From CBC News January 22, 2019 Debate grows over impact of American funding being directed towards Canadian environmental campaign. Excerpts below in italics with my bolds.
Alberta at Noon host Judy Aldous spoke to researcher and blogger Vivian Krause, as well as award-winning Calgary author Chris Turner, Monday about the degree to which U.S. dollars are shaping the conversation we’re now having in Canada about building pipelines.
Krause has estimated that various U.S. funders have contributed in the neighbourhood of $40-million in recent years to hundreds of Canadian environmental and Indigenous groups. The goal is to help them spread a message about the need to land-lock Alberta crude through protests against the construction of new pipelines.
Krause believes those American dollars are financing a message that has turned the conversation around, adding topics like pipeline development have become toxic.
“The campaign has been devastating,” Krause said.
“I think the campaign is the reason why Northern Gateway was cancelled: Energy East, Keystone, Trans Mountain.
“And this is the same organization, same strategy, same funders that stopped the Mackenzie [Valley] gas pipeline. I think the coastal gas pipeline is also in serious trouble.
“I have no hope for any pipeline [being approved for development] until this campaign is brought to an end,” she said.
Turner, meanwhile, said that foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Hewlett Foundation, and the U.S. environmental group the Tides Foundation have far less of ability to manipulate the environmental agenda in Canada than Krause suggests.
He didn’t disagree with the numbers but disputed Krause’s interpretation of them.
Krause said she isn’t opposed to the principle of funding environmental groups from outside the country. However, she said she feels there has been a disproportionate focus on the oilsands by American environmental activists, particularly considering the U.S. is now one of the top oil producers on the planet.
She also suggested that by turning up the heat on Canadian energy development, those same activists are enabling — or perhaps are motivated by — a desire to open up markets for American oil producers.
“But here’s the thing,” she added. “Guess whose oil is getting to market and is getting the highest prices? It’s not Canadian oil or gas. It’s American oil and gas.”
She asked why environmentalist don’t instead focus on “landlocking the development of American oil and gas.”
Science Matters 