Northern Gateway Pipeline approved with conditions

Financial Post:

In a decision that spans two volumes and nearly 500 pages, the three-member panel of environmental and energy regulators led by Sheila Leggett said the $6.5-billion project’s economic benefits outweigh the environmental burdens.

... approval includes 209 environmental, financial and technical conditions. Enbridge must set aside $950-million in liability coverage to cover costs of a potential spill, including at least $100-million available within 10 days in the event of a large rupture and $250-million of “no-fault” insurance, the panel said.

... Five conditions set by the B.C. government are still unresolved, and the pipeline remains deeply unpopular with some aboriginal groups and environmentalists. 

... Reaction from opponents was swift. Greenpeace vowed on Thursday to “do what it takes, from court cases to civil disobedience, to ensure this pipeline never gets built.” 

Vivian Krause shows that opposition to the NGP was largely the work of American ENGO, ForestEthics:

... a large percentage of the fuss over the Northern Gateway pipeline has been generated by a single, American organization: ForestEthics, based in San Francisco.... In its 2012 tax return ... ForestEthics claims credit for having generated fully 87 percent of the letters of comment sent to the National Energy Board regarding the Joint Review Panel for the Northern Gateway.

ForestEthics’s own words in its tax return: ... "... In the last six months of 2012, we amassed more than 25,000 new supporters for this campaign ... In August, we submitted to the National Energy Board 4,119 (out of 4,722 in total submitted) unique Letters of Comment on the Enbridge tankers/pipeline project, written by our supporters.”

... Since 2008, ForestEthics has been the workhorse of the Tar Sands campaign, co-funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

 There are many hurdles still to jump, not least those set up by paid agitators and radical eco-fascists organized and funded by foreigners. Also, the BC NDP is still calling for rejection and then there's Christy Clark's "fair share" shakedown to consider.  Et cetera ...

Conservative push-back against the eco-fanatics

Via BC Blue:

Fed deal with charitable group scuttled after Enbridge pressure

“Stop interfering in Canada’s domestic affairs” Canadian Senator Nicole Eaton warns foreign foundations

The PMO's Letter That Makes Canadians Proud And Is Making The Enviro-Commies Cry

Maybe we can soon look forward to the Conservatives firing the head of the Northern Gateway Pipeline Hearings.

Oil sands - following the money

Lawrence Solomon:

... Big Philanthropy is the greatest environmental advocacy effort in history, of which the controversies involving Northern Gateway pipeline, the Keystone XL Pipleline, and the Tar Sands form a small part. ...

... no issue holds a candle to the #1 priority for the U.S. funders: global warming.

... If we don’t act boldly in the next decade to prevent carbon lock-in, we could lose the fight against global warming,” explains Design to Win, a major report commissioned by six funders, including the $7-billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (the Hewlett of the Hewlett-Packard Corp.), the $6-billion David and Lucile Packard Foundation (the Packard of the Hewlett-Packard corporation), the $1.6-billion Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (heiress to the American Tobacco Co. fortune), and the $900-million Joyce Foundation (lumber).

... When Americans tell us what is good for us, we rightly take the source of the advice into consideration. We should do no less when the advice comes from Canadians in the pay of Americans.

Vivian Krause: Oil sands money trail

... The thinking behind the U.S. funding of the campaign against Canadian oil is explained in a 2007 strategy paper titled Design to Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming...

... As I see it, the campaign against Canadian oil, put on steroids by U.S. foundations, has created a negative foil, a background of bad press and fear ...

Who's bankrolling the Vancouver mayor?? - Part II

Brian Hutchinson in the National Post:

... the mayor’s lead in polls is narrowing over challenger Suzanne Anton, a moderately right-of-centre city councillor.

But there’s a far more important matter in front of Mr. Robertson and his municipal slate, Vision Vancouver. It’s a campaign funding story, first raised a year ago by local researcher and writer Vivian Krause but ignored by most media, and avoided by the mayor himself. ...

... Ms. Anton waited until this last week of the municipal election campaign to raise the issue. In a press release Tuesday morning, the NPA [presented the facts rooted out by Vivian Krause and ended with] ... “Anton says these are important questions, not only because it is illegal for charities to donate to political parties, but also because it gives the appearance of foreign-funded charities trying to influence public policy. ‘This is a serious issue and the Mayor needs to come clean on his knowledge and involvement,’ says Anton.”

It's odd that there's been so little about this in the local media. And Suzanne Anton should have been hyping it for weeks.

See also this Straight article about the story and their interview with Vivian Krause where she answered an attempted smear by a Robertson supporter related to Tides executive Joel Solomon:

... Krause told the Straight over the phone that she's not making much money doing this research.

... "I'm not on anyone's dime," Krause claimed. "But I will say this. I am fighting for something here. It's not the big oil companies. It's not the NPA, and it's definitely not the Norwegian salmon-farming companies. It's the poor people in towns like Port Hardy on the north coast of Vancouver Island—which is the poorest part of our country—where there is up to 20 percent unemployment in those little towns. It's not boomtown Vancouver, like it has been here because of the Olympics. There are places that are hurting. They're the places where these billion-dollar foundations are shutting down what are actually fairly well-run industries. Yes, they have environmental impacts, but they're not the monsters that they're made out to be."

Who is bankrolling the Vancouver mayor??

Vivian Krause asks fair questions in the National Post and Vancouver Sun:

... Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is no stranger to Tides Canada. In fact, he was a Tides Canada director from 2002 until 2004 when he entered politics with the NDP. The treasurer of Vision Vancouver, the political party that Mr. Robertson rode to power, is Martha Burton, who has been a senior advisor to Tides Canada. Mike Magee, the Chief of Staff at Vancouver City Hall, was also a senior advisor to Tides Canada (2002 to 2007).

... according to my calculations, during the course of five years of politics with both the NDP and Vision Vancouver, Gregor Robertson has received $400,000, including $340,000 in campaign finance for Vision Vancouver, from sources that are affiliated in various ways with two registered charities: the Endswell Foundation and Tides Canada.

There's lots more, including info on Robertson's real estate holdings on Cortes Island:

... Tides USA announced that it had purchased Hank's Beach, a 150-acre ocean-front property on Cortes Island. [which is happily (for Robertson) located right next to] ... 82 acres of ocean front that is owned or co-owned by one of Mayor Robertson's companies, Treedom Ventures Inc.

See also, Terence Corcoran's "mystery Mayor".

Veeerrrry interesting!

The next great pipeline debate.

Globe and mail:

Debate around the Keystone XL pipeline has been rancorous and divisive ... has mostly played itself out in America.

... But the next great pipeline debate will unfold right here in Canada.

... the proposed $5.5-billion, 1,700-kilometre Enbridge pipeline. It would run from Edmonton to the coastal port town of Kitimat, B.C., ....

National Geographic recently devoted a cover spread to the pending tussle ...

... Vivian Krause. ... the tenacious Vancouver-based and independently financed writer has parted the curtains on the extent to which environmental groups in Canada are funded by American organizations. (Her website, fair-questions.com, is visited regularly by everyone from the RCMP to the federal auditor-general to the Oval Office in Washington.)

... Ms. Krause estimates there’s $50-million in American funding pouring into the Canadian environmental movement every year.

... $30-million in funding from the U.S. green donor, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation of California ...

... Rockefeller Brothers Fund of New York paid a couple of Canadian environmental groups a total of $200,000

Demarketing Canadian oil

Vivian Krause was in New York last week briefing journalists about ENGOs', funded by American foundations, working to "demarket" Canadian oil:

... At the present rate, American foundations are on track to spend half a billion dollars (roughly $50 million per year) funding the environmental movement in Canada, over the next ten years. ...

Junk Science Week

The 13th Annual Junk Science Week kicks off with Terence Corcoran:

... dedicated to exposing the scientists, NGOs, activists, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks and quacks who manipulate science data to achieve their objectives. Our standard definition is that junk science occurs when scientific facts are distorted, risk is exaggerated and the science adapted and warped by politics and ideology to serve another agenda. [Last night Lloyd Robertson and his CTV News crew of lazy, scientific illiterates indulged in the pesticide scaremongering featured in this column.]

[...]

and Vivian Krause:

... before the end of this month, an expert panel appointed by the Alberta government is expected to unveil recommendations for a “world-class” system for monitoring the environmental impact of oil sands on the Athabasca River basin.

... It all began to escalate in 2008 ... CBC documentary for The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, fuelled in part by a media-hyped visit by Avatar director James Cameron...

... what we have here isn’t a case of bad science. On the contrary, this is a case of how bad media happened to good science, or at least relatively sound science. The heart of the matter is how — and why — the media blew up a small but reasonable study that produced little new information into a major international scandal.

... U.S. tax returns show that the Sea Change Foundation in 2009 paid the Tides Foundation $2-million “to promote awareness and opposition to tar sands.”

... the Oak Foundation, another U.S. foundation, paid the Tides Foundation $700,000 “to conduct research to determine whether tar sands mining is adversely impacting the Athabasca River of Canada and its tributaries, and to report the findings.” A second goal of the same grant was “to raise the visibility of the tar sands issue and slow the expansion of tar sands production by stopping new infrastructure development, supporting policy reform in the U.S. and Canada, and reducing future demand for tar sands oil.”

What an incestuous circle-jerk. A mainstream media that is simultaneously gullible, scientifically illiterate and headline-seeking promotes the junk science of Rick Smith's Environmental Defense who in turn takes money from murky foreign foundations and environmental scaremongers.  You get the feeling that the last things they give a damn about are the environment or science which, as they practice/promote them, are turned into junk.

David Suzuki debates Vivian Krause

My post below  was about Vivian Krause's article exposing those, including the David Suzuki Foundation, who have been campaigning against the Canadian salmon farming industry.

Yesterday, the Suzuki Foundation responded to Krause's article, denying her claims and accusing her of being a shill for the salmon farming industry.

Today, Vivian's response to Suzuki is a highly detailed rebuttal including:

... You note that I used to work in the salmon farming industry. That's true. That was in 2002 and 2003, eight years ago. I also did two short consultancies in 2007. For those, I was paid $10,000 and $7,750, respectively. As I've said many times, since July of 2007 I have not worked for the salmon farming industry in any paid capacity. In January, I was the keynote speaker at the Nova Scotia Annual Aquaculture Conference but apart from my airfare and hotel costs, I was not paid. Over the years, I have also tried to support the Aboriginal Aquaculture Association in small ways but I have not been paid.

To be clear, if anyone has reason to be an adversary of the salmon farming industry, it might be me. After all, I was fired.

The debate score (scale of 0-10): Suzuki - zip, Vivian Krause 10.

Keep up the great work, Vivian.

Farmed salmon - another phony enviro-scare

Vivian Krause exposes yet another bogus Suzuki Foundation hobby-horse:

"whiny ... censorious loser"

That's Ezra Levant's description of NDP natural resources committee member, Nathan Cullen, who complained that Ezra's testimony (+Q&A) was being televised.

Liberals duped into backing American agenda?

Another excellent article by Vivian Krause posits the thesis that American charitable foundations have been donating funds, under the guise of environmentalism, towards activities which, if successful, will effectively shut down the shipment of Canadian oil via the West coast to Asia.  The effect will be to landlock Alberta oil thereby ensuring it can only be sold to the U.S.A.

A short synopsis of Krause's article from FOS:

US foundations, including the Tides Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David & Lucille Packard Foundation, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, have spent more than $300 million since 2000 on "reform" of resource industries in Canada. Since 2004 foundations have spent $18 million specifically for "demarketing" (reducing demand for or shifting demand away from) Alberta oil.

Their current campaign, supported by the Liberal opposition in Ottawa, is to legislate a ban on tanker traffic along the British Columbia coast to prevent construction of a new pipeline to export Alberta's oil to Asian markets. Though marine conservation is an ostensible issue in the campaign, the foundations have no apparent objection to tanker traffic along the coasts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and the Gulf of Mexico.

Krause notes that the US Foundations have been routing funding to Canadian agitators such as the Suzuki Foundation and key Indian bands:

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund granted $105,000 specifically to the First Nations at the Kitimat village, which is right at the mouth of the Douglas Channel. That's precisely where export-bound oil tankers would need to load. That included $70,000 for an anniversary celebration in 2004 and $35,000 for a ceremonial event in 2006. Of all the aboriginal people in the world, why is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund giving money to the First Nations at Kitimat Village?

Good question.

Enough to make your blood boil and your skin crawl

An outstanding article by Vivian Krause in today's Post is a definite 'must-read'.  She shows how giant American 'charitable' foundations are bankrolling agitprop against the Canadian energy industry.  She details how a rat's nest of supposedly Canadian environmental activist organizations are funded by these U.S. foundations often with money from from unknown donors laundered to hide their identies:

... My research into the filings of U.S. charities active in funding activists against Canadian and Alberta energy development shows that the anti-oil sands movement is the product of American charities with unknown or certainly unclear motives.

... Like most protests, the one against oil tankers has all the look and feel of a Canadian grassroots movement. The campaign against Alberta’s oil sands also seems to rise out of the people, but the interesting thing is that there are very few roots under that grass. Money comes in from a small core of U.S. charitable groups. One of those groups — the U.S. Tides Foundation of California (Tides U.S.) and its Canadian counterpart have paid millions to at least 36 campaign organizations.

... All the money, at least US$6-million, comes from a single, foreign charity. The Tides U.S. campaign against Alberta oil is a campaign against one of Canada’s most important industries.  It’s fair for Canadians to inquire about who’s funding this campaign and why. The trouble is, nobody knows.

 ... the vice-chairman of Tides Canada ... Joel Solomon ... an interesting figure in his own right, also backed the election campaign of Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson to the tune of about US$330,000. But that’s another story. [However, similarly funding Indian chiefs and councils to agitate against energy projects is part of this story.]

... Unlike many charitable foundations, Tides U.S. doesn’t have a large endowment. “In practice, Tides behaves less like a philanthropy than a money-laundering enterprise, taking money from other foundations and spending it as the donor requires,” ...

... U.S. tax returns show that the David Suzuki Foundation has been paid at least US$10-million from American foundations. This hasn’t exactly been out in the open.

There's lots more in the article and still more at Vivian Krause's website. The whole thing is enough to make your blood boil and your skin crawl. There oughta' be a law.