American foundations funding environmental campaigns in Canada have targeted B.C.’s mining industry.
They have pumped more than $2 million into the province in the last few years to “reform” the industry and tackle controversial projects such as Taseko Mines’ (TSX:TKO) New Prosperity project.
The extent to which Canadian environmental organizations have been heavily funded by American foundations is just starting to come to light.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a recent interview he expects “significant American interests” to line up against Enbridge’s (TSX:ENB) Northern Gateway pipeline project, which would allow Canadian oil to be shipped to Asia from Alberta’s oilsands.
“They’ll funnel money through environmental groups and others in order to try to slow it down,” Harper said.
Since 2009, the Canada Revenue Agency has required all non-profits to report funding from foreign sources.
In 2009 and 2010, Canadian environmental organizations reported a total of $95 million in foreign funding. Most of this presumably came from the U.S.
American money for green campaigns originates with a small number of billion-dollar charitable foundations.
The main ones are the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
With combined assets of $21 billion and annual grant-making budgets of $1.2 billion, these foundations have significant resources.
And they rarely accept unsolicited proposals – they have agendas of their own.
The environmental movement should not be beholden to any particular agenda or source of funding, not to government, not to industry and not to foreign foundations.
Financial autonomy is important.
Some influential environmental groups, however, are almost entirely foreign funded.
For example, Victoria’s RAVEN Trust (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs) reported $566,463 in revenue in 2009 and 2010, 83% of which is from foreign sources.
The organization has received funding for a documentary film project “aimed at mobilizing opposition” against Taseko’s New Prosperity mining project.
The Seattle-based Wilburforce Foundation also paid a $7,500 grant to Ducks Unlimited for a “Prosperity Mine project.”
Meantime, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation paid two grants totalling $2.1 million to the Pew Charitable Trust for a “B.C. Mining Reform project.”
The $2.1 million that Moore granted Pew for mining reform came in two grants paid in 2008 and 2010.
The 2008 grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation specified: “the purpose of this grant is to reform the conventional approach to mining exploration and development to reduce the impacts on British Columbia’s wild salmon ecosystems, including the Taku, Stikine and Skeena watersheds. This will be accomplished by assisting senior First Nation leadership to obtain a public commitment from the B.C. government that development will be undertaken on aboriginal territories only with their fully informed consent.”
What we see here is an American foundation paying a six-digit sum of money to get First Nations to put pressure on the B.C. government.
The second grant in 2010 was for a seven-digit sum. How large will the next grant be?
When it comes to high-stakes decisions involving public resources, such as whether to build a pipeline or a mine, every Canadian has the right to voice their opinion.
If anyone should be allowed to have a louder voice than anyone else, it should be local people who are most affected.
The problem with funding from U.S. foundations is that it skews public debate because it tends to go only to folks who are on one side of the issue: those who are against pipelines, mines and salmon farms.
That gives some Canadians an unfair advantage over others.
There is a risk that the voices of rural communities and small towns could be drowned out by city-based environmental groups tapping into the deep pockets of foreign interests.
Environmental campaigns address legitimate concerns, but there’s also significant economic and trade interests at play.
For example, the campaign to block oil tanker traffic along B.C.’s strategic north coast would continue the U.S. monopoly on Canadian oil exports.
No oil tankers means no oil exports to Asia, and would be advantageous to U.S. energy security and to the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.
But it is not advantageous to Canada when the Americans have us over the barrel of our country’s single most important national export.
American foundations have granted at least $130 million for the creation of the Great Bear Rainforest and for the Boreal Forest Initiative.
As far as I can tell, only $25,000 has been granted to address the pine beetle epidemic, which has ravaged B.C.’s forests, sawmills and small towns.
The Great Bear Rainforest is now being used as a pretext for blocking Canadian oil exports to Asia and has become the Great Trade Barrier.
Money used to influence public opinion and public policy must be out in the open.
The same goes for money from corporations and industry as well as foundations, especially if they are foreign.
No individual or group should have secret foreign funding that affords a level of influence that wouldn’t otherwise exist. •
