Apparently, we now live in a world where non-profit organizations such as the Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute are malevolent forces attempting to misinform and manipulate public opinion in a devious plot to undermine and sabotage Canada’s oil and gas sector.
Or something.
According to conservative politicians, there are benevolent knights in shining armour who come selflessly rushing to save us all in our darkest time of desperate need. They are the historically unprecedentedly profitable multi-billion-dollar petro conglomerates that don’t hesitate to lay off thousands of workers to protect their bottom lines when the going gets tough.
Largely conspiratorial claims are disconcertingly presented as gospel truth by Alberta’s new premier Jason Kenney. They seem to largely stem from self-proclaimed writer and researcher, Vivian Krause, whose career started as a lobbyist defending the controversial industry of farmed salmon before the oil and gas sector caught her eye.
Krause has alleged for many years that foreign funded campaigns are pulling the strings of non-profit environmental groups in Canada to embark on a coordinated anti-oil and pipeline crusade. The claims, without the burden of presenting any smoking gun proof, even predate the catastrophic crash in the price of oil in 2014-15.
She has correctly pointed out that $400 million-plus over the span of more than a decade has been invested by foreign sources into numerous environmental organizations and research institutes throughout the country.
What she is conveniently careful not to mention is how infinitesimally puny of a fraction of one per cent that figure actually represents when compared with the $120 billion-plus invested by foreign interests in the oil and gas sector in 2017 alone. The total over the past decade would add up to hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars. We’re basically talking about a David and Goliath scenario.
Her dubious allegations also conveniently ignore that much of that funding supports initiatives which for example, assist communities to prepare for climate change and be more energy efficient and sustainable. Another major conservation project from some 10 years ago that received substantial foreign funding was to protect B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest. The effort, even at the time, received praise and support from the former Conservative Harper government.
Meanwhile, conservatives seem not even the slightest bit concerned about where organizations like the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers receive their funding from. Hint: they too receive foreign funding in no short supply.
Just a friendly reminder: the oil and gas industry poured many millions of dollars into fighting tooth and nail for decades against the science that had beyond any reasonable doubt identified that leaded fuel was a serious toxic threat to our environment and by extension us as well.
Eventually no longer able to challenge the overwhelming scientific consensus against the danger of leaded fuel, the industry reluctantly and undoubtedly begrudgingly relented. It agreed to new environmental regulations that for the sake of the common good would take a bite from their coveted bottom line.
We would be kidding ourselves to believe the industry wouldn’t be up to old tricks all over again.
Fool us once, shame on them.
But fool us twice…
