Eco-extortionists meet strong resistance from one of their victims

Peter Foster: At last, a Canadian corporate hero

 Two weeks ago, Todd Paglia, executive director of U.S.-based radical environmental organization ForestEthics, sent a letter of warning to Richard Garneau, CEO of Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products.

In his reply Mr. Garneau told Paglia and his ENGO, ForestEthics [quite a name for an extortionist!], to shove off, saying among many other things:

"... The fact is, Mr. Paglia, we both know that ForestEthics has been campaigning against Resolute for years – even while you have pretended to be an abiding member of the CBFA. Your most recent letter, which follows your letter of December 5, 2014, with its inaccurate allegations and threats and intimidation, is not new; it is merely a continuation of the bully tactics you have used with us from the start. ...

... I am struggling to understand precisely what kind of protection you believe the CBFA has granted us under these circumstances. ForestEthics has been in violation of both the spirit and letter of the CBFA for years. Perhaps I should have called you out sooner ..."

Rare courage:

... Rarely if ever has a corporate executive dared to call an ENGO shakedown what it is. Richard Garneau is thus almost unique among executives. In a corporate world dripping with bogus “business ethics,” Garneau, a quiet and modest man who lives the Boreal, has demonstrated some true moral backbone, refusing to bow to what he sees as lies and intimidation.

Media complicity or cowardice or both?

You’d think that the Canadian media – given to celebration of local exceptionality in any way, shape or form – would be keen to report on Garneau. But he is exceptional in an area where the media almost never dares to tread, either because it is part of the radical environmental crusade itself, or because it too is scared.

All posts on Resolute Forest Products' battles with the radical ENGOs.

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 ...

Trying to appease anti-oil-sands thugs is a big mistake - sue the bastards instead

Peter Foster - Oil sands industry risks death sentence if it climbs into bed with its enemies.

The industry has been the subject of a global campaign of demonization, disinformation and intimidation, executed by a wide range of interlinked environmental non-governmental organizations, ENGOs.  That campaign has been based on false or grossly exaggerated allegations of toxicity, sickness and environmental destruction, in particular regarding the significance of the oil sands for global warming.

... Some are now proposing that rather than counter misinformation, the industry should legitimize it by sitting down with its ENGO tormentors. Even more bizarre is the suggestion that the industry might use the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, CBFA, as a model.

... The CBFA, does indeed offer lessons, but rather of which path to avoid. ...  the final months [of the agreement] were marked by ... Greenpeace’s assault on one of the corporate signatories, Resolute Forest Products.  Resolute fought back ... sued for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”

Some shills for the ENGOs, such as Avrim Lazar ... suggest that it doesn’t matter how the ENGOs came by their power. Since they have it, they have to be dealt with. [Sure, ends justify means. It doesn't matter how the Mafia comes by its power - murder, extortion, drugs, prostitution, robbery - you still have to negotiate with and appease them.]

Does the industry really want to sit down with these judges and negotiate its own death sentence?

Let's hope the oil industry unites and shows some backbone.  Resolute Forest Products has shown the way for it to fight the ENGO thugs.  Sue their asses off for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”. Surely the entire oil sands industry can come up with the bucks needed to fight that war.

"Fair share" shakedown

Christy (Chavez) Clark - shakedown artist

Andrew Coyne: Clark's extortion attempt ..

The BC Conservatives are no better, it seems.

ForestEthics running a protection racket

Peter Foster's Conflict bananas:

The oil sands has become the main target ... for radical green groups. The recent decision ... to hold up approval of the ... Keystone XL pipeline was a major coup, and has encouraged radical NGOs to up their campaigns of lies and intimidation.

Last year, ForestEthics, a veteran of anti-corporate thuggery, sent a demand to Chiquita. ... a grovelling response committing “to directing our transportation providers to avoid, where possible, fuels from tar sands refineries ...”

... California-based ForestEthics, an anti-capitalist organization that is ...  has run roughshod over truth and jobs for too long. Its previous corporate victims included U.S. clothing giant Limited Brands... Rather than attempt to refute ForestEthics misrepresentations, Limited Brands paid to “work with” the NGO, thus setting a precedent for green extortion. ... Trader Joe’s ... Walmart and Safeway...

... British bath products company Lush, which gets its scientific objectivity from ForestEthics’ fellows Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network. ...

... another enormous symbolic victory last year ... an agreement with the Forest Products Association of Canada ...

... ForestEthics used Chiquita’s letter to bolster its attack on rival fruit company Dole. “Dole Bananas: Brought to you by dirty Tar Sands oil,” claims the ForestEthics website ... Dole’s response? To grovel.

... let’s have a full accounting from ForestEthics of all the money they have received from the corporations who have been bullied into “working with them.”

... green-cloaked shakedown artists dictating corporate policy on the basis of misinformation and intimidation.

Four years ago, Chiquita paid a stiff fine for buying mafia-style “protection” from South American thugs masquerading as freedom fighters. Is trying to buy protection from the mendacious green lobby any different?