Company apologizes for anonymous campaign against chlorine plant

This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Vancouver

An Ontario chemical company says it “should have been more transparent” about funding an anonymous online campaign against a chlorine plant in North Vancouver. 

The Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and CBC Vancouver revealed Wednesday that K2 Pure Solutions quietly funded Keep North Vancouver Safe, a website and advertising campaign that lobbied against Chemtrade Logistics Inc.’s efforts to keep producing chlorine in North Vancouver. 

Later that day, K2 issued a statement on the website, apologizing “if our lack of transparency has caused mistrust.” Before Tuesday, Keep North Vancouver Safe’s website did not identify a funder and on Facebook, it was described only as an “environmental conservation organization.” 

K2 co-founder David Cynamon said Thursday in an interview that he took responsibility for the mistake. 

“There’s no grey there. It’s black and white. This was poorly done and executed,” said Cynamon, a former owner of the Toronto Argonauts. 

But he defended the thrust of the campaign, which raised issues about the safety of chlorine production in North Vancouver. 

“The perception of our execution shouldn’t cover the real underlying issue here and the good work that we have done,” Cynamon said. 

Since July, Keep North Vancouver Safe has purchased nearly $20,000 worth of advertisements on Facebook and Instagram, according to the Meta Ad library, some of which suggest a chlorine spill is imminent at Chemtrade’s long-running plant in North Vancouver. 

The website encouraged readers to contact local councillors and MLAs, urging them to oppose Chemtrade’s push to renew an agreement that would allow it to keep producing chlorine at the site beyond 2030 when a covenant in its lease with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority would require it to stop. 

In a written statement, Chemtrade vice-president Alan Robinson said chlorine produced at that plant is used to purify drinking water across the western United States and Canada. 

“Chemtrade has been transparent with both the government and the public throughout the process as we continue to engage with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority regarding a potential lease extension,” Robinson said. 

He previously told the IJF and CBC that he considers K2 a competing company. Chemtrade’s quarterly reports also identify K2 as a “key competitor.” 

But Cynamon said his motivations were not financial and the two companies are not competitors. He said K2 promotes a different process of purifying water without transporting chlorine by rail, which Cynamon argues is unnecessarily dangerous. K2 has lobbied against the practice of transporting chlorine by rail across North America, Cynamon said. 

“We don’t care about our marketplace. We care about the safety of people,” Cynamon said.

K2, Cynamon said, retained Toronto-based public relations firm Crestview Strategies to lobby elected officials in the District of North Vancouver. Crestview senior consultant Jason Craik said in a Wednesday email that many of those messages to district councillors were ignored. 

Cynamon said Crestview then recommended launching the online campaign.

It proved controversial among elected officials, some of whom received hundreds of emails via the website. 

“It’s frustrating for the public, I’m guessing, to hear that there are groups trying to hide who is funding their campaigns. It helps us all to have full disclosure of who is lobbying our communities,” District of North Vancouver Mayor Mike Little said. 

Little said he also doubts all the correspondence he received was actually from district residents. 

“The emails coming into the district were —  how should I say it? — unnatural,” Little said. He said they contained strange sentence structures and “hyphens everywhere.” 

Coun. Catherine Pope said she ran some of that text through a piece of software that identified it as generated by artificial intelligence. 

The office of North Vancouver-Seymour MLA Susie Chant previously said they believe many emails were not actually from district residents, though they have not said how they reached that conclusion. 

Cynamon said Crestview had advised him the emails were legitimate and it was contacting senders to confirm that. He argued politicians were surprised by how many people care about the issue and said K2 and Crestview would never intentionally fabricate any messages.  

“I have interviewed my strategist. I’ve got him to confirm and guarantee to me that there was absolutely nothing that was done wrong and different or created through technology that these emails wouldn’t be 100 per cent authentic from the residents that wrote them,” Cynamon said. 

Last month, the IJF sent an email through the website under a false name. Two weeks later, the IJF received confirmation that email was sent to the mayor’s office, even though the IJF used a postal code that is not in the District of North Vancouver. Little confirmed he had received that email. 

Cynamon said he intends to continue the campaign with K2’s name attached. 

“We’re coming out and telling everyone exactly who we are. We’re not running from this,” Cynamon said. 

But some councillors say they find it hard to trust the company now. 

“I think it’s always good that people say sorry, but I think they still have some work to do,” Coun. Lisa Muri said of K2’s apology. She said it was disingenuous of K2 to accuse Chemtrade of secret lobbying when it had done exactly that. 

And Pope said she puts little stock in emails from the website, which she said promotes “alarmist” messaging around Chemtrade’s lease. 

She said the emails highlight a bigger problem about how elected officials can distinguish where messages come from.  

“It is making it harder for us politicians to determine what is a legitimate concern by a resident and what’s fake,” Pope said.