whether this monitoring violates the Privacy Act has not been determined.

"There's cause for alarm that Trans Mountain is conducting secretive activity that they don't want Canadians to know about — that Canadians are paying for, but that Trans Mountain takes the position that Canadians have no right to know about," he said.

"It sets a terrible precedent, and it's a situation that's rife with the potential for abuse."

Killoran said he since filed another request with Trans Mountain, a subsidiary of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, which met with another denial that prompted an ongoing complaint with the information commissioner.

"Trans Mountain has just stonewalled at every opportunity, and appears to be — well, is — spying on Canadians who've been convicted of no crimes, who are guilty of only opposing Trans Mountain or being concerned about climate change," he said.

'We are watching the locals'

Lynn Perrin is one of those people. The Abbotsford-based director of anti-pipeline advocacy and activist group Pipe Up has opposed Trans Mountain for about a decade.

In the course of her activism, she developed a suspicion she was under surveillance, so she requested Trans Mountain's internal file on her under the Privacy Act in 2019. She obtained records a few months later, but not without difficulty.

"I don't think that Trans Mountain entirely complied with the act, because, first of all, I asked that the documents be sent to me electronically," she said.

"They weren't, and, according to the act, I'm allowed to request that."

Instead, Trans Mountain told her to go to their external legal counsel's office in downtown Vancouver, according to a Jan. 23, 2020 letter from Thrasher, the company's internal counsel, provided to CBC News.

There she found the censored reports laid out on a table, Perrin said. She said she tried to take them, but the lawyers refused.

"So then I whipped out my cell phone and the lawyer was putting his hand up to say stop, and I just kept on taking pictures," she said.

"I'm sure that there are many more documents in my file with Trans Mountain, but I particularly asked for ones that were related to their security sending information to the RCMP."

The pictures confirmed her suspicions. Perrin is named in emailed reports, dubbed "collection plans," outlining the company's weekly surveillance operations.

Along with Perrin, the collection plan for April 15-21, 2019 mentions "Unist'ot'en protesters" amid swathes of blacked-out text. Unist'ot'en is a clan of the Wet'suwet'en Nation whose members oppose construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The collection plan for July 29-Aug. 4, 2019 singles out Perrin, saying, "We are watching the locals and the small media outlets to track awareness and reaction" to her activity.

The collection plan for Sept. 2-8, 2019, targets Perrin's group for what it calls baseline monitoring. The entire document is censored, including the author of the report and its recipients, except one line.

"Fraser Valley seems active online with efforts from Lynn PERRIN and Pipe Up network. We will be increasing monitoring on these groups and POIs," it says.

The disclosure included two undated reports, titled "event briefs," detailing security concerns before public meetings. One report's intelligence section urges Trans Mountain personnel to avoid a Denny's parking lot before an event at a Sandman Hotel, citing possible opposition from Perrin.

The activist said she's never been accused, charged or convicted of a crime related to pipeline opposition and was left feeling concerned by the spying.

"It's frightening," she said.

CBC News contacted Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino's office asking if the minister is aware of the extent to which Trans Mountain conducts covert surveillance but a spokesperson declined to comment.

CBC News asked Trans Mountain to respond to concerns its surveillance of groups like the Tiny House Warriors, Pipe Up and others may violate federal privacy laws.

In a statement, a spokesperson said "Trans Mountain respects the right to peaceful, lawful expressions of opinions.

"There is a B.C. Supreme Court injunction in place that prevents the blocking or obstructing of access to Trans Mountain's worksites and work areas throughout British Columbia. "