Tell the Senate to stop silencing environmental groups

Action Alert:

The following was posted on the Suzuki Foundation site yesterday:

With their insulting and uninformed statements during an inquiry into international funding for Canadian charitable organizations that are standing up for our country’s rich natural environment, senators are doing a disservice to all Canadians.

The government has already labelled Canadians who question the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal as "radicals" and potential terrorists, but its appointed senators recently kicked things up a notch.

Senator Don Plett, former president of the federal Conservative Party, asked his fellow senators during the inquiry, "If environmentalists are willing to accept money from Martians, where would they draw the line on where they receive money from? Would they take money from Al Qaeda, the Hamas or the Taliban?"

Senator Percy Mockler referred to the David Suzuki Foundation and others as "qualified bad, not to mention ugly, foundations."

Such statements from senators are an affront to the democratic principles of this country. We expect more from our government and Senate leaders. We expect rational discussion of issues of national and global importance.

Environmental organizations have often stepped in where government and industry have failed to protect the air, water, and land that we all depend on – from raising the issue of acid rain, which led to a successful treaty to address the problem, to protecting valuable habitat and natural areas. The issue of relatively small amounts of international funding is a distraction and effort to silence environmental organizations. Trying to stifle those who don’t agree with the government's positions is undemocratic and goes against the values and traditions that Canadians of all political stripes have worked for many years to establish.

The David Suzuki Foundation is transparent about its funding. We received 94 per cent of our funding from Canadians last year and six per cent from international sources. We're proud of all our donors, wherever they are from. After all, we share one biosphere.

If you support our work and the work of other environmental organizations, please send the government and the senators a message. Tell them that democracy requires listening to what all Canadians have to say and not trying to demonize or silence those with differing points of view.

Take action at:  http://action.davidsuzuki.org/senate

Related Article:
David Suzuki letter writing campaign aims for 10,000 messages to reach Sen. Nicole Eaton on funding charities debate in Senate

EthicalOil.org’s hypocritical Katheryn Marshall requires a lesson in logic

by Bobbie Saga

A recent post on EthicalOil.org by Katheryn Marshall entitled This can’t be what charitable tax breaks were meant for is so wonderfully hypocritical and illogical.

Ms. Marshall – whose best before date expired during her CBC meltdown just over two months ago – reveals a distinct inability to answer a simple question: does EthicalOil.org take money from Enbridge?

Along with Sun Media's Ezra Levant, Ms. Marshall was lampooned Friday by the BC publication The Tyee in the brilliant satirical video Ethical Oil The Puppet Rap – when the original interview showed her incompetence in spinning talking points. It must hurt!

She continues, however, to blather on about tax credits for organizations with charitable status, but does not do a great job of that either.

Ms. Marshall, who is currently a law student, should possibly take a class in logic. Every point she makes in her article compounds a couple of problems she has – that is, a failure to be transparent about funding, and an inability to present a well thought out case for her point of view that can be backed by facts.

This time, Ms. Marshall begins her article by making reference to charities, such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation. She then switches to the federal government having "the right to at least insist that this is the kind of good and helpful work that’s being done: that’s why it has rules about how much money groups that get those subsidies are allowed to put towards fighting political campaigns."

Most people would agree. Hence, the rules for charitable status in the first place.

Yet without making reference to the political purpose of the organization she works for, Ms. Marshall turns her illogical pen against registered charities she claims "spend all day long hollering attacks against the oil sands."

She rightly points out that under charitable status, an organization is limited in the time spent on what can be considered lobbying for a particular cause. But her unsubstantiated claims against environmental groups can, legitimately, be turned on EthicalOil.org. It certainly begs a question of what exactly this organization is all about.

Based on its own mandate, not to mention its shameless flogging of Levant’s book of the same name, or its political connections, EthicalOil.org "encourages people, businesses and governments to choose Ethical Oil from Canada, its oil sands and other liberal democracies. Unlike Conflict Oil from some of the world’s most politically oppressive and environmentally reckless regimes, Ethical Oil is the ‘Fair Trade’ choice in oil."

And that begs the question: what else does this organization do?

Well, according to EthicalOil.org’s own statements posted on its site, it "began as a blog created by Alykhan Velshi to promote the ideas in Ezra Levant’s bestselling book Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands."

The statement continues with, "The blog, in addition to rebutting inaccurate and unfair criticisms of the oilsands, also sought to engage its readers: inviting them to write letters to their local newspapers, call talk radio stations and suggest ideas for Access to Information requests to expose the network of anti-oilsands lobbyists who meet regularly with senior Environment Canada officials."

It then goes on to say, "Within a month, based on the generosity of its readers, EthicalOil.org has become an online community that empowers people to become grassroots community activists on the front-lines of the campaign for ethical oil."

Okay! If that’s not "fighting a political campaign," it’s difficult to discern what is. And that begs the question: how did EthicalOil.org get charitable tax status?

In Marshall’s own words, it’s "a free country: any group that wants to can go out and raise money and spend all day long hollering about… that industry; it just shouldn’t expect taxpayers to help pay for it with those write-off subsidies."

Ms. Marshall either ignores or pretends EthicalOil.org – and the industry it supports – doesn’t get tax subsidies. But in the process, the article is also another thinly veiled attack on those "radical foreigners." It is an organization that does not engage with, nor give credit to Canadians, including First Nations, that might not support the claims of Levant in his book, and by extension EthicalOil.org, the tar sands, or the Enbridge pipeline project.

The wind-up doll routine of reiterating, ad nauseam, tired talking points does little to mask the roots and connections of this so-called "grassroots" organization. Here, the optics don't look good. It is suspect that big oil’s multinationals aren't trying – at all – to influence Canada's energy policies with millions being poured into a public relations war.

So now it comes back to the original question posed over two months ago: does EthicalOil.org take money from Enbridge?

Just a bit of BC humour aimed at Alberta tar sands supporters - LMAO

Ethical Oil: The Puppet Rap

K-Mart and Easy-E drop some oil sands science. Your Friday satire.

By Various Contributors, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

Click on the following link to view video:

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/03/16/Ethical-Oil-Rap/

Or view it on Youtube (it deserves to go viral):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYUd7WOdjyU

See original interview at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toR3Tt9fS2E

Update:

Ezra Levant fires back at Tyee over puppet rap satire

Ezra Levant is firing back at The Tyee after a satirical video featuring a puppet version of the Sun News Network host and Ethical Oil spokesperson Kathryn Marshall rapping was published today.

Click here to view Tyee's response:
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Media/2012/03/16/Ezra-Fires-Back/