Thursday, December 16, 2010

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.

2 comments:

UsualSuspect said...

The Tides Foundation also contributed in the neighborhood of $300,000 US to catapult Gregor Robertson into the Mayor's chair.

This would be illegal in a federal campaign and you wonder if CSIS had this in mind when they released their controversial report a while back about politicians serving foreign interests.

http://www.citycaucus.com/2010/09/vision-donor-drummond-pike-steps-down-as-tides-boss

http://www.financialpost.com/cash+sands/3675309/story.html

JR said...

Usual Suspect, Yes, I was aware of Tides' funding of Robertson and the Fin Post story. That's a great link to CityCaucus post where there are interesting comments (eg. the one about the existence of Acorn Canada).

Hunter, All good questions. I lean to thinking they're being duped. Being such kneejerk anti-Americans I don't think they'd be happy having Americans manipulating the situation to favour an American agenda over Canada's interests. But who knows?