Rebel News Podcast - SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Foreign anti-Canadian oilsands activism exposed in Alberta Inquiry

00:00:00.000 Oh hey Rebels, it's me, Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're listening to an audio-only recording

00:00:04.640 of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gun Show. However, I say this every single time

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00:00:15.860 or watch the show whenever is convenient for you. And I think you should really watch this show

00:00:21.740 because this is a really good one. Tonight my guest is Michelle Sterling from Friends of Science,

00:00:27.200 and we are talking about the Alberta Inquiry. Now what's the Alberta Inquiry? That's the

00:00:35.140 comprehensive report into the funding given to environmental charities and ENGOs, as they say,

00:00:46.360 to block Canadian oil and gas. Deloitte found roughly $1.3 billion that was directed

00:00:57.000 at blocking Canadian oil and gas development, and that's just what they could find because

00:01:02.260 the charity rules are so vague that it makes it very, very easy to hide this sort of dark green

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00:02:01.560 Foreign meddlers paid $1.3 billion to domestic saboteurs to destroy the Canadian economy.

00:02:23.360 Oh, it wasn't the Russians. It was American environmentalists. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed,

00:02:28.700 and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:02:31.560 After months and months and months of delays, the Alberta Inquiry was just released late last week.

00:02:55.160 The commission was struck way back in July 2019 to look into allegations that environmentalists

00:03:01.340 were accepting foreign money to fund campaigns aimed at blocking Canadian oil and gas development,

00:03:08.600 and much more specifically, to target the Alberta oil sands. These people even had a cute little name

00:03:17.000 for this. Those environmentalists called it. Those environmentalists called it the Tar Sands Campaign.

00:03:22.680 And we've all seen the documents. We've all seen the involvement of Canadian-based environmentalist

00:03:30.520 groups like the Pembina Institute, taking directions from foreign-funded environmental charities like the

00:03:38.020 Tides Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation, where the domestic ENGOs were getting money from these

00:03:44.900 environmental clearinghouses of foreign money for their activism. The inquiry was done by auditing firm

00:03:53.900 Deloitte and found nearly $1.3 billion in this targeted green demarketing campaign directed at

00:04:02.040 Canadian resources. And there would have been a lot more foreign funding uncovered, but Canada's vague

00:04:10.060 charity laws and this network of granting organizations put forward purposefully unspecific reasons for the

00:04:18.800 grants. And for these reasons, it makes the money very difficult to track. Now, these findings are a bit of a

00:04:25.240 indication of sorts for my guest tonight. My guest is Michelle Sterling from Friends of Science, and she has been

00:04:31.960 on the case of foreign meddlers and foreign funding directed at Canadian oil and gas for longer than a decade.

00:04:41.460 She's been doing the boring sometimes, but necessary hard research into these sinister foreign American 1.00

00:04:50.180 charities. And Michelle joins me tonight to break down what she read and her takeaway from this somewhat complex

00:04:58.320 report, and she promises to do it in the simplest way possible.

00:05:01.340 So joining me now to talk about the report out of the Alberta government into just the sheer amount and

00:05:23.780 organization of foreign funding flowing into Canada to stop Alberta's oil and gas development is

00:05:31.140 Michelle Sterling from Friends of Science. And I wanted to have you on, Michelle. I told you this off

00:05:35.100 camera, but I think it's an important point to make. At Friends of Science, you take these big, huge

00:05:40.640 issues, and you guys read and research through these volumes of research, and then break it down so that the

00:05:49.780 normal person who doesn't live in this world can understand what these big policies mean, and what are the

00:05:56.220 implications for the real world. So I just think you're such a valuable resource for people who really want to

00:06:04.300 know what this means in your real life, that to have foreign funded actors attacking Canadian oil and gas.

00:06:12.640 Michelle, can you give us a brief overview, and I know it's a lot, but give us a brief overview of what was,

00:06:20.000 I guess, achieved or revealed by that report?

00:06:23.920 Well, in my view, the most important thing is that it confirms absolutely, and with cross-referenced

00:06:31.240 evidence by Deloitte, that huge sums of money have flowed through ENGOs in environmental groups in Canada.

00:06:40.520 And a large part of it was directly used to oppose resource development in Canada.

00:06:47.780 It's quite telling that Deloitte comes up with bigger numbers than actually the Allen Inquiry did,

00:06:54.480 but they couldn't verify the exact end of where those monies went or what was done with them.

00:07:01.100 But there's obviously billions of dollars that have been used against Alberta in particular,

00:07:10.400 but Canada in general as well, to block development of a resource that in 2009,

00:07:18.260 the Oil Sands Developers Group said it would generate $1.7 trillion for the Canadian economy.

00:07:27.000 And today, the energy resources of Canada, most of which are in Alberta,

00:07:33.340 are valued at $21 trillion gross value, or $13 trillion net.

00:07:41.280 So that would be about $342,000 for every single Canadian.

00:07:50.020 And yet people want to keep it in the ground.

00:07:53.160 But none of our competitors are keeping it in the ground.

00:07:55.660 All of our competitors are booing ahead.

00:07:58.660 And as Minister Savage said at the press conference,

00:08:03.780 with the present energy crunch around the world, Canada and Alberta could have helped,

00:08:08.900 but we just can't get our product to market.

00:08:10.960 And why?

00:08:11.700 Because there's all these ENGOs blocking it.

00:08:16.500 So, you know, I think the real value is it shows people that there actually is a Tar Sands campaign.

00:08:22.920 It is and has been largely foreign funded.

00:08:26.840 And sadly, I guess that all the domestic funding was not totally researched,

00:08:32.740 because what happened early on is that Tides was funded by the Oak Foundation

00:08:39.980 to develop a $30 million domestic fund in Canada.

00:08:44.440 And the Sierra Club was also tasked by the Oak Foundation to set up a general fund to fund climate change activities in Canada.

00:08:55.460 I don't know if that ever happened, but I suspect it did.

00:08:58.280 So, you know, perhaps there are these extra big funds somewhere in Canada that continue to fund these groups.

00:09:05.540 Nonetheless, the top 40 environmental groups in Canada from our own reports show that the top 40 had revenues between 2000 and 2018

00:09:17.400 that were 18 times the revenues of all combined political parties in Canada.

00:09:25.320 So this just shows you how imbalanced the power and money is and influence in Canada.

00:09:32.740 You know, that was a problem.

00:09:34.960 It definitely is, because as you point out, Deloitte really couldn't even get the full forensic accounting of this

00:09:43.440 because of the vagaries in the law.

00:09:45.500 So the findings say between 2003 and 2019, Canadian-based environmental initiatives received $1.28 billion in foreign funding.

00:10:00.380 The commissioner noted this amount is likely significantly understates the true funding value

00:10:07.980 as Canadian charity law, which allows re-granting of these donations, renders many donations untraceable.

00:10:17.140 They were able to find $325 million that was received for Canadian-based environmental initiatives,

00:10:26.500 which remained in the U.S., such as anti-pipeline campaigns.

00:10:31.280 Yeah, and, you know, it's interesting, like I've seen a few tweets where David Kahn is squawking about using the $1.2 billion figure

00:10:41.640 because apparently a large part of that was dedicated toward conservation and land issues.

00:10:49.040 But really, what do these conservation and land issues mean?

00:10:52.780 Sometimes it's things like the Great Bear Rainforest, which is now a carbon credit trading place.

00:11:00.820 Canadians don't benefit from that.

00:11:03.140 Or, sorry to interrupt you, Yellowstone to Yukon, which is basically a tool to use grizzly bear habitat

00:11:11.880 to block eastern slopes oil and gas development.

00:11:15.780 Right, like I wrote an op-ed in 2013 and I called it the Great Eco Wall of Canada.

00:11:23.040 And it was precisely that, that all of these areas are being staked out in, particularly in British Columbia,

00:11:29.880 as, you know, special areas, conservation areas, et cetera, et cetera.

00:11:34.720 Well, then you can't put any kind of resource development there, but look, you're saving the planet.

00:11:39.740 So, you know, so to say that these conservation programs had nothing to do with blocking resource development is false.

00:11:50.320 Although, again, it's very hard to say, oh, look, they put together this park and now it's untouchable.

00:11:58.700 But did the people involved intend to block development or were they really, you know, park lovers and this was their passion in life?

00:12:07.720 And, you know, and I think that that was actually kind of very fair of the commissioner to note that many people are concerned about climate change.

00:12:17.900 Many people are concerned about nature and conservancy.

00:12:21.000 That's fair.

00:12:21.920 But the way in which this whole program has developed was not open and transparent.

00:12:28.580 So those who had different views did not have the same opportunity to challenge or confront these groups as they developed their plans.

00:12:38.680 You know, we saw this unfold in real time right after the NDP got elected here in Alberta,

00:12:42.720 where they tried to basically turn a big chunk of southern Alberta near the Crozas Pass into a park.

00:12:50.460 And the people who actually used the land said, oh, no, no, we don't need a park here because that will prohibit what we are able to do here.

00:12:57.980 The people who actually, for generations of their own cost and time, went out and took care of the land and used the land.

00:13:05.660 And there was no government involvement.

00:13:07.640 It wasn't like it was being damaged irreparably in any way by the use of the people who are using it.

00:13:13.960 But the NDP figured, oh, we'll just turn this into a park.

00:13:18.120 Everybody loves parks.

00:13:19.700 Yeah, except the people who actually use the land.

00:13:22.900 And so that was really interesting to see unfold.

00:13:25.820 Now, getting back to the topic of the vague charity laws.

00:13:32.620 Bill Morneau, no longer in Trudeau's cabinet, thankfully.

00:13:37.100 He's probably crying his eyes out, dabbing his tears with money in his forgotten French villa.

00:13:42.880 But he wanted to make charity laws even more vague.

00:13:49.620 And Friends of Science wrote a letter with regard to that to Bill Morneau.

00:13:55.380 Yes.

00:13:56.080 Well, this was in the fall of 2018, I believe.

00:14:01.040 And they were about to make it possible for charities to use 100% of their revenues in nonpartisan political activities.

00:14:10.940 And up to that point in time, they'd only been allowed to use 10%.

00:14:15.240 So if people want to have sort of a quick view of some of the what we think are damaging implications of these environmental charities actions in Canada,

00:14:28.240 you could just look at that letter because we list about 10 items there that show very simply the direct activities that were damaging to this nation and to our economy.

00:14:42.160 And then you don't have to kind of go through 600 pages of material.

00:14:47.800 And of course, by the spring, they did pass that legislation.

00:14:51.420 So now these big fat charities, NGO charities, have the right to use 100% of their revenues in nonpartisan political activity.

00:15:03.780 But since they have so much power and money, most politicians play along with them or go along with them because otherwise they won't get elected.

00:15:16.000 So, you know, they've completely skewed the election platform of Canada just by their power and money.

00:15:23.140 You know, I do sign up for the emails from these environmental NGOs just to see what they're up to.

00:15:29.820 And you cannot go in your email inbox during election season because that's all you get from them.

00:15:36.620 And so, you know, when they say, oh, we're nonpolitical.

00:15:39.880 Yeah, but you've just emailed me, email blasted me four times today on liberal policies without ever saying liberal, liberal, liberal.

00:15:48.220 You're doing partisan things.

00:15:50.720 And I guess based on the Deloitte, really, it's a forensic audit as best that they can do.

00:15:59.060 I guess stopping at 2019 because of what Bill Morneau did, that's the best we can do because going forward, it's going to be even harder to track this money.

00:16:08.460 And I think it was Mark Bloomberg from Charities Law, I forget the name of his organization.

00:16:17.680 Anyway, he deals only with charities, but he noted, and it's in our report, Green Titanic, that up until the change of law, if we took just the 10% of the charities, and this is all charities in Canada,

00:16:32.400 the 10% that they were allowed to spend on political activity, that would be $25 billion.

00:16:39.060 And now it's 100%.

00:16:40.740 And it's a multi-billion dollar industry.

00:16:44.460 I think it's like almost the same size as the GDP.

00:16:49.680 It's crazy.

00:16:50.720 It's an insane amount of money.

00:16:52.220 Now, you guys have a really great report.

00:16:58.180 It's called Fear and Loathing, History, Context, and Observations.

00:17:03.740 And you've really broken down the path to becoming an international pariah, I think inaccurately, of course.

00:17:12.820 But how that happened, and it was basically a marketing campaign in reverse for Alberta Oil and Gas, and it's funded by all this money.

00:17:23.920 And in the meantime, oil companies were saying, look, we care about the environment.

00:17:29.440 They're going to leave us alone.

00:17:31.380 We'll throw some money at the Pembina Institute.

00:17:33.900 They'll leave us alone.

00:17:35.020 But behind them was this organized network of eco-radicals who didn't care what sort of bone you threw them. 0.78

00:17:43.560 They were coming to get you.

00:17:45.200 And now we are 10 years later, and they're getting their way on basically everything.

00:17:49.560 We haven't had a pipeline built in this country in Lord knows how long.

00:17:54.360 Well, it's interesting to note that in 2014, I believe it was, we had gotten kind of a toehold in Italy as a supplier.

00:18:02.180 And, of course, in Europe, there had been quite a fight under the EU Fuel Quality Directive where they wanted to label Alberta Oil as dirty oil.

00:18:12.700 And we managed to evade that labeling.

00:18:17.200 But after we got that toehold in Italy, the government announced that we would be, you know, that Canada would be building pipelines in all directions.

00:18:26.240 And within two or three years of that, all of those pipelines were blocked.

00:18:31.940 So you have to recognize that this was a very strategic plan and implemented very well.

00:18:40.940 But, yes, in fear and loathing, what we try to do is to give the big picture of how the Tar Sands campaign unfolded and some of the other moving parts behind it.

00:18:51.780 Like a lot of it is funded by these organizations that also belong to Climate Works in the States.

00:18:58.720 And Climate Works is a group of big, green, tax-free philanthropies who want to impose carbon cap-and-trade worldwide.

00:19:08.480 They want to develop two cap-and-trade systems, one in North America and one in Europe.

00:19:15.080 And they want to cause a sea change in the world economy.

00:19:21.820 That's literally how they describe it.

00:19:24.040 So this comes from the work of Matthew Nisbet.

00:19:27.180 He's an American climate change communications researcher.

00:19:32.940 And he's done a peer-reviewed study that's also quite good to read.

00:19:37.060 Mostly because, again, it simplifies the story.

00:19:41.880 It's not really about the Tar Sands, but all the people involved are associated with funding of the Tar Sands campaign.

00:19:49.100 And so you can draw the conclusion that Design to Win, which was featured also in the Allen Inquiry report,

00:19:56.100 but he focuses on Design to Win and how, say, Bloomberg has pumped, I don't know, $150 million or so into the Sierra Club

00:20:04.240 to denigrate coal, to phase out coal, and to denigrate fossil fuels.

00:20:10.260 So, you know, you have these charities that are getting hundreds of millions of dollars because they're charities,

00:20:17.640 other donors and individuals give to them thinking, yeah, I want a clean planet.

00:20:22.300 I want, you know, happy children.

00:20:24.960 Here, have $10, have $20.

00:20:27.480 And they don't realize that it's actually a proxy war.

00:20:31.360 And maybe many of the actors in these organizations don't realize that either.

00:20:37.000 Maybe they're true ideologues.

00:20:39.320 But the fact is, it's a green trade war.

00:20:42.380 And that's a subsequent report that we wrote after Fear and Loathing.

00:20:48.340 It was when Environmental Defense came out with their report claiming that, oh, you know, the Tar Sands campaign is nothing.

00:20:55.140 It's just citizen protests, just like anywhere in the world.

00:20:58.820 Well, we just went through and pulled all kinds of statements from these actual ENGOs involved in this and compiled them in a report.

00:21:07.560 And it shows pretty clearly that it is a green trade war.

00:21:10.900 Like, for instance, Sephora Berman's Stand Earth, right?

00:21:15.540 They're actually funded out of San Francisco.

00:21:17.900 Well, if you go and look at where their office is, it's about an hour or so from the Pacific 66 Refinery.

00:21:25.600 I've never heard of her going there and protesting.

00:21:28.060 Why does she have to come 1,777 kilometers north to protest the Alberta oil sands? 1.00

00:21:36.180 And it's interesting because the Phillips 66 Refinery is refining oil from despot nations. 0.99

00:21:42.820 So you don't think that that might be, you know, a competitor battle there, a green trade war, you know, that deserves more investigation.

00:21:53.940 You know, as you were talking there, there's the Cherry Point Refinery in just north of Seattle in Bellingham, Washington.

00:22:05.980 Right.

00:22:06.040 Why aren't the Americans protesting there?

00:22:08.840 No, they fund Canadian activists to block the pipeline, the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

00:22:15.320 However, it's a lot easier to protest the Cherry Point Refinery.

00:22:21.160 They just don't.

00:22:22.600 And as you point out, a lot of these people are true believers for whatever reason.

00:22:28.380 So that makes them really easily weaponized because they don't ask that extra layer of questions like, oh, hey, we just we just drove past that refinery in Bellingham on our way to Vancouver.

00:22:40.040 Why don't we stop there and protest?

00:22:41.780 And they just don't.

00:22:44.340 Yeah, no, it's quite true.

00:22:45.980 And I think that's a question that Ezra's always asked, too.

00:22:48.880 Like, why are they only protesting Canadian oil?

00:22:51.400 Why not Saudi oil, Russian oil, Norwegian oil?

00:22:57.200 You know, it's ironic, especially thinking of the influence of Greta Thunberg coming here.

00:23:04.000 Well, back in Sweden, London Energy is the one that discovered the Johann Sverdap play, which is a huge oil and gas play in the North Sea that's being developed by Equinor,

00:23:17.480 which is formerly Stad oil of Norway.

00:23:21.320 And I don't know.

00:23:22.480 I never hear Greta say a word about that.

00:23:25.820 No, I mean, Russia is a lot closer to her than we are here, but they never mosey over that way.

00:23:32.960 They did that one time and lived to regret it pretty quickly when Greenpeace tried to protest.

00:23:40.020 I think it was an offshore Russian oil rig.

00:23:42.300 Maybe that's why they don't protest in those despot nations is because in the Western world, we believe in freedom of speech and we think it is your right to protest.

00:23:54.160 And so these green groups, they use our best qualities, our civil liberties against us. 1.00

00:24:01.060 Yeah, well, and I think the other implication that people have to recognize about this foreign funding, it was kind of like the seed money that watered these little flowers that grew into big bushes and trees.

00:24:14.640 And now these green groups have this vast forest of themselves that needs to be fed.

00:24:21.220 So they turn to governments at provincial, municipal and federal levels, and they're literally sucking the money from the tax pool.

00:24:31.200 They're already tax subsidized, most of them, if they're federally registered charities.

00:24:36.100 They've gotten foreign funding.

00:24:38.020 Many of them have huge endowment funds.

00:24:40.120 Like, I think the interest on the David Suzuki Fund, endowment fund, is more money per year than what we actually get from our loyal member donors.

00:24:53.220 So, you know, and many of them also over the years have acquired tax-free real estate, land, and all kinds of other benefits like that.

00:25:03.180 But to feed themselves, because now it's a huge industry that will crumple without this support, now they go to government.

00:25:12.420 So many of them get these $24,999 grants from the feds.

00:25:20.540 This number is special because under $25,000, you don't have to issue a tender.

00:25:27.040 So these are kind of handed out like candy.

00:25:29.560 And many of them get very large consulting contracts.

00:25:34.320 I've seen one recently where Pambanay Institute got something like $700,000.

00:25:40.680 I'm not sure what for because they're not really experts at anything.

00:25:45.300 You know, and we've recently reviewed their proposals on renewables and found significant errors in their understanding of how the power grid works.

00:25:54.560 And that's dangerous because they have been consulting to provincial, municipal, and federal governments for years by giving them inaccurate information.

00:26:04.440 And I think they even go one step further.

00:26:09.200 They now embed themselves into government.

00:26:13.480 You talked about Sephora Berman.

00:26:15.820 She was on the Oil Sands Advisory Group, thanks to Rachel Notley here in Alberta, advising about the future of oil and gas when she doesn't think there should be a future for oil and gas.

00:26:26.280 There was, I mean, Stephen Gilbeau, as we're talking today, he will likely be shuffled out of the Heritage Ministry as a cabinet minister for Justin Trudeau into the Environment Ministry.

00:26:38.440 And he was the head at Equitair, one of these organizations that did receive money from the Tides Foundation.

00:26:46.540 I think they even received a grant directly related to the Tar Sands campaign.

00:26:53.260 Then we have Zoe Caron.

00:26:56.140 She is currently the Senior Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada.

00:27:04.860 She's the co-author of Global Warming for Dummies.

00:27:07.520 She worked as Chief of Staff for Jim Carr and Amarjeet Sohi when they were in cabinet.

00:27:13.440 She's the past president of the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club Canada.

00:27:18.940 And she volunteered for 10 years with a nonprofit organization, the World Wildlife Fund Clean Energy Canada, Sierra Club Canada in Norway and Canada.

00:27:29.740 And I almost forgot.

00:27:36.080 Justin Trudeau's best friend.

00:27:38.320 Why can't I remember his name?

00:27:39.840 Gerald Butts.

00:27:40.780 It was with the World Wildlife Fund.

00:27:43.720 So these people just embed themselves with government now and then give grants to their friends.

00:27:48.760 Yes.

00:27:49.140 Well, and one has to realize that Marlo Reynolds, and he wrote about this in his Mutart Foundation-sponsored report on how to get your nonprofits going.

00:27:59.920 He organized what's known as the Strathmere Group, which is the top 12 or 13 ENGOs in Canada.

00:28:11.820 They meet regularly.

00:28:13.280 They've been funded by various big foundations, tax-free foundations like the McConnell Foundation, Trottier Foundation.

00:28:21.040 They claim to have 358,000 followers and $50 million in resources.

00:28:30.020 And Boothroyd Communications notes that prior to the 2015 election, they organized a media training session with them and with a number of marketing influencers and journalists to set the messaging for the 2015 election campaign.

00:28:49.420 So this is tremendous political and financial influence and cross-funded by these other big tax-free foundations.

00:28:59.880 And I don't believe that it's actually being done in a very transparent way.

00:29:06.220 Like, it was Parker Gallant who first ran across the Strathmere Alliance and brought it to our attention.

00:29:12.640 And it's a very powerful organization, although loosely knit and not much talked about in the press.

00:29:24.120 You know, and that's what helps them further their goals.

00:29:28.400 You know, that's been the story of this from the very beginning.

00:29:30.900 They were talking about carbon pricing 10 years before we were even worried that a government would bring it in.

00:29:38.380 And now here we are.

00:29:40.480 But you've been dealing with this, Michelle, for a very long time.

00:29:44.340 You have a book called My Tar Sands Tipping Point.

00:29:47.860 And you are, Michelle, I love you, but you are terrible with promoting yourself and the work you do and the books you write.

00:29:55.400 But your book, My Tar Sands Tipping Point, is based on your correspondence with CBC over nine months regarding what you saw was an unbalanced documentary that CBC had broadcasted.

00:30:13.840 Tell us a little bit about that.

00:30:14.940 Yeah, that was back in 2011.

00:30:17.560 So it's kind of ironic to me that this Allen inquiry report comes out now, you know, like a decade later, because I know when I first was writing to CBC, they thought I was completely mad.

00:30:32.480 And perhaps I am, but, you know, but I watched The Tipping Point, Age of the Oil Sands.

00:30:39.720 I think it was broadcast first in February of 2011.

00:30:42.960 And because David Suzuki was fronting it, because it was co-produced with CBC, I thought, great, for sure, they're going to set the record straight on the oil sands.

00:30:53.520 And I knew quite a bit about it, having worked at Alberta Environment not long before that.

00:30:57.580 And I was aghast at what I saw.

00:31:01.220 And I actually wrote to the CBC.

00:31:04.580 Well, first of all, I asked them to not run it again, because they were going to run it again within a week, which is quite unusual in broadcasting, or it was at that time.

00:31:15.760 And it was coming up to an election, although the writ hadn't been dropped.

00:31:20.700 And I said, you know, you're going to make people hate Alberta and hate the oil sands.

00:31:26.520 And they were like, no, no, no, that's, you know, how can you say that about us?

00:31:32.140 And that's exactly what happened.

00:31:34.380 But, you know, the other thing is that this thing ran on CBC's website 24-7.

00:31:40.720 And it was also later recut into a theatrical release movie that was released around the world.

00:31:48.940 So to my mind, you know, and it was all financed by taxpayer money.

00:31:53.720 So to my mind, this was the actual death blow to the Alberta oil sands, financed by Canadian taxpayers, created and co-produced by the CBC national broadcaster.

00:32:08.980 And it, in my mind, it did the single most damage of any element of the tar sands campaign.

00:32:17.300 And in it, there is a scene where Susan Casey-Lefskiewicz from the Natural Resources Council of the United States, who'd been working on the tar sands campaign since 2000, as it turns out.

00:32:32.960 Wow.

00:32:33.060 So, you know, she's sitting either in Fort Chip or Fort Mac in the film, and she's saying, you know, so how do we go about blocking the development of the oil sands?

00:32:42.300 And lists off everything, you know, we're going to litigate, we're going to go to Ottawa, we're going to, you know, turn public opinion against it.

00:32:49.820 Check, check, check.

00:32:50.820 Exactly.

00:32:51.880 Yeah, exactly.

00:32:52.800 It was all right there.

00:32:54.580 So, so for me, it is kind of a vindication.

00:32:59.380 Because, you know, I wrote many letters to CBC, and ultimately, the ombudsman said, oh, and they often wrote back and said, look, we've covered the oil sands for years, we always gave it, you know, great coverage.

00:33:10.940 And I'm like, okay, well, then give it great coverage again, you know, but they didn't do that and destroyed the reputation of what was once the pride of Canada. 0.98

00:33:24.260 You know, it's, it's, it's a real tragedy, because like you say, maybe you were crazy, but I think maybe you're crazy like a fox. 0.96

00:33:33.080 You saw what they were doing.

00:33:34.860 And, and it doesn't end, I was just looking at the Globe and Mail synopsis of the Deloitte report, and they, instead of saying all the things that we said, you know, 1.3 billion dollars spent to block Canadian jobs and Canadian prosperity, and this is what they publish as their headline, Alberta Energy Inquiry says,

00:33:59.940 no wrongdoing by anti-oil sands activists, well, I guess, technically, since they changed all those laws.

00:34:07.680 However, the whole point is, this is how much money they dumped to get the success that they do have.

00:34:13.720 But this is what the mainstream media says about oil and gas.

00:34:17.380 They've completely, this, I think, is proof.

00:34:21.680 This sort of headline is proof of what all that money did.

00:34:26.100 Well, of course, you know, the Globe and Mail is quite a climate activist outlet.

00:34:31.700 John Stackhouse used to be their editor in chief, and now he's with RBC.

00:34:36.140 And yesterday, I heard a podcast with them with Roy Green, talking about how well Canadians will just have to be prepared to suffer for the good of climate change.

00:34:49.180 I'm sure he's not going to suffer.

00:34:50.940 No, he'll be fine.

00:34:51.600 My point here is that, you know, this is an activist newspaper, and people probably don't know, but many of the newspapers in Canada have been compromised.

00:35:00.860 For instance, Toronto Star ran a six-month series leading up to the Paris Agreement, which was funded by Tides.

00:35:09.560 Of course, they had the big disclaimer saying, yeah, well, you know, we're not interfering with the editorial workmanship here.

00:35:16.920 But in fact, most of the articles made ridiculous claims, like that people were divesting from the oil sands when they were not, not at that time.

00:35:30.100 And, you know, so that kind of big money and that influence, I mean, look at every newspaper article.

00:35:37.180 Who do they quote?

00:35:38.600 They usually quote Keith Stewart from Greenpeace, Simon Dyer from the Pembina Institute.

00:35:46.180 You know, there's a list of ENGOs that the media always turn to, and they almost never turn to anyone in industry.

00:35:53.740 Almost never.

00:35:55.240 Or they don't give them much space if they do.

00:35:57.980 So, you know, there's not been any effort on the part of Canadian media to understand this, or to understand the implications to their own country.

00:36:09.680 Imagine if right now Canada had that $1.7 trillion from the oil sands.

00:36:15.200 In that same tipping point documentary, Don Thompson, who was then the CEO of the oil sands developers group, said that during the 2008 recession, the oil sands was churning something like $30 billion through the Canadian economy and generating 450,000 jobs.

00:36:35.500 So, you know, those jobs also have a trickle down effect, because if you have half a million people making good money, they're also spending that money, they're buying a truck, they're buying a car, they're going to a restaurant, they're having a massage, they're getting their hair done, they're buying their ATV, whatever it may be, but they're generating lots of business for other businesses.

00:36:58.400 So, you know, and you're not going to get that with wind turbines and solar farms.

00:37:06.500 The principal reason being is they generate nothing, nothing but renewable energy certificates, you know, oil, gas and coal generate not only the energy that's portable and energy dense, but also they generate all the byproducts and the product stream like plastics and all the useful things that we use.

00:37:28.340 All the things we need right now for the pandemic, all the things we need right now for the pandemic, what would you do without the PPEs in a hospital?

00:37:35.520 What would you do without the plastic, single use sterile materials for whether it be a ventilator or surgery or whatever you need?

00:37:45.280 What would you do without those?

00:37:47.240 So, I mean, people who are advocating for the phase out of fossil fuels, and particularly the oil sands, they're advocating for the death of many people, because we need those things.

00:37:58.280 We need that energy, we need that money, and we need those product streams.

00:38:04.240 Now, and for people at home who may not know, you might see a stark uptick in your local newspaper talking about climate change, and you're like, oh, maybe the climate is changing, because even in my local newspaper, they're talking about it.

00:38:19.660 Part of the media bailout was funding for local climate reporters.

00:38:25.120 And so these failing local newspapers in a dying print media market, they are willing to take this money to produce this content, fear-mongering content at the local level.

00:38:39.920 And it sort of skews the public's viewpoint on this, because not only are you getting it at the national level from the CBC, you can ignore that, everybody else does, but also when you pick up your local newspaper and you're like, oh my goodness, the Sherwood Park News is concerned about climate change.

00:39:01.940 Maybe I should be too.

00:39:31.940 It's like the Narwhal and Esmog and Grist and Vox, I don't know if exactly those are the names, but those types of alternative journalism.

00:39:41.940 And those alternative journalists have taken away from the former market of conventional media.

00:39:50.840 So they too have been funded by these big green philanthropies.

00:39:53.940 And so you're getting climate change from them, from the philanthropies, they're taking market away from the conventional mainstream media, which then ends up being funded from tax dollars from you to these local entities who are trying to survive.

00:40:12.500 So they take the money and employ, you know, nice young reporter, fresh out of journalism school, who's been watching Greta for the past few years.

00:40:21.880 Yeah.

00:40:22.360 You know, so you're not getting any kind of objective reporting from any source anymore.

00:40:28.240 And you, you're getting it from all sides when you turn on the TV or open up the newspaper, Michelle, I could talk to you all day about this.

00:40:37.220 And, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm so happy that, uh, there's some vindication for everything that you've been talking about for at least the last 10 years.

00:40:44.460 How do people support the work that friends of science does?

00:40:48.820 Because like I just said, you guys have been on this for years and you don't have the big dark money that the people on the other side of the debate have.

00:40:59.620 So, uh, how do people throw, uh, some money towards you guys?

00:41:03.480 Because you really do work on a shoestring budget.

00:41:05.840 You compile these comprehensive reports, you take these big issues and make them digestible for the normal person.

00:41:11.520 And so how do people support your efforts?

00:41:14.960 It's a bit of a ministry, what you guys do.

00:41:18.480 Well, ministry.

00:41:19.900 Okay.

00:41:20.580 Well, just before I tell you how to support us, I would like to mention that we do have what we call our four green reports.

00:41:27.500 Yes.

00:41:27.720 We have an additional bonus report called manufacturing, uh, climate crisis.

00:41:32.220 So if people read those four green reports, these were written long before the Ellen inquiry and drawn from public records.

00:41:39.720 And you'll see how this money is flowing through Canada and the implications to you because Robert Lyman wrote it and he was a federal public servant for many years.

00:41:50.420 So he knows what influence that has internally.

00:41:54.340 So those are, are very important to have a look at and they're short.

00:41:58.940 Each of them are quite short, but they make the point.

00:42:01.480 So to help us, to support us, you can go to our website, friendsofscience.org.

00:42:07.540 You can, uh, join us on Facebook and, and interact.

00:42:11.860 You can be part of our conversation on Twitter.

00:42:14.560 We're on LinkedIn.

00:42:16.040 We have a very active YouTube page and, um, you can become a member on our main page, friendsofscience.org or, um, donate.

00:42:25.600 Or you can just share our stuff.

00:42:27.860 And, uh, we also have a kind of a youth friendly bilingual site as well called climatechange101.ca.

00:42:34.420 So, uh, have a look at that too, but we'd just be happy to have you join in the conversation.

00:42:40.260 And, uh, let's talk about climate change and these policies because the implications for you and me and everyone else are huge.

00:42:50.160 You know, and that's one of the things the other side doesn't want us to do is to talk about these issues.

00:42:55.040 They'd rather censor us, uh, get us kicked off YouTube, um, you know, kill our podcasts, kill our Twitter accounts, kill our Facebook pages.

00:43:03.260 Um, and simply because, um, we want to have an open and civil debate, which is all friends of science has ever asked for.

00:43:10.820 Correct. Yep.

00:43:12.260 Well, Michelle, thanks so much for coming on the show.

00:43:14.240 You're such a wealth of information.

00:43:15.920 I always feel, um, like I've learned so much after I'm done talking to you.

00:43:20.140 Thanks so much for coming on the show and being so generous with your time.

00:43:23.020 And we'll have you back on again, very, very soon.

00:43:25.280 Pleasure. Thank you, Sheena.

00:43:37.640 Much of what was confirmed in the Alberta inquiry has been written off in the past as just conspiracy theories,

00:43:46.040 but yesterday's conspiracy theories so often these days turn into today's conspiracy facts.

00:43:54.980 Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.

00:43:56.760 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:43:58.720 I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.

00:44:02.360 And remember, don't let the government or YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, tell you that you've had too much to think.

00:44:09.980 We'll see you next week.

Rebel News Podcast - October 28, 2021

SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Foreign anti-Canadian oilsands activism exposed in Alberta Inquiry

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