Anti Oil Sands activists funded by US interests
- Thread starter Haliman
- Start date
IronNoggin
Well-Known Member
"In this battle, the former federal Conservative staffer and fish farm worker finds herself aligned with the pro-industry group Ethical Oil.org founded by Alykhan Velshi, who is now director of planning in Harper's office."
http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/fair-question-includes-who-funds-vivian-krause-1.379210
In this battle, the former federal Conservative staffer and fish farm worker finds herself aligned with the pro-industry group Ethical Oil.org founded by Alykhan Velshi, who is now director of planning in Harper's office. - See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/f...s-vivian-krause-1.379210#sthash.ULkZVnMW.dpuf
"Krause Receives 90% of Income From Resource Industries
Krause frequently claims her research is independent (PDF) and that her work is unaffiliated with any industry — yet she has admitted that since 2012, more than 90 per cent of her income has come from oil, gas and mining interests through honorariums and speaking fees."
http://www.desmog.ca/2014/11/19/ind...pr-tactics-distract-canada-real-energy-debate
Conservative / Industry Shill.
Cheers,
Nog
http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/fair-question-includes-who-funds-vivian-krause-1.379210
In this battle, the former federal Conservative staffer and fish farm worker finds herself aligned with the pro-industry group Ethical Oil.org founded by Alykhan Velshi, who is now director of planning in Harper's office. - See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/f...s-vivian-krause-1.379210#sthash.ULkZVnMW.dpuf
"Krause Receives 90% of Income From Resource Industries
Krause frequently claims her research is independent (PDF) and that her work is unaffiliated with any industry — yet she has admitted that since 2012, more than 90 per cent of her income has come from oil, gas and mining interests through honorariums and speaking fees."
http://www.desmog.ca/2014/11/19/ind...pr-tactics-distract-canada-real-energy-debate
Conservative / Industry Shill.
Cheers,
Nog
GLG
Well-Known Member
GLG
Well-Known Member
Do you mean like this....
http://www.canada.com/comoxvalleyecho/news/story.html?id=922cd140-6201-453e-ae78-12597cd87875
[h=1]Controversy over 'Common Sense' campaign escalates[/h]
[h=2]Controversy over the influence of the Comox Valley Common Sense group in the recent municipal elections is escalating.[/h]
BY COMOX VALLEY ECHONOVEMBER 29, 2011
Controversy over the influence of the Comox Valley Common Sense group in the recent municipal elections is escalating.
Courtenay City Hall has confirmed a number of electors have now raised concerns about personal information appearing on a mailing postcard from the mysterious group delivered by Canada Post.
The electors wanted to know the source of the computerized mailiuugh to contain people's middle names and some unexpected addresses.
The City's Chief Elections Officer, John Ward, said a registered campaign group such as Common Sense was not entitled to a copy of the official voters' list, unlike individual candidates.
However, he added from some of the mailing cards he had seen or heard of, they did not necessarily match the official list in any case.
He had referred individuals to the B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner because of their concerns over the issue, including an outside group's access to personal sensitive information.
But "unless someone claims they were intimidated by these people (Common Sense), or induced to vote for anyone through a payment, I'm not aware of any actual offence that comes under my authority," said Ward.
"If people do have evidence they were intimidated or induced, I need to hear about it."
The results of the November 19 election can be challenged for up to 30 days after last Tuesday's final declaration of the results.
Defeated City Mayor Greg Phelps told the Echo yesterday he had no intention of launching a challenge because people would think it was just sour grapes, and he was taking some time out to consider the next steps in his life.
He lost the election to Larry Jangula by a wafer-thin margin of just over one per cent 77 votes from nearly 5,300 cast.
But Phelps said his adult son, Ryan, was concerned about the mailing, as a postcard was sent to him at his father's current Courtenay address, despite the fact he lives in Burnaby.
Ryan Phelps had tried to take up the issue with the Common Sense group via its website email address, but had not received a response after five or six days. 'I believe totally in honesty and openness and we've not had it from them." - George Knox
Two other defeated Courtenay council candidates - neither of whom appears to have anything to gain from challenging the results as neither came close - are being more outspoken about the Common Sense group.
George Knox told the Echo he had already sought the advice of the RCMP on the activities of the Common Sense group as well as taking up issues with City Hall and Elections B.C.
His concerns were not just over the origins of the mailing list, but also the allegedly illegal distribution of literature close to a polling station on November 19, and he believed a lot of money had been spent trying to swing the election by a group that had not shown its public face.
"I'm just an ordinary person who offered himself for public service," said Knox. "I came next to last, but it was a good lifetime experience. I spent $1,000 of my own money doing it - I've no ties to developers or people owning land to bankroll me.
</pagebreak>"I don't know who put their money up, or where they got private mailing details from, but it's just not right.
"I'm not trying to be a **** disturber, but I believe totally in honesty and openness and we've not had it from them (Common Sense)."
Knox noted while the election could only be challenged for 30 days, campaign groups had 120 days to make their official returns.
So if anything relevant or untoward were revealed then, it would be too late to question the election itself, he said.
Another candidate, Mark Middleton, said two of the group's mailing cards had been correctly delivered to his address - but one was to a person who had passed on, the other to someone he had never heard of.
He said he knew another businessman in town who had received a Common Sense card redirected from a former address, and had told Middleton the only two mailing list addresses he had not yet updated were held by ICBC and the B.C. Liberal Party.
Middleton added: "The whole thing does smell, but whether it stinks enough to overturn the election, I don't know.
"It wouldn't affect my result, but if I were the mayor just a handful of votes behind, I'd certainly be asking questions."
What particularly disturbed him was the anonymity of the people in the Common Sense group, which had spent a lot of money trying to influence the outcome of the election.
"I'd sure like to see it all uncovered and the people who did it exposed," he added.
As previously reported in the Echo, a third and successful council candidate, Ronna-Rae Leonard, has also raised concerns over the mailing list and its use with Elections Canada.
Back at City Hall, Ward said if citizens believed the election was flawed, there was the option to ask the Supreme Court to overturn it and rerun the vote.
In law, such an approach could be made by him as Chief Elections Officer, by any candidate, or by any group of four electors. But that step would have to be taken within 30 days, a period ending on December 22.
The victorious mayoral candidate, Larry Jangula, he said the discussion over the Common Sense group was taking attention away from real issues that needed discussion.
"I was not part of Common Sense, and quite frankly their endorsement probably hurt me as much as helped me," he said. "I know for fact some people didn't vote for me because of it.
"It would be naïve of me not to know there was huge frustration out there, the Left being in control of the council, so to speak.
"And at least Common Sense raised some important issues. I have a pretty good idea who they are, but I can't be sure."
The only publicly-divulged name associated with Common Sense was its spokesperson, John Davis. On the latest developments, he told the Echo yesterday: "We have no comment to make at all."
ClayoquotKid
Active Member
I guess if you can't dispute her findings you have to go after her, eh?
It's all there in black and white, makes no difference who compiles the list.
Never mind the fact that the vast majority of her work was done prior to receiving any fees - ie. No one would pay her to speak before she had proven there was something to talk about.
It's all there in black and white, makes no difference who compiles the list.
Never mind the fact that the vast majority of her work was done prior to receiving any fees - ie. No one would pay her to speak before she had proven there was something to talk about.
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GLG
Well-Known Member
Or maybe your are concerned with this.....
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/....html?id=e16dc9a3-7ddb-44d2-bd9e-e97fa117748d
Major Imperial shareholder held private fundraiser for Clark in Calgary
N. Murray Edwards, the controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals Corp. which owns the Mount Polley mine, helped organize a $1-million private fundraiser in Calgary last year to bolster B.C. Premier Christy Clark's re-election bid.
BY VANCOUVER SUNAUGUST 9, 2014
N. Murray Edwards, the controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals Corp. which owns the Mount Polley mine, helped organize a $1-million private fundraiser in Calgary last year to bolster B.C. Premier Christy Clark's re-election bid.
Edwards, an oilpatch billionaire and chairman of Canadian Natural Resources, was among several Alberta power-brokers involved in the fundraiser, reportedly held to back the continuation of Clark's "free-enterprise government." Polls at the time had the B.C. New Democrats poised to win the May 13 election.
The private affair came just three months after Clark, in an address to the University of Calgary's school of public policy, hailed Edwards as a "great Calgarian" and credited him with helping to boost B.C.'s economic development.
"Mining is an area where we have set some pretty ambitious targets. ... Mining revenues have grown by 20 per cent to $8.6 billion since we introduced our Jobs Plan last year, and we've done it with the highest standard of sustainable mining in the world," Clark said in the October 2012 address. "A significant part of our progress in British Columbia comes from people like Murray Edwards, it comes from investors and people who are located right here in Calgary."
Edwards, Canada's 18th richest person with a net worth of $2.2 billion according to Forbes, is linked to six firms that have donated a total of $436,227 in campaign
contributions to the B.C. Liberals in the past nine years, according to Elections B.C. That includes $153,480 from Canadian Natural Resources and $131,390 from Imperial Metals, which owns both Red Chris, a $500-million coppergold mine under construction, and the Mount Polley mine, where a tailings dam collapse this week has led to a water ban and potential contamination of local waterways. Edwards owns, directly and indirectly, 36 per cent of Imperial Metals shares.
Edwards is also linked to Ensign Drilling, which donated $15,000 to the Liberals, as well as Edco Capital ($5,000); Penn West Petroleum ($65,835); Resorts of the Canadian Rockies ($23,522); and Mount Polley Mining ($46,720).
The donations are just a fraction of the amount given by the Liberals' most generous donors, such as Teck ($1.7 million), New Car Dealers ($822,000) or Encana ($791,000).
Ben Chin, executive director of communications with the B.C. premier's office, said Clark first met Edwards two years ago when he helped her make connections in Calgary after she became premier. He said he didn't believe Clark had spoken with Edwards since the tailings dam collapse, but had been slated to meet with company CEO Brian Kynoch after she arrived in Likely Thursday.
That meeting didn't happen, but the premier and mines minister have made it clear that the company is fully responsible for the cleanup as well as fines or penalties, Chin said.
GLG
Well-Known Member
I'm concerned too when guy's like this show up here with their agenda to turn BC into a petro state......
The Gwyn Morgan File: Rise of a Shale Gas Baron
Christy Clark picked the EnCana empire builder to guide her into power, and that says volumes about who's shaping BC's future. Part one of two.
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/03/17/GwynMorganFile/
Gwyn Morgan's emergence as a political advisor to BC Liberal leader and premier designate Christy Clark not only reflects the province's growing dependence on shale gas revenue but her party's formidable indebtedness to petro politics.
Morgan's calculated political ascension, which should prick the interest of every British Columbian, also illustrates the growing ambition of the country's petroleum elite.
Morgan, a sort of Canadian version of former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney and a man who admires the "journalism" of former tobacco lobbyist Ezra Levant, also serves as an advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
As an ideological supporter of Alberta's de facto petro state (it gets 35 per cent of its revenue from hydrocarbons and has been ruled by one party for 40 years), Morgan earnestly endorses the Alberta model of resource development.
Alberta's "give-it-away" model consists of generous profits for corporations, emasculated or captured regulators (B.C.'s Oil and Gas Commission is 100 per cent funded by industry and even seconds EnCana employees for projects), paltry returns for resource owners, low taxes and a petro state crippled by disengaged citizenry with no savings for the future.
(more than 3 million hectares of leased land) but also negotiated an "encouraging policy environment" with Premier Gordon Campbell's government.
This unique relationship, rarely analyzed by the press, gave both shale gas and EnCana extensive influence over the province's affairs. Natural gas now drives B.C., not wood.
Morgan, a smiling trustee of the Fraser Institute, is also a promoter of free market causes such as water exports to the United States. He says it's "one of the cleanest ways of creating new investment, jobs and deficit-reducing government revenue."
Morgan pushed integrations with US
But like many of Canada's elites, Morgan, a 65-year Albertan, remains a tight bundle of contradictions. While claiming the humblest of Horatio Alger origins, Morgan actually built his fame and fortune on the strength of public wealth bequeathed to a crown corporation (Alberta Energy Co.) where he began his oil patch career.
Although he sometimes calls himself a "budding Canadian nationalist," Morgan has pushed hard to integrate Canada more deeply into the failing U.S. empire by lobbying for the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership. The startling plan proposed a North American Union with a single currency.
Despite a sincere and lengthy commitment to improving corporate ethics, the chairman of board of directors for SNC Lavalin, one of the world's largest engineering companies, has no difficulty doing business with a wild variety of petro dictators including Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.
Though a frequent decrier of "inhuman communist totalitarianism," the petroleum engineer also did business with China's state-owned oil company while leading EnCana, one of the continent's largest gas producers.
In fact EnCana just completed a $5-billion dollar deal with Petro China that, if approved, will give that Chinese state-owned company more say over the pace of shale gas developments in the province than ordinary British Columbians.
Pioneer of controversial fracking method
Like many Tory petrolistas, Morgan regards bitumen as "ethical oil" even though EnCana, under Morgan's watch, had to import "unethical" foreign oil from Venezuela and Pakistan in order to dilute the heavy stuff for U.S. pipeline exports due to North American shortages. (Sadly, in the world's great oil complex, there is no such thing as a moral hydrocarbon.)
Although a generous supporter of alternative medicine, acupuncture, fitness and even Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dali Lama, Morgan has been slow to acknowledge the profound health and environmental impacts of industrial natural gas drilling or hydraulic fracturing.
Morgan's company, of course, dutifully paved the way for the controversial practice of fracking for unconventional gas. This brute force technology, which can cause local earthquakes, consists of forcefully blasting apart concrete-like rock formations with millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand. It's now the subject of intense U.S. federal investigation, moratoriums and widespread public concern across the continent.
Despite Morgan's devotion to good healthy living, his aggressive "resource plays" often left an unhealthy legacy of air pollution, endangered wildlife, fractured communities and water contamination throughout the rural North American west. Since his departure in 2006, the company continues to make uncomfortable headlines about sour gas leaks, bombing campaigns and water pollution in places like Dawson Creek, B.C. and Pavillion, Wyoming.
The farm boy
By his own account the energy czar began life as a central Alberta farm boy who milked the cows and collected the eggs "without cajoling." His Welsh parents taught him an honorable code: "Keep your word. Stay honest. Do your best. If the world deals you a tough blow, buck up and move on."
After completing a degree in petroleum engineering, the short, bespectacled Morgan eventually joined the brand new Alberta Energy Company (AEC) in 1975. Premier Peter Lougheed created the novel crown corporation in order to keep on eye on U.S. multinationals and to give ordinary Albertans a chance to invest in the industry. The province owned half the company and even Morgan sold shares to citizens.
But Morgan's selective accounts of his own success or that of EnCana's give little credit to the crown corporation.
"Exactly half of my life was dedicated to building the company which became known as EnCana Corporation," goes one 2007 speech.
"That quest began in 1975, when a small group came together to issue our first shares -- and a 29-year-old engineer took some of those funds and had the wells drilled which generated our first revenue. Two decades later, that not-so-young-anymore engineer was CEO of a much bigger enterprise, and in 2002, he lead what was Canada's largest ever merger. The new company was called EnCana, a name that my wife, Pat, and I came up with while cross-country skiing in the mountains just before the announcement."
Yet Lougheed gave the Alberta Energy Company some of the best natural gas and oil resources in the province, including the Suffield natural gas field, heavy oil in Cold Lake, oil sands properties and other riches. AEC was a no-fail company and everyone in the industry knows it. It could have been Alberta's version of Statoil, the prosperous Norwegian firm.
"AEC was given so many valuable properties it couldn't miss. It was a cash cow from day one," acknowledged Rowland McFarlane, a former Lougheed aide, several years ago.
The company, of course, flourished. But Premier Ralph Klein, a visionless petro politician and alcoholic with troubling debts, sold off the prosperous crown company in 1993 to balance the provincial books.
The rest is here......
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/03/17/GwynMorganFile/
GLG
Well-Known Member
IronNoggin
Well-Known Member
REALLY CK? Methinks you are a little out on a limb with that statement. Organizations pay to hear what they want to hear, CK. There is ALWAYS "something to talk about" - especially if one can shift the focus away from embarrassing details industry hopes people will forget if there becomes a new boogey-man from "away" identified. I realize your industry may feel the need to come running to Krause's aid - since she has come to yours. World Trade, the stock market, oil industry and fish farms have main offices and banks also all from "away". yet somehow Krause "forgets" this simple fact. Think that is but a mere oversight?
ClayoquotKid
Active Member
Black and white.
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/tax-returns-and-spreadsheets.html
Again, the funding is all there to be found within the tax returns - there is no arguing the fact that U.S. groups have spent large amounts of money campaigning against the Canadian fossil-fuel industry.
Ad hominem attacks on Krause and deflection do nothing to change that.
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/tax-returns-and-spreadsheets.html
Again, the funding is all there to be found within the tax returns - there is no arguing the fact that U.S. groups have spent large amounts of money campaigning against the Canadian fossil-fuel industry.
Ad hominem attacks on Krause and deflection do nothing to change that.
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That's really not an answer to the above critiques, CK.
ClayoquotKid
Active Member
That's the best you can do, eh?
ClayoquotKid
Active Member
Krause researched spending by foundations in relation to campaigns against the production and export of Canadian resources.
In addition to the tax-returns showing exactly how much was spent, in many cases she showed the Grant details, which stated in their own words exactly what the money was to go towards.
You guys call her a shill, and you think my position is weak?
Prove her wrong then.
Show that those U.S. foundations didn't actually spend that money on campaigns targeting Canada.
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GLG
Well-Known Member
Yup I do think your position is weak.....
On June 27, 2007, Krause published an article called “The Demarketing of Farmed Salmon by 35 Environmental Organizations in the United States and Canada” on salmonfacts.org, a website operated by the industry association Salmon of the Americas, which Krause later acknowledged paid her a $7500 consultant’s fee for work up until the end of July 2007. [SUP][19][/SUP]
In its Winter 2007 newsletter, Salmon of the Americas highlighted an article that Krause wrote in another publication as “a concerned citizen and consumer” defending farmed salmon, without revealing that the industry group had recently retained her as a consultant.
“In a recent article in the Westcoaster, Vivian Krause writes in as a concerned citizen and consumer regarding the negative publicity created by environmentalist organizations (ENGO’s) towards ocean farmed salmon,” the newsletter stated.[SUP][20][/SUP]
“I no longer work in salmon farming, and am writing as a concerned member of the public…” Krause wrote in her September 28, 2007 article in the Westcoaster. In her article she mentions no employment by the salmon farming industry after 2003, omitting that she had worked for Salmon of the Americas, the organization of salmon-producing companies in North and South America, just two months prior.[SUP][21][/SUP]
Actually, CK - I don't even see that you have a position - let alone a weak one.
The numerous multinational Corporations in the tar sands are just that - multinational. People invest in a GLOBAL market economy using the global trade market. Krause's defense - if one can call it that, and as I understand it - is that some NGOs against tar sands extraction negative effects are from outside of Canada? That is somehow a "defense" against looking at those negative effects??? Wow! Enlighten me on your so-called position CK...
ClayoquotKid
Active Member
My position is clear:
U.S. foundations have been shown through tax records, and through their own granting process which is documented on their own websites (the ones which weren't changed afterwards that is..) to have specifically targeted Canadian industries through campaigns designed to demarket, or otherwise hinder through legal, political, regulatory or other means.
If you are able to provide information which counters this - bring it.
U.S. foundations have been shown through tax records, and through their own granting process which is documented on their own websites (the ones which weren't changed afterwards that is..) to have specifically targeted Canadian industries through campaigns designed to demarket, or otherwise hinder through legal, political, regulatory or other means.
If you are able to provide information which counters this - bring it.
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