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Sean Holman reports that Don Millar, the CEO of F.D. Element, does some sort of work for Christy Clark, a current candidate for the leadership of the B.C. Liberal party. If Ms. Clark wins the party's leadership nomination on saturday, she becomes the Premier of British Columbia.
Don Millar is "helping out with the online stuff. He's an old friend of Christy's," said Shane Mills, the spokesperson for Ms. Clark, as reported by Holman.
Since Feb. 10, I have been asking Ms. Clark by e-mail about her position with regards to the Northern Gateway Enbridge pipeline, the extent of Mr. Millar's "help," and the role of F.D. Element in her campaign. So far, I have not received a reply.
In my opinion, it seems doubtful that the CEO of F.D. Element would "help out" Christy Clark's campaign if her platform was at odds with the goals of F.D. Elements other clients, particularly the deep-pocketed U.S. foundations that are funding multi-million dollar environmental initiatives on which F.D. Element has done extensive work.
One of the foundations that has extensively funded the Great Bear Rainforest is the Wilburforce Foundation. Wilburforce has also funded the Dogwood Initiative and "Organizing for Change," a project of Tides Canada to get people to temporarily join the B.C. Liberal party in order to participate in saturday's vote.
The Dogwood Initiative says that it has 70,000 members. Dogwood is a member of Organizing for Change. If the Dogwood members were to join the Liberal party, who would they vote for on saturday?
More than $120 million dollars have been spent by U.S. foundations on environmental initiatives in Canada, particularly the Great Bear Rainforest Initiative, the Boreal Forest Initiative, the Dogwood Initiative and the Pacific Coast Integrated Management Area Initiative (PNCIMA). Obviously, something about these initiatives is very important to their U.S. funders.
The Great Bear Rainforest Initiative and the Dogwood Initiative would block Canadian oil exports to Asia by blocking oil tanker traffic on the B.C. coast - all in the name of protecting the kermode bear (AKA the Great Spirit Bear). I'm all for protecting the kermode bear but to do so, I doubt that Canada needs to entirely give up the opportunity to export oil to Asia, and thereby diversify the customer base for one of our most important, national exports: Alberta oil.
Back in November, I also wrote a letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson to ask him about his involvement with F.D. Element. When F.D. Element does work for Mayor Robertson, I asked, is this exclusively to promote the City of Vancouver or is this part and parcel of the initiatives that U.S. foundations have funded in Canada. Mayor Robertson has not answered my question.