…when high-profile anti-Keystone and anti-oil sands campaigners need cash, they go where the money is-the big U.S. charitable foundations that have become ATMs for scores of groups and organizations that now earn a living fighting Canada’s oil industry. […]
In all, Ms Krause has uncovered $3.2-million in new money distributed by Tides USA in recent months, tax-free dollars delivered to groups and organizations with specific objectives aimed at disrupting and fomenting opposition to Canadian energy development, including pipelines east and west. The recipients include the usual suspects–Sierra Club, Environmental Defence, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (the list with details can be found at FP Comment’s Web site).
To the unaware it might appear that these groups represent some kind of groundswell of opposition within Canada and abroad to oil sands development and to the Keystone XL pipeline. If these groups are active, they must have a lot of on-the-ground funding and backing. Looking at the Tides grants, however, suggests there is no such groundswell. What we have, on the contrary, is an elaborate taxpayer-subsidized scheme to manufacture dissent.
h/t Rob
I seriously wonder if there has ever been a great civilization of the past which expended so many govt resources on sabotaging itself. Everywhere in the West, govt run schools teach children to hate themselves, to despise their race, to condemn the basis of their economic system, to denigrate their culture and to celebrate the less successful cultures elsewhere in the world. Corcoran’s piece just hightlights what has been a problem for decades – the highjacking of private organizations and govt agencies for the purpose of cultural destruction. Did the Roman empire have this problem? The Ottoman empire? The Han Dynasty? Did the Pharaohs dispense tax dollars to environmental groups seeking to block the construction of the Pyramids? Were the Aztecs handing out grants to researchers documenting the negative impact of human sacrifice on indigenous tribe populations? Is our culture just so vastly wealthy that it can squander the equivalent of the GDP of an entire country every year simply to manufacture hostility to the very activities that generated the wealth in the first place?
The only example I can think of would be mediaeval Europe. The Church was
opposed to commerce and banking. And preached guilt and passivity.
Why we should put up with it I don’t know. Tax-free status should be
much harder to obtain.
What the article lacks is details on who funds, and operates, Tides USA.
Prominent on the board, I see, is Joanie Bronfman, heiress to part of the blood money raised by her ancestor, the bootlegger Samuel. Joanie’s pastimes apparently include providing counseling to people allegedly carrying the cross of huge fortunes they did nothing to earn. (Rest assured her tips do not include “Cash in your inheritance and give the proceeds to the families of the people your grandfather cheated out of their wages and family farms in the first place,” much less “Accept Jesus as Lord, and start accumulating your own fortune in heaven.”)
That, mind you, is when she isn’t using her and others’ ill-gotten gains to make it harder for people who fear the Lord more than work to get good jobs, good pay, and affordable prices for gasoline, which, in the 21st century, is only difficult thanks to champagne socialists like the Bronfmans.
Why should she care that she’s taking food from babies’ mouths? Not like Joanie ever doubted where her next meal would come from.
PM Harper, are you listening and reading. Please have these phoney charities defrocked.
I find it disappointing that the real forces behind attempts to stop Canadian export of crude oil are not identified. The polite world of international conspiracy prevents that I suspect.
Environmental groups are simply useful dupes. OPEC, the KGB and yes the CIA are more likely agents of an effort to prevent Canada’s rise in power. Canada’s real production target should be as high as Saudi Arabia’s. 10 – 12 million bpd of production from Canada would change alliances and economic outlooks for many countries. Canadians are naïve if they do not realize there would be forces at work to see that does not happen.
From a Canadian national security perspective failure to increase world oil exports not only has a potential loss of international influence but has domestic ramifications. The greatest industrial strategy ever promoted in this country, the industrialization of Central Canada through The Auto Pact has blown up in our faces. Politicans of every stripe do not want to address this fiasco as they all participated in the conversion of Canadian wealth into abandoned factories in Ontario and Quebec. In a desperate attempt to finance a recovery these provinces continue attempts to transfer oil wealth to central Canada. Today’s message is that the Canadian petro dollar is what is gutting industrial Canada.
The central issue in Canada today is whether Canadians can accept the challenge to over come those who plot against this country. Divide and conquer usually works, however.
This is a repeat of the gun control “debate”. Money for -all- the anti-gun groups and anti-gun research came from Tides, Rockefeller Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust and etc. Wendy Cukier’s organization in Canada and the Bradys’ in the USA did not generate the bulk of their donations from grass roots fundraising, lets just say.
I’m beginning to believe that there is no “Left” out there. Only paid shills, a few useful idiots in it for the rioting and tens of millions of dollars from these trust funds. And I’m starting to believe we are all thinking ‘way too small.
When you look at the Left’s overall long term agenda, they want a disarmed peasantry working in 18th century conditions at the behest of a moneyed, high tech gentry. Everything they do creates the conditions for that outcome.
Something else they make likely is millions of deaths in North America. The sudden collapse of the electric grid, the gas distribution grid and the fuel delivery system would create a situation resembling the Holodomor in the Ukraine. Food would not get to cities, and those cities would -starve-. The whole thing would take no longer than six months. One winter.
Imagine China’s bargaining position after an event like that. Just sayin’.
Money launderers are not charities IMHO.
We do not need a debate or more dissertations on this subject”. We need a government who will move to take away the tax exempt status of all these organizations. We also need a backbencher to stand up in the house every day and question the money trail and activity of these groups.
It’s called “get her done”.
And without the internet most of us would never have heard of Vivian Krause, and the fine investigative work she keeps doing.
Would the Financial Post have run this story on their own?
This kind of economic sabotage has gone on for decades,our federal liberals have been openly supportive of measures that handicap industry in western Canada, they are the clowns who promoted the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming myth, granted charity status to most of these activist agencies and stripped our protection agencies of resources to further enable these attacks.
I too wonder about the left, are they mentally ill? Or deliberately evil?
Stunning how these people insist they are here to help the down trodden and poor.
But their actions are the cause of poverty and open assault on individuals rights.
Now as the federal conservatives hold a majority, expect their ranks to swell with an influx of kleptocrats, rent seekers and bandits.
Ideology does not matter, we are here to help you…Help you become less free and more impoverished.
I notice Ontario, since the Libtards lost control of the federal purse, their rape of Ontario has accelerated to unbelievable levels.
The schemes by which these parasites extract money from the many, to enrich the chosen, is fascinating.
For city dwellers, who vote Liberal, what part of lying, cheating ,stealing do you love most? You keep voting these creatures in. Or do you?
Is Elections Canada another kleptocracy, enabling the parasite body to loot regardless of the will of the voter?
How could we find out?
Tides foundation is promoting economic warfare against Canada. Canada should declare them to be a terrorist entity, and ban further money transfers.
I agree that there is a problem. The problem is that Tides and the donations from the idle, useless rich follow the rules. It is the rules regarding charity groups and non-profits that need to change. Only organizations that directly help people in emergencies, the poor, sick and disabled should qualify. In addition, most of the money collected by such charities should go to the target group- 75%-90%. All activist groups, think tanks, churches, etc. should be taxed on their income. I’m tired of agenda driven groups getting a free ride. For most part these organizations are refuges for those who are unable (useless degrees) or unwilling (spoiled kids) to participate in productive work.
If you know such a “backbencher” I suggest you mention this to him.;-)
I’d be happy seeing most environmental groups that get outside funding banned without a question. I’m out in Northern Alberta, and there has been no shortage even in the two months I’ve been here by environuts trying to screw with the livelihoods of people, or even with towns. As a fun thing, I went digging through the towns meeting minutes and found a dozen cases in the last 2 years where they’ve tried to stop everything from further coal mining development(which employs 50% of the natives just down the road), to trying to stop the water and waste treatment plant from being upgraded.
Strangely enough, these same groups are active in Ontario running defense for Wynne’s disastrous energy policies. Perhaps this is a two part strategy: destroy the manufacturing sector in Ontario and prevent development of Oil Sands. I don’t think defunding them goes far enough. Taking money from a foreigners to undermine your own country and destroy the lives of your fellow citizens really should result in some serious jail time.
Small puzzle – or perhaps I have missed some news item somewhere.
BNSF trains hauling massive amounts of Oil Sands oil depart every day from Canada.
They make their way into the US and discharge at the first available pipeline terminal
or keep heading down the line until they can discharge or do a delivery.
Canadian oil sellers eat the extra cost compared to a delivery by pipeline.
Has anyone ever heard of “activists” harassing BNSF trains transporting our oil?
Warren Buffet is a “great friend” of Obama.