The government of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper was repeatedly criticized for stifling environmental science and demonizing climate-change activists who opposed oil-pipeline construction.

Then Justin Trudeau and the Liberals took power in November 2015 and one of the very first things they did was remove Harper-era restrictions on government scientists that forbid researchers from speaking publicly without Ottawa’s approval.

Four years later, environmental activists who oppose an expansion of one pipeline in particular—the Trans Mountain pipeline—remain “persons of interest,” a November 25 report by CBC News reveals.

“The federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation is monitoring pipeline opponents and designating some as persons of interest who warrant closer scrutiny, according to internal records provided to CBC News,” the article reads.

“The Trans Mountain documents show its security officials recorded the names of individuals who posted anti-pipeline videos and statements on social media, along with the names of those tagged in the posts or who shared the content.”

The Trudeau government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan Canada in August 2018 for a price of $4.5 billion. It’s since approved a $9.3 billion expansion of the pipeline, which runs from Edmonton, where it receives diluted bitumen from the Alberta tar sands, to a port in Burnaby. Upon completion, the project will triple the amount of bitumen transported to the Lower Mainland, increasing the number of oil tankers moving through Burrard Inlet from some 60 ships per year to more than 400.

According to the CBC News report, the federal government’s monitoring of environmental activists in B.C. primarily consisted of collected social-media posts and other online activity. The documents—which were provided to CBC News by Kamloops lawyer Joe Killoran—cover a six-day period of December 2018. That’s nearly four months after the Canadian government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan Canada. They were obtained from Trans Mountain Corporation, a Crown corporation that was created for that purchase. The documents are labelled as "activity reports" and include analysis alongside collected information.

The whole affair is reminiscent of a complaint that the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) brought against the RCMP and CSIS nearly five years ago.

“The RCMP and CSIS have absolutely no business gathering information on people who are engaged in peaceful, democratic activity,” said BCCLA executive director Josh Paterson (who resigned from the BCCLA last June). “That is a perversion of our system and it is harmful to democracy, because it can intimidate, it can chill people from wanting to express themselves and participate in public debate in the first place.”

He was speaking about the Harper government and Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, in 2014 but, it now appears, could have been referring to the Trudeau government and Trans Mountain pipeline, in 2019.

In related news, it was only this past July that the BCCLA was able to make documents related to that 2014 complaint available to the public.

According to the BCCLA, these files "suggest the spy agency illegally spied on the peaceful protest and organizing activities of Indigenous groups and environmentalists who were opposed to the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project".

It begs the question, in another five years’ time, what might come to light about the Trudeau government’s surveillance of environmental activists today?