OTTAWA - Heavy lobbying by the oil and gas industry has far outstripped any other interest group seeking to influence the Harper government over the last four years, according to a new study that examined the lobbyist registry.

The left-leaning Polaris Institute contends that the more than 2,700 meetings between oil and gas lobbyists and federal office holders since 2008 have helped turn Canada into a "petro state."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been promoting Canada as an emerging "energy super power" since coming to office in 2006.

And in the last 18 months, pipeline politics have become an Ottawa preoccupation as major public policy debates erupted in both Canada and the United States over the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast and Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, B.C.

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• Syncrude Upgrader and Oil Sands

  The refining or upgrading of the tarry bitumen which lies under the oil sands consumes far more oil and energy than conventional oil and produces almost twice as much carbon. Each barrel of oil requires 3-5 barrels of fresh water from the neighboring Athabasca River. About 90% of this is returned as toxic tailings into the vast unlined tailings ponds that dot the landscape. Syncrude alone dumps 500,000 tons of toxic tailings into just one of their tailings ponds everyday.

• Boreal Forest and Coast Mountains / Atlin Lake, British Columbia | 2001

  This area, located in the extreme northwest of British Columbia, marks the western boundary of the Boreal region. On the border of the Yukon and Southeast Alaska, the western flank of these mountains descends into Alaska's Tongass Rainforest and British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. Far from the oil sands, the greatest remaining coastal temperate and marine ecosystem is imminently threatened by the proposal to build a 750-mile pipeline to pump 550,000 barrels per day of oil sands crude to the coast. Once there, it would be shipped through some of the most treacherous waters, virtually assuring an ecological disaster at some point in the future.

• Tailings Pond in Winter, Abstract #2 / Alberta Tar Sands | 2010

  Even in the extreme cold of the winter, the toxic tailings ponds do not freeze. On one particularly cold morning, the partially frozen tailings, sand, liquid tailings and oil residue, combined to produce abstractions that reminded me of a Jackson Pollock canvas.

• Aspen and Spruce | Northern Alberta | 2001

  Photographed in late autumn in softly falling snow, a solitary spruce is set against a sea of aspen. The Boreal Forest of northern Canada is perhaps the best and largest example of a largely intact forest ecosystem. Canada's Boreal Forest alone stores an amount of carbon equal to ten times the total annual global emissions from all fossil fuel consumption.

• Tar Sands at Night #1 | Alberta Oil Sands | 2010

  Twenty four hours a day the oil sands eats into the most carbon rich forest ecosystem on the planet. Storing almost twice as much carbon per hectare as tropical rainforests, the boreal forest is the planet's greatest terrestrial carbon storehouse. To the industry, these diverse and ecologically significant forests and wetlands are referred to as overburden, the forest to be stripped and the wetlands dredged and replaced by mines and tailings ponds so vast they can be seen from outer space.

• Dry Tailings #2 | Alberta Tar Sands | 2010

  In an effort to deal with the problem of tailings ponds, Suncor is experimenting with dry tailings technology. This has the potential to limit, or eliminate, the need for vast tailings ponds in the future and lessen this aspect of the oil sands' impact.

• Tailings Pond Abstract #2 | Alberta Tar Sands / 2010

  So large are the Alberta Tar Sands tailings ponds that they can be seen from space. It has been estimated by Natural Resources Canada that the industry to date has produced enough toxic waste to fill a canal 32 feet deep by 65 feet wide from Fort McMurray to Edmonton, and on to Ottawa, a distance of over 2,000 miles. In this image, the sky is reflected in the toxic and oily waste of a tailings pond.

• Confluence of Carcajou River and Mackenzie River | Mackenzie Valley, NWT | 2005

  The Caracajou River winds back and forth creating this oxbow of wetlands as it joins the Mackenzie flowing north to the Beaufort Sea. This region, almost entirely pristine, and the third largest watershed basin in the world, will be directly impacted by the proposed Mackenzie Valley National Gas Pipeline to fuel the energy needs of the Alberta Oil Sands mega-project.

• Black Cliff | Alberta Oil Sands | 2005

  Oil sands pit mining is done in benches or steps. These benches are each approximately 12-15 meters high. Giant shovels dig the oil sand and place it into heavy hauler trucks that range in size from 240 tons to the largest trucks, which have a 400-ton capacity.

• Oil Sands Upgrader in Winter| Alberta Oil Sands | 2010

  The Alberta oil sands are Canada's single largest source of carbon. They produce about as much annually as the nation of Denmark. The refining of the tar-like bitumen requires more water and uses almost twice as much energy as the production of conventional oil. Particularly visible in winter, vast plumes of toxic pollution fill the skies. The oil sands are so large they create their own weather systems.

• Boreal Forest and Wetland | Athabasca Delta Northern Alberta | 2010

  Located just 70 miles downstream from the Alberta oil sands, the Athabasca Delta is the world's largest freshwater delta. It lies at the convergence of North America's four major flyways and is a critical stopover for migrating waterfowl and considered one of the most globally significant wetlands. It is threatened both by the massive water consumption of the tar sands and its toxic tailings ponds.

• Tar Pit #3

  This network of roads reminded me of a claw or tentacles. It represents for me the way in which the tentacles of the tar sands reach out and wreak havoc and destruction. Proposed pipelines to American Midwest, Mackenzie Valley, and through the Great Bear Rainforest will bring new threats to these regions while the pipelines fuel new markets and ensure the proposed five fold expansion of the oil sands.

Research by the Polaris Institute suggests that industry lobbying efforts have been gaining steam in lock step.

Using the federal lobbyist registry to track meetings, the study shows that since 2008 oil and gas interests dwarfed contact by other major industry groups, including the mining industry, car makers and the forestry industry.

The 734 contacts by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association almost doubled the 412 communications by two major mining associations, and almost tripled the 245 contacts by the major forest industry groups. Two groups representing auto manufacturers had 157 recorded contacts over the same four-year period.

A spokesman for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver made no apologies for meeting with industry lobbyists.

"The minister considers it appropriate to meet with a variety of groups, including those from industry, to keep himself informed on issues related to his ministerial responsibilities," Chris McCluskey said in an email.

Those lobbying efforts redoubled last year. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) had 190 contacts with government officials in 2011, up from 86 in 2010.

"This rapid increase in officially recorded lobbying by CAPP coincides with a major public relations push in print, television and online advertising designed to counter increasing opposition to the tar sands," says the Polaris report.

In addition to industry advertising, this fall the Conservative government also launched a major television ad campaign, with a budget of $9 million, to pitch Canadians on "responsible resource development."

Since achieving a majority in the May 2011 election, the Conservative government has been rewriting or repealing laws governing environmental assessments, navigable waterways and other measures it says are an impediment to major resource developments.

The Polaris study contends oil industry lobbyists are behind the policy changes.

"The amount of face time the oil industry gets in Ottawa in personal meetings and other correspondence greatly exceeds the time afforded other major industries in Canada," Daniel Cayley-Daoust, one of the report's authors, said in a release.

"No one doubts the hold the oil industry has on this current government, but it is important Canadians are aware that such a high rate of lobbying to federal ministers has strong policy implications."

The study claims environmental groups have been all but shut out by the Conservative government, judging by lobbyist registry contacts.

That's not true, said McCluskey, who noted his minister met last week with a coalition of environmental groups representing five different organizations.

He said the Polaris study is based solely on meetings that are reported to the commissioner of lobbying.

"While industry associations report their meetings to the commissioner, in many cases environmental groups do not," said the government spokesman.

"The minister will continue to assess invitations to meet environmental groups and the natural resources industry — which directly employs 800,000 Canadians and indirectly employs 800,000 more."

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