How the University of Calgary's Enbridge relationship became controversial

Joe Arvai's tenure at the University of Calgary ended brusquely in July 2012 after the rising academic star balked at leading a new research institute that he felt would be perceived as little more than a corporate mouthpiece for Canada's largest pipeline company. 

But Arvai is not the only professor to leave the university over concerns its relationships with the oil industry were too cozy, a CBC investigation has found. 

Former dean Leonard Waverman warned an academic to stop questioning the relationship with Enbridge because 'if this goes belly up my ass is on the line'. (YouTube)

Emails obtained from a freedom of information request suggest a pattern of corporate influence during the bungled attempt to establish a new research centre that cost the university top level academic talent and its Haskayne School of Business upwards of a million dollars in corporate sponsorship.  

The story of the Enbridge Centre for Corporate Sustainability covers a short and troubled two-and-a-half years that ended in the fall of 2014.