Tides Canada told Business in Vancouver recently that it has taken “no stand for or against the oilsands” (see “Tanker traffic tug-of-war” – issue 1108; January 18-24).
I find that statement difficult to reconcile with the information in Tides Canada’s U.S. tax returns and in the tax returns of U.S. foundations that have paid Tides Canada nearly $57 million since 2000.
For example, Rockefeller Brothers Fund Inc. (RBF) paid Tides Canada $50,000 for a website named “Oil Sands Tourism” (www.travelingalberta.com). Interestingly, the website is presented by Greenpeace. Tides Canada’s name is nowhere to be seen. According to RBF, the project was “to increase pressure on Alberta policymakers to shift development plans onto a more sustainable track.” If Tides Canada took Rockefeller money to pressure the Alberta government, that runs counter to Tides Canada’s claim of neutrality and shows that it has indeed taken a stand to thwart the Alberta oil industry.
Last year, Tides Canada was paid $400,000 by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation “for efforts to reduce fossil fuel development.” That grant was part of $12 million that Hewlett has granted to tackle the oil and gas industry in Canada. Hewlett has described the Alberta oil industry as a “nasty business.” One of Hewlett’s first grants in this series was $70,000 paid to Tides Canada in 2004 “to develop a strategic plan to address the development of oil and gas in British Columbia.”
In essence, U.S. foundations (e.g., Rockefeller, Hewlett and the Pew Charitable Trusts) are battling the U.S. oil companies that are working to develop the Alberta oilsands. Tides Canada, funded heavily by U.S. foundations, is doing the footwork.
In 2008, Tides Canada paid Environmental Defense $105,000 for the Toxic Tar Sands Phase I Project. In 2009, Tides Canada spent $202,608 internally for its own Tar Sands Research Project and communications work on Alberta’s Energy Footprint, and paid the Prairie chapter of the Sierra Club for its Tar Sands Campaign. Tides Canada paid $191,773 to Ducks Unlimited “to document the extent of polycyclic hydrocarbon being released from Alberta tar sands” and $200,000 for Ducks Unlimited’s Athabasca Watershed water quality research.
The U.S. Tides Foundation (Tides USA) was paid $700,000 by the Oak Foundation “… to raise the visibility of the tar sands issue and slow the expansion of tar sands production by stopping new infrastructure development.”
The Sea Change Foundation also paid Tides USA $2 million “to promote awareness of and opposition to tar sands.”
U.S. tax returns show that Jim Simons and his family have paid $95 million to Sea Change. Simons is a hedge fund billionaire. Forbes estimates his personal wealth at $8 billion.
The Bullitt Foundation paid Tides USA “to mobilize urban voters for a federal ban on coastal tankers.”
After I testified to a House of Commons standing committee on energy security in Canada, both the Bullitt Foundation and RBF rewrote their grants to Tides USA and Tides Canada, but the anti-Alberta, anti-tanker campaign goes on.
Tides USA helped to launch Tides Canada, and U.S. tax returns show that Tides USA has granted at least $4.4 million to Tides Canada. The founder and CEO of Tides USA for 34 years and the “founding chair” of Tides Canada is the same person: Drummond Pike. He contributed $2,000 to Mayor Gregor Robertson’s 2008 mayoral campaign.
Tides USA paid the First Nations Turning Point Initiative $27,000 to hire a co-ordinator to engage with government, industry, environmental groups, media and the public regarding the proposed Enbridge Gateway tar sands pipeline.
The Turning Point Initiative has vowed to oppose the Enbridge pipeline “with everything we have.” In 2008, Tides Canada paid $273 million to the Coast Opportunity Endowment Fund Foundation, the Turning Point Initiative’s sister organization. Most of that came from U.S. foundations.
In 2008, Tides Canada paid the West Coast Environmental Law Foundation for “mobilizing First Nations against climate change in B.C.”
Tides Canada also paid $9,750 in support of “an indigenous tar sands educational campaign” and paid the Dogwood Initiative $40,654 in 2008 and $46,639 in 2009.
Tides Canada should post its U.S. tax returns on its website so that Canadians can see for themselves what it has been funding, and Revenue Canada should require the same level of disclosure as the IRS so that Canadians wouldn’t have to go through U.S. tax returns to find out what Canadian charities are funding.
Vivian Krause (www.fair-questions.com) is a researcher and writer based in Vancouver. She has worked in fish farming, and for UNICEF in Guatemala and Indonesia.