If you’ve been paying attention to Enbridge in the news, you might have heard about the protests up in Canada a couple weeks ago, where some concerned activists put up a blockade halting work on Enbridge’s Line 9 reversal project. In response to that action, Enbridge generated a shockingly disingenuous blog post under the headline– we’re not making this up– “Pipelines and protests: A meaningful discussion starts with the facts.” In it, Enbridge presents six “facts” about Line 9, as if to present themselves as the truth-tellers in contrast to those dishonest, un-factual protestors.

We’re not going to spend time here pointing out just how very arguable most of their six so-called “facts” really are. (Like the claim that “Line 9 has an excellent safety record,” which surely depends upon how one defines “excellent.”) Instead, we just need to point out how preposterous– preposterous to the point of being offensive– it is for Enbridge to try to take the high road and pretend to be genuinely devoted to “facts” and the truth.

Let’s just quickly review, for instance, some of Enbridge’s greatest hits of the last 12 months. Mind you, we’re not talking here about garden-variety public relations spin or the routine misinformation spread by land agents. We’re talking about clear, demonstrable falsehoods served up by prominent Enbridge employees, including some of their most senior executives. Here are just five examples of such falsehoods from the past year, demonstrating vividly how Enbridge engages in “meaningful discussion” starting with “facts”:

1. In Indiana, Enbridge spokesperson Jennifer Smith told the public that federal regulations require them to remove all trees from the pipeline right of way.
2. In Canada, Enbridge spokesman Graham White fabricated a disparaging story, out of whole cloth, about a single concerned citizen.
3. In Minnesota, Senior Land Manager John McKay said that Enbridge pipeline projects begin with landowners deciding to do business with Enbridge.
4. Here in Michigan, Vice President Rich Adams looked the United States EPA straight in they eye and told them an untrue story about obtaining a dredge pad permit.
5. And most recently in Michigan, Vice President Brad Shamla pretended in front of the whole world that the pipeline rupture in Marshall happened a day later than it actually did.

Unfortunately, such brazen, undisguised untruths generally go unnoticed or are met with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. It may be that the public simply expects so little in the way of honesty from companies like Enbridge that we’ve all but given up on being outraged by instances of dishonesty. For example, no one in the press (or anywhere else), as far as we know, has taken any interest at all in Enbridge’s revisionist history about the date of the Marshall spill. We find this baffling and deeply disturbing. Wouldn’t you think that some dogged reporter somewhere would just want to call Brad Shamla on the phone and ask the simple question: “How can you say, on the one hand, that you don’t want to erase Marshall from your memory while, on the other hand, you deliberately pretend the day the rupture occurred was the day after it occurred?”

Worse than apathy or cynicism, however, is the fact that there are still a lot of people– local officials, journalists, newspaper editorial boards, ordinary landowners– who actually do believe things that Enbridge tells them. That’s bad and has severe consequences. It’s bad because it can leave landowners unprotected (because, say, they didn’t think they needed to hire an attorney). Bad because newspapers might type up whatever Enbridge says (and thereby misinform the public). Bad because elected officials and regulatory agencies will accept Enbridge’s word on important matters (and leave the public interest unprotected).

But the evidence (above and all throughout our archives) shows that you can’t believe the things Enbridge says, that you can’t take them at their word. And that’s why we think it is very important–imperative– to demonstrate as clearly and factually as possible when and how and why Enbridge can NOT be trusted. It’s why we continue to be outraged by false and misleading statements. Because those statements are not inconsequential; they have very real effects out in the world, your world. Our (perhaps futile) hope is that if we keep pointing them out, maybe eventually people– landowners, journalists, politicians, regulators– will be a little less trusting in the future.