Enviro-activism money unclean

Dear editor: Back in the 1970s, a group of environmental and social justice activists met at a remote resort on Cortes Island in the Georgia Strait about 150 kilometres north of Vancouver.

The four-day gathering was billed as a Social Change Institute gathered to bring seasoned and emerging leaders with thinkers and trainers from the change-making world, a strategy was launched to gain “systemic social change focused in one region.”

Vancouver, one of the wealthiest and blessed places on earth, was the target for this change. Joel Solomon said there was a huge amount of untapped capital which he intended to mobilize towards his cause.

Solomon’s plan for change hasn’t been without consequence for Alberta and B.C. as Tides Foundation funds began to direct Canadian environmental affairs.

Thanks to unlimited U.S. funds, environmental groups are agitating all over the province: gas resource development in the Kootenays; West Coast fish farming; stopping oil tanker traffic and pipeline installation. Constant environmental activism that keeps the country off balance.

The Tides Foundation alone has made more than 400 payments totalling $40 million to 100 organizations involved in the Tar Sand Campaign. (Vivian Krause)

Leadnow, a non-profit group recently named in a report sent to Elections Canada alleging political interference, was actively involved with B.C.’s provincial election results and Vancouver civic affairs.

Leadnow joined other activists in persuading the Green Party and the NDP to form a coalition.

The report claimed that during the 2015 election year, U.S.-based Tides Foundation donated $1.5 million to “Canadian third parties.”

A spokesperson for Leadnow, the recipient of Tides Foundation funding, told the Vancouver Sun: “We get our money from Canadians, small donations.”

According to Vivian Krause in the Financial Post (2011), by far, the largest B.C.-based recipient organization is Tides Canada, which according to tax returns has been paid nearly $60-million by U.S. foundations.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was a Tides Canada director from 2002 until 2004 when he entered politics with the NDP.

This is the last of three letters on the environmental movement in Canada

Elvena Slump Penticton