FOSTER … Greenpeace’s SLAPPschtick.
The scarcity of media coverage of the lawsuit bought by Canadian forest giant Resolute Forest Products against Greenpeace Canada is intriguing. For a corporation to sue an environmental Non Governmental Organization surely comes — in terms of newsworthiness ‚ into “man bites dog” territory.
Why? Contrary to the popular meme of “powerful” businesses bestriding the land and manipulating the political system at will, corporations have become cowering milquetoasts in the face of eNGO coercion.
The left has long cultivated the confusion that economic size equates with political power. Corporations certainly attempt to influence policies, particularly ones that hurt them, and engage in rent-seeking activities, but their essential power is purchasing power, not coercive power.
Radical green organizations have discovered that the route to true political power is by attacking the wellspring of any corporation’s existence: its markets and its consumers. Which brings us back to the Resolute case against Greenpeace.
At the end of May, the Montreal-based forestry company filed a $7-million suit against Greenpeace for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”
Both had been signatories of the 2010 Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, CBFA, between nine eNGOs and members of the Forest Products Association of Canada, FPAC. The agreement was ostensibly about “sustainable” forest management. What it was really about was demonstrating that the environmental movement could bring the forest industry to heel.
In december, Greenpeace withdrew from the CBFA — which internal reports revealed was going nowhere — claiming Resolute had logged in off-limits areas. Resolute refuted the claims in detail and, when Greenpeace persisted with its claims, privately threatened to sue. Greenpeace backed down and offered an almost unprecedented retraction and apology. Then, bizarrely, it set about peddling the same old claims, along with a raft of new ones, specifically in something called “The unsustainability Report.”
Greenpeace has responded to Resolute’s suit not with a statement of defence, but with a press release. It has, predictably, accused Resolute of “bullying,” and of wielding a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation,” or SLAPP.
As the manufactured acronym suggests, SLAPPs are allegedly designed to slap down legitimate debate on issues of public interest. Again, it fits nicely into the narrative of Big Bad Business Bullies. That is not to say that there shouldn’t be legislation against using financial heft to silence critics. It’s just that to categorize Resolute’s suit as a SLAPP is untenable, especially as Greenpeace has already acknowledged spreading falsehoods.
Certainly, public participation is of critical importance, but it
Resolute accused of bullying by environment group as the Boreal charade continues
shouldn’t be used as a legal shield for defamation and wilfully destroying business and jobs. The irony is that the CBFA in fact shut out participation by the Northern communities that were most directly concerned, which is just one of the reasons for its lack of “progress.”
Legislation to protect public participation is currently making its way through Queen’s Park, but the term SLAPP has been very deliberately excluded. As an aside, ironically, the greatest enemy of public participation in Ontario until just a few weeks ago was Queen’s Park, which had effectively withdrawn the right of local communities to question Green energy Act intrusions such as wind farms).
Greenpeace claims that Resolute didn’t bring suit in Quebec because it was afraid of the province’s anti-SLAPP laws. In fact, Resolute brought its action in Thunder Bay because that was where Greenpeace activists turned up at the company’s annual meeting to spread their “malice.”
Greenpeace’s release also claims that Resolute “has breached more forestry laws and regulations in Quebec than any other company over the past decade.” In fact, when the company’s size is taken into account, its infractions and fines are well below average. Moreover, since 2009 it has had a zero tolerance policy for any form of infraction.
In an attempt to scare off Resolute, Greenpeace draws attention to the recent withdrawal of a lawsuit in Britain by French energy giant edF (which, ironically, just opened a large wind farm, Massif du Sud, in Quebec). edF had become a target because of its involvement in the development of shale gas. which eNGOs are furiously trying to shut down in europe. Radical greens had occupied and closed down an edF natural gas plant. When edF threatened to sue, the eNGOs unleashed a media firestorm, and recruited rentalefties such as Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Mark Ruffalo to the cause.
As Greenpeace media head Ben Stewart proudly noted, “They knew intuitively to frame the lawsuit as a classic david vs. Goliath fight, the sweet-spot of any insurgent activist campaign.” edF caved.
Thus Greenpeace certainly has to be taken seriously. Its worldwide revenues run into the hundreds of millions, and its Canadian operation has income of more than $10-million. However, its “success” is based not, as it claims, on “sciencebased” advocacy, but largely on activist thuggery and misinformation.
Greenpeace has inevitably gone to Resolute’s customers in an attempt to apply pressure, but it’s not clear whether Naomi, Noam and Mark will enter the fray. Let’s hope Resolute gets its day in court. Its fight appears to be a lonely one, but if it can persevere, it can strike a blow in the area that Greenpeace both covets and relentlessly targets: the wallet.
The only reason for maintaining the CBFA charade is because forest companies are scared of further eNGO misinformation campaigns. Canada’ss forest products association, an organization that is meant to represent member such as Resolute, claims that it can’t possibly comment on the Resolute Greenpeace battle, and that the CBFA is “full steam ahead.”
Such is the pathetic face of corporate “power.”