On January 10, the federal government opens public hearings to determine whether to approve a new pipeline to deliver oil from Alberta's oil sands to the B.C. coast, where it can be shipped to new markets overseas. More than 200 groups have registered as interveners in the hearings and more than 4,500 people will testify before the panel: Every single one gets a chance to make a case to the environmental and regulatory review panel, where they can argue for, or against, the Northern Gateway project.
One of those registered interveners is a group called ForestEthics. They're the hardcore, San Francisco-based environmentalists that pressured Chiquita bananas to boycott Canadian oil sands oil. The group says it plans to argue that the pipeline, which could ship more than half a million barrels of Canadian oil a day to a port in Kitimat, B.C., "is not in the national interest." Read that again: Activists from San Francisco and California want to convince our government that a significant energy project is not in our national interest. Since when did Canadians choose to let foreign groups make those kinds of decisions for us?
Yet, in the campaign against Northern Gateway, a horde of foreign and foreign-backed groups are teaming up to try to tell the government we elected that Canada shouldn't go ahead with this project. They'll pretend to speak for Canadians. They sometimes even claim to be Canadian. In reality, they use money from powerful foreign interests to sustain their campaigns against our oil sands and projects, like Northern Gateway, that help us develop that important resource. These groups don't answer to us -- they answer to their rich, foreign paymasters.
The Ecojustice Canada Society is one group fighting oil sands development. It has a Canadian name, but has actually relied on more than a quarter-million dollars from the multi-billion dollar U.S.-based Hewlett family trust to fund its fights. And between 2003 and 2009, the Pembina Environmental Foundation cashed cheques worth more than $2.8 million from backers outside Canada to oppose development of Canadian oil.
It's true that the West Coast Environmental Law Research Foundation represents the West Coast: the U.S. West Coast. Its campaign against oil tankers in B.C. waters is backed by nearly $100,000 in grants from the Wilburforce Foundation in Seattle. It also gets paid by the New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund to "prevent the development of a pipeline and tanker port" in British Columbia, according to U.S. tax returns. That Rockefeller money comes from a vast family fortune made in oil production. Prospering from energy resources is apparently just fine if the Rockefellers are doing it, but their fund is using the power that wealth brings to keep Canada's energy prosperity down.
Between 2009 and 2010, the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation paid $2.2 million to a group called Corporate Ethics, which in 2010 ran an ad campaign urging tourists to boycott Canada (definitely not in our national interest) over our oil development. Tides also paid a quarter of a million dollars in 2010 to Environmental Defence Canada, which calls the oil sands "the dirtiest project on earth" and is fighting to have them shut down.
Letting foreign groups buy influence in our national affairs isn't something to take lightly. Elections Canada actually prohibits foreign money being used for federal campaign promotions, to stop non-Canadian interests from manipulating our vote. When it comes to important decisions about Canada's future, we all recognize that Canadians should be the ones making the call.
Federal natural resource minister Joe Oliver has said that, by opening up oil sands exports to sizeable energy-hungry markets beyond the U.S., the Northern Gateway pipeline promises to deliver Canada "hundreds of thousands of new jobs, trillions [of dollars] in economic benefits," and billions more dollars in taxes and royalties.
There's a lot riding on this. And whichever way the Northern Gateway decision goes, Canadians will be the ones to realize the consequences. Foreign billionaires don't care if we create thousands of jobs for Canadians, or if we improve our education and health care systems. And countries that compete with Canada for export markets might well prefer to see our national ambitions frustrated.
But Canadians have worked too hard setting this nation up for success to give outsiders veto power over our plans for our future. The Northern Gateway panel has already agreed to let foreign-funded groups intervene in their hearings; our federal government -- elected by us, to represent us -- should do whatever necessary to ensure it doesn't let these foreign-backed groups interfere in our decision.
Follow Kathryn Marshall on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KVMarshall
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If Kathryn Marshall believes the issue is about foreign money, then her focus should be on her own paymaster -- foreign oil corporations washing their money through Canadian subsidiaries. The oil corporations have spent over $200 million to promote the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which makes the money received by all Canadian charities from foreign foundations like a drop in the bucket. For example, Todd Paglia of ForestEthics reports that "his group has spent less than $10,000 on its campaign to get people involved in the hearings. The money, he said, has come from both Canadian and U.S. sources.
EthicalOil once again shows itself to be the pimp of oil corporations.
To combat this , the US companies paid Greenpeace millions of dollars to protest Canadian forestry. Even though BC had the best silviculture tree planting practices in the world and some of the fastest growth rates , Greenpeace refused to discuss this . Instead they painted a picture of utter destruction and the media and gullible public believed them.
Todays attack on the Oilsands is no different . Their science is pure garbage - nothing but propaganda but the results are the same - the media and the naive still eat it up .
" You'll never lose a bet by under estimating the intelligence of the average man " - Mark Twain
The enviro groups understand this intimately.
This argument is nothing but a dirty battle of corporate players and the enviro groups are paid performers with delusions of grandeur much like a prostitute who thinks she's providing a worthwhile service - same principle on a larger scale.
If you follow the money on both sides of the argument you will find multiple agendas but the average man is starting see past the propaganda , realizing that that oceans are acidifying at an alarming rate, and not all scientists' work can be suppressed.
$100 million is a pretty big number... and last time I checked Sinopec wasn't a Canadian company...
http://www.interior-news.com/news/136819648.html
Marshall is an spokesperson for "Ethical Oil." "Ethical Oil" was created by Alykhan Velshi, a lawyer, policy analyst, and ministerial assistant - part of Harper's crew. He has worked at the predominantly neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and was manager of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, where he co-founded the Center for Law and Counterterrorism with Andrew C. McCarthy. He has written pieces in support of George W. Bush's foreign and military policies.
But Marshall is right when she says "there's a lot riding on this." Three days ago, an article in the Washington Post noted that "China will take over full ownership over a Canadian oil sands project for the first time after Athabasca Oil Sands Corp announced Tuesday it sold the remaining 40 percent of the MacKay River oil sands development to PetroChina for US$673 million." http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/athabasca-strikes-deal-to-sell-rest-of-mackay-river-oil-sands-project-to-petrochina/2012/01/03/gIQAHS18XP_story.html
It blows my mind that ANYONE would buy this Ethical Oil propaganda, backed up by the oil INDUSTRY, who, as many here intelligently point out, is anything BUT ethical, and has significant "Foreign investment" (we're not talking $100,000 funds, we're talking billions of dollars). The article insinuates that these ENGO's are rolling in foreign cash - the truth is they're working with pennies to stop an industry that is incredibly overfunded and in cahoots with the Harper government. Ethical oil. A great oxymoron.
In the great scheme of Canada’s economy, Ridley Terminals Inc. is no big deal. With annual revenue of just under $25-million, the Crown corporation operates a bulk-commodity handling facility off Ridley Island in Prince Rupert, B.C., 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver. What we do know, when we see it, is big time corporate subsidy seeking, backroom politics, scheming lobbyists and cabinet ministers throwing their weight around to satisfy the big time corporate interests.
The AstroTurfers were the Ridley Terminals Users Group and they were financed by the Houston based (with ties to G.W. Bush) Global Public Affairs.
The focus of opposition activity is the Ridley Terminals Users Group, a cabal of major B.C. and Alberta coal mine operators, including such giants as Husky Energy, Suncor Energy, Tech Coal and Coal Valley Resources, headquartered in Mr. [Rob] Merrifield’s riding. The listed federal lobbyist for Ridley Terminal Users Group is Philip Cartwright, of Global Public Affairs in Ottawa. With Global Public Affairs leading the campaign, a sudden un-spontaneous groundswell of opposition is sweeping local governments in and around Prince Rupert.
http://pushedleft.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-new-years-top-ten-list-of.html