The "Trust Gap", "social licence" and the rule of law

Giant PR firm, Edelman, does a global annual survey to gauge of the "trust" the public has in its institutions: 1) Government 2) Business 3) Media, and 4) NGOs.

The people surveyed are categorized into three groups:
1) Informed Public 2) General On-line Population, and 3) Mass Population (all population excluding Informed Public)

The results are published in the "Edelman Trust Baraometer".

2016 Edelman Trust Barometer  Widening Trust Gap
2017 Edelman Trust Barometer   An Implosion in Trust! (Brexit, Trump, immigration/refugee crisis?)

Interesting, considering recent events but one does wonder about the validity of the results as a measure of "trust". If it isn't trust that's actually being measured, what is it? It's worth reading this bit of skepticism: "Can You Trust The Data On Trust?"

The surveys show that the "Informed Public", which includes the elites that control the four institutions, have much higher "trust" in those institution than the general public (ie the definition of the "trust gap"). Hardly a surprising result.

With the advent of Internet, the general public is in a position to be better informed and less subject to control of the message by the elites (especially the legacy MSM).  A widening "trust gap" might be a natural consequence of this.  However, a potentially serious downside is a diminishing respect for the rule of law and the constitution.  For example, certain of the elites (Justin Trudeau for one) have been pushing the fuzzy notion of "social license" ("governments issue permits, communities grant permission").  In the case of pipeline approvals this suggests that decisions by lawfully appointed and mandated regulatory bodies (like the NEB) are subject to being overruled by vocal interest groups ("communities") who have no legal status. Mob rule is "permitted" to supplant the rule of law.  Not good!

Burnaby Mountain Unmasked

Greg Renouf has investigated and documented in minute detail what happened and who was involved in "protesting" Kinder Morgan's work on Burnaby Mountain.  He supplies pictures, videos and narrative.  He supplies the backgrounds of and links between the professionals protesters, the NGO's, the SFU academics and orgs, the Indians, the radicals, the extremists and the gullible useful idiots:

Part I: Is It Safe To Send Your Kids To SFU?

Part II: David Suzuki, Extremists And The RCMP

Part III - coming soon.

 Outstanding work, absolutely outstanding.

Anti-pipeline ENGO thugs show utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law

Peter Foster:

... ForestEthics has muscled its way to a seat at the policy table by its thuggish tactics.

... Ben West ... Tar Sands Campaign Director of ForestEthics Advocacy ... declared “The Enbridge line will never be completed.”  ... clearly indicates his group’s utter contempt for legal and democratic processes.

... Surely there are more balanced voices within the ENGO community. What about the giant World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF? they are even more subversive when it comes to undermining democracy, and actually profit from ForestEthics’ anti-corporate antics. ... The head of WWF Canada, David Miller [mighta' known][declared that] Northern Gateway should be turned down whatever the NEB and the democratically elected government says.

Organizations such as ForestEthics, WWF, Greenpeace and the David Suzuki Foundation all despise short-sighted “ballot box” democracy because they claim to speak for the planet and future generations.  Significantly, neither entity is in a position to speak for itself. 

... The ultimate decision on Northern Gateway is, as noted, that of the federal government. That decision should not be subject to veto by a radical minority who are impervious to facts, logic or evidence, and whose careers depend on spreading alarm, threatening violence, and contempt for democracy.

Environmental shakedown artists

A business model similar to Acme Window Smashing and Glazing

Earlier this week, the Polaris Institute, a left-wing NGO, released a report that purported to demonstrate, via public lobbying records, “how some of the biggest companies in the world are using well-oiled lobby machinery to directly manipulate policy making in Canada.”

... Meanwhile, Polaris’s claims beg a question: If oil companies are so all-powerful in the political process, why are the oil sands under siege? How was it that Keystone XL was blocked? Why is Northern Gateway’s future looking so rocky?

The simple answer is hugely effective campaigns of misinformation supported by organizations such as Polaris.

... But corporations have also funded their ENGO persecutors by buying them off as “consultants” and kowtowing to a business model analogous to that of the Acme Window Smashing and Glazing company: create environmental hysteria, then offer your services on how to deal with hysteria. [Where "dealing with hysteria" means creating more of it and further abusing corporations who (stupidly) cough up even more funding].

Scrap CIDA

Peter Foster, in today’s ‘Post’, gives a number of excellent reasons for killing the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). In my estimation the most compelling of these is - and I didn’t know this till now - "CIDA was created in the late 1960s by Maurice Strong". Anything that Maurice Strong is involved in has to be deeply suspect. In Peter Fosters words:

[Strong] the self confessed socialist master-manipulator behind ...Kyoto, sustainable development and global governance.

...deliberately installed a vague agenda and loose controls over CIDA

...agenda to promote activist, leftist NGOs in the development field

Mr. Foster’s latest exposé follows columns (here and here) detailing CIDA and NGO interference with various mining operations around the world. His column today calls for CIDA to be dumped:

CIDA should be a candidate for the scrap heap, not because it has been ineffective in promoting development, but because it has become a prime factor in stopping it.

The solution to poverty is trade, investment and the rule of law... NGO activists ... should have less influence inside the gates of Ottawa.

I think I’ll write to the Minister responsible for CIDA and urge her to give it the axe.

Related

Letter to the editor from Kairos (CIDA funded NGO) chairman Father Paul Hansen protesting Peter Foster’s earlier column.

Also in today’s FP ‘Comment’ section along with Mr. Foster’s column is a letter from an Ecuadoran indigenous group to Mining Watch (funded in part by Kairos) protesting its anti-development activities which are helping to keep poor people in poverty.