A8 FRIDAY, March 21, 2014
VIEWPOINT
KAMLOOPS
THIS WEEK
www.kamloopsthisweek.com Publisher: Kelly Hall publisher@kamloopsthisweek.com Editor: Christopher Foulds editor@kamloopsthisweek.com
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Green machine starts to growl in British Columbia
C
ANADA’S SLEEK, imported green propaganda machine rolled into the capital last week for a couple of days of meetings. You wouldn’t have heard about it because they didn’t stage any protests or press conferences. Instead they met quietly with selected reporters and politicians from both sides of the aisle. They didn’t invite me for some reason but, from what I can gather, it was a friendly networking session. When I speak of our U.S.directed environmental movement, many people still don’t know what I mean. They see the sign-waving on TV and assume it’s all spontaneous, driven by passionate volunteers. Nuke the Whales for Jesus, as we used to joke in the 1970s. It’s an industry now and, as with our automotive industry, Canada is a branch plant of the U.S. The Victoria event was an annual conference called Organizing for Change, sponsored by Tides Canada. Thanks mainly to the work of B.C. researcher Vivian Krause, this offshoot of the U.S. Tides Foundation now at least identifies itself while it pulls B.C.’s political strings. Organizing for Change includes Ecojustice, Greenpeace, Sierra Club B.C., ForestEthics Advocacy, ForestEthics Solutions, Georgia Strait Alliance, Dogwood Initiative, Pembina Institute, West Coast Environmental Law, Wildsight and Seattle-based Conservation Northwest. Tides is itself a front for wealthy
TOM FLETCHER Our Man In
VICTORIA charitable foundations based mostly in Seattle and California, funded by billionaires who see “saving” B.C. as their personal eco-project. Their hired activists met with Environment Minister Mary Polak to discuss her just-introduced Water Sustainability Act. This was to demand heavy fees and choking regulations on water used for fracking, that nefarious gas-drilling technology so demonized in fake documentaries and celebrity protests. Tides no longer attempts to hide its strategy of targeting energy development in B.C. and Alberta. Its tactics are well known, too. Environmentalists need high-profile wins and the economic pain is best inflicted outside of the U.S., the biggest polluter in world history. Organizing for Change’s stated priorities for the year are the “last stand of the Great Bear Rainforest,” the “Sacred Headwaters” and the Water Sustainability Act. Professional protesters are mainly just taking credit for the 2012 buyback of Shell’s coalbed gas licences around the headwaters of the Nass, Skeena and Stikine rivers.
Tahltan Central Council declared that territory theirs in 1910 and having pros roll in with slogans and graphics wasn’t exactly crucial to the outcome. Their greatest marketing success so far is the Great Bear Rainforest, which is continually portrayed as being in peril from hunting, logging and, of course, oil and gas development. One of the documents Krause unearthed is a 2008 plan entitled Tar Sands Campaign Strategy 2.1 that has proven remarkably prophetic. As Greenpeace, Sierra and ForestEthics were negotiating the 2007 Great Bear land-use plan, other network members were preparing to “raise the negatives” and market Alberta as a unique threat to planetary integrity. I’ve written before about the distortions and evasions required to present such a fossil-fuel fairy tale. Suffice it to say that while we have busloads of protesters in B.C., you don’t see them in those benevolent petro-states Angola, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Kuwait or Algeria. They’re not saving the whole planet, just the safe and lucrative parts. As I mentioned after the protesterstaged Neil Young concert tour, it’s amazing how American oil and gas interests and Alaska oil tankers remain invisible to this sophisticated network. NDP environment critic Spencer Chandra Herbert also met with the green machine He wants all of B.C.’s groundwater mapped and measured deep into the Earth’s crust. That should take a while. tfletcher@blackpress.ca
Yet more waste of our money
It seems to never end. The flagrant disregard for taxpayers’ money continues. Not too long ago, the media spotlight shone on the greed of Bev Oda, she of the $16 glass of orange juice in London and the demand to be housed in a better hotel as the luxury suite booked for the Conservative cabinet minister in England wasn’t good enough. One would think politicians would make wiser choices when spending our money (or, at least, do a better job of hiding such wasteful spending). Then along came Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who will step down on Sunday after being the subject of much news coverage of her spendthrift ways. It has been revealed Redford has pulled an Oda — she spent $45,000 on a return flight alone from South Africa, where she attended Nelson Mandela’s funeral (why a premier of a Canadian province needed to attend the funeral is beyond our comprehension). Redford has also used government jets to fly hither and to, at times with her kids and friends of her kids on board the taxpayer-owned-and-funded vehicle in the sky. There is more, of course — there always is. Closer to home, a government audit has found the Portland Hotel, which runs the controversial supervised injection site and helps Canada’s poorest people in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, has been spending a lot of money on nonsocial-services type of activities. The audit has revealed the society spent thousands of dollars on limousine rides, a staff Christmas party, a staff baby shower and a trip to Disneyland. This is a society that receives $28 million of taxpayers’ money to help those who need help the most — and we doubt a trip to Disneyland or other junkets to Europe were directly linked to helping the truly needy. The question all of this raises is this: Where was and where is the oversight at the government level? Who was in Alberta to nix that $45,000 trip by Redford? Who is and was in charge in B.C. to review such spending requests by the Portland Hotel Society before the money is spent?
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