Canadians watch Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, comfortable in the belief that such foreign interference couldn’t happen here.
Except it did happen here.
And while the Russians adamantly deny interference in American political affairs, the perpetrators of interference in the 2015 Canadian federal election not only devised and executed a plan aimed at helping to elect the party friendly to their cause, they publicly trumpeted their success in achieving just that.
This story has all the elements of a fiction novel. But it’s not fiction.
Piece by meticulously researched piece, independent researcher Vivian Krause spent almost 10 years unveiling the information.
The story begins in 2008, when a group of radical American anti-fossil-fuel environmental organizations created Tar Sands Campaign Strategy 2.1 designed “to landlock the Canadian oilsands by delaying or blocking the expansion or development of key pipelines.”
A list of key strategic targets included: “educating and organizing First Nations to challenge construction of pipelines across their traditional territories” and bringing “multiple actions in Canadian federal and provincial courts.”
A “raising the negatives” section includes recruiting celebrity spokespersons such as Leonardo DiCaprio to “lend their brand to opponents of tar sands and generating a high negative media profile for tar sands oil.”
Executing such a massive intrusion into Canadian affairs would take years and a large amount of money. Ironically, much of that anti-oil money came from the legacy of the man who founded the U.S. oil industry, John D. Rockefeller. Joining the Rockefeller Foundation were the two legacy foundations of Hewlett-Packard co-founders William Hewlett and David Packard.
These foundations, together with other American anti-fossil-fuel charities, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.S.-based Tides Foundation, a murky organization that serves as a legal money launderer, receiving donations from other foundations and redistributing the funds without revealing sources.
Since American and Canadian tax laws require charities to document receipt and disbursement of funds, Krause was able to gather irrefutable evidence that tens of millions of dollars were transferred from Tides U.S. to its Tides Canada subsidiary.
The largest portion the funds were directed at raising fears of oil spills among First Nations, including seven payments to help build “indigenous solidarity resistance to pipeline routes,” maintain “opposition to oil tankers” and to “provide legal support for actions constraining tar sands development.”
Funding also went to the Great Bear Initiative to build support for designating the so-called Spirit Bear habitat a nature reserve.
Those initiatives resulted in the successful court appeal by First Nations suspending approval by the former government of Stephen Harper of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.
Then came Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s lamentable decision to disallow oil pipelines through the Great Bear Rainforest, along with a northcoast tanker ban, driving the final nails into the coffin of Northern Gateway.
The American anti-oilsands funding didn’t stop at encouraging opposition to oil pipelines. The Victoria-based Dogwood Initiative, one of the most politically active organizations in the country, received millions of dollars from Tides Canada to run get-the-vote out campaigns in the 2017 B.C. provincial election, including deployment of thousands of campaign workers in Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver’s riding. Without his election, the anti-Trans Mountain NDP/Green coalition wouldn’t have gained power.
At the federal level, money was funnelled directly to campaign activists working to help the Liberals win the 2015 election.
Election of the anti-fossil fuel Trudeau government would have been ample cause for a victory celebration. But the campaigners received a bonus beyond their wildest dreams when one of their most dedicated eco-warriors was appointed principal secretary to the prime minister, the most powerful post in the prime minister’s office.
From 2008 to 2012, Gerald Butts was president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada, an important Tides campaign partner.
Butts used his position in the PMO to bring other former campaigners with him.
That, fellow Canadians, is the story that never could have been told without the determination of a real Canadian patriot who dedicated 10 years searching for the truth.
Gwyn Morgan is a retired Canadian business leader.