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In a win that surprised many, Christy Clark won the B.C. Liberal leadership contest on Feb. 26, 2011, and will become the next Premier of British Columbia. One of the key people in Christy Clark's team seems to have been Don Millar, a former Managing Director at FD Element. More about him at the end of this post...
It used to be that elections were won by knocking on doors, hand shakes, lawn signs and things like that, things that we could see. Today, an increasingly large part of winning an election is Facebook and Twitter. Its called "social media." It isn't the only important element in campaigning, but its getting towards the top of the list. This is why, more than ever, its important to know who's behind on-line campaigning. For all we know, it isn't even done in Canada.
Social Media
Phil Melnychuk has written about how the use of social media helped Christy Clark's campaign. He quotes an insider who summed it up by saying, “I think social media played a big part in this."
Charlie Smith, the editor of The Straight, writes that environmentalists infiltrated the Liberals and may have played a decisive role in winning Christy Clark the Premier's job. The environmental campaign that Charlie Smith is referring to is a Tides Canada project called Organizing for Change, and its a coalition of environmental organizations. Even before the leadership vote, Sean Holman wrote that Organizing for Change could have a big impact.
All the leadership contenders used social media but Christy Clark's campaign had more volume, notes Gillian Shaw, writing for the Vancouver Sun. The question is, how did Christy Clark's campaign get that social media volume, and what role, if any, was played by Tides Canada's project, Organizing for Change?
Organizing for Change
In The National Post and The Vancouver Sun, I've written about the foreign funding behind Organizing for Change from an American foundation called Wilburforce. That foundation is funded - to the tune of $93 Million - by Gordon Letwin, one of the founders of MICROSOFT.
Organizing for Change is a project of Tides Canada but its web-site is handled by Groundwire, a Seattle-based organization.
In another post, I've written about how Groundwire has been paid $2 million by U.S. foundations, and that Groundwire has MICROSOFT veterans on staff and uses state-of-the-art technology, like Salesforce.
"Groundwire is much more than technical support. They provide us with strategic advice, coaching and tools," admits Lisa Matthaus, the B.C. co-ordinator of Organizing for Change, in Groundwire's annual report for 2009.
Groundwire reports that Groundwire "provided leadership to the coordination of the Organizing for Change initiative with strategic guidance, support for the priority campaigns, and the delivery of government-relations assistance." An important point to note is that this quote is from 2006/2007, not with regards to the B.C. Liberal leadership struggle in 2011.
The U.S. foundations that have paid $2 million to Groundwire are Brainerd, Bullitt and Wilburforce. Brainerd also paid the Dogwood Initiative "to help grow public opposition to counter the Enbridge pipeline" and Bullitt paid Tides USA "to mobilize urban voters for a federal ban on coastal tankers." Wilburforce paid Tides Canada "to support and organize First Nations communities impacted by potential tanker traffic associated with the Enbridge pipeline project in the Great Bear Rainforest." After concerns were raised about this funding, both Bullitt and Wilburforce re-wrote or removed these details from their web-sites.
U.S. tax returns and on-line records show that since 2000, Tides Canada has been paid at least $62 million by U.S. foundations. Several of these U.S. foundations eg. the U.S. Tides Foundation, Hewlett, and the Rockefeller Brothers Inc., are the same ones that are spending millions to tackle the Alberta oil industry.
Tides Canada and The Element Agency
According to information (shown below) that was posted at the web-site of The Element Agency, during 2006 and 2007 Tides Canada was a client of this firm. The Element Agency is a Vancouver-based P.R. firm of which Mr. Don Millar was the president. That was before The Element Agency was bought out and renamed FD Element, early in 2009. FD Element stands for "Financial Dynamics." The firm has offices in Washington, New York and around the world. Subsequently, Mr. Millar was with FD Element as a Managing Director.
Among the other clients of FD Element are the Liberal Party of Canada, the Ontario Liberal Party, the Assembly of First Nations, Great Bear Rainforest Campaign, the Canadian Boreal Initiative as well as Canadian government entities such as Health Canada and Finance Canada. The U.S. Democratic National Committee is also listed as a client of FD Element as is Media Matters.
Since 2003, Tides Canada, and its counter-part, the Endswell Foundation, have paid $61 million to staff and consultants. In 2010 alone, Tides Canada paid $10.4 million to staff and consultants. That's a lot of money to spend on staff and consultants in a single year. In 2008, Tides Canada spent even more on staff: $11.6 million, including $7.4 million for consultants. Considering that Tides Canada is a registered charity and that the amount of money involved here is large, I believe that its fair to inquire about what Tides Canada's consultants actually do and, in particular, about how much money was paid to FD Element by Tides Canada, and for what purpose.
Don Millar, Managing Director at FD Element
During February of 2011, I tried to ask Christy Clark about the apparent involvement of Don Millar and FD Element in her campaign. I wrote about this in a previous post, and tried to explain why I believe that this is a fair question. I received no reply from Clark with regards to this question.
My impression is that Mr. Millar handled media relations, an important task, though I don't know that for sure. What may have been even more important is Mr. Millar's role, if any, in the social media strategy. Sean Holman has reported that Mr. Millar handled "on-line stuff." That may be social media, but I don't know that for sure.
I would have written to Mr. Don Millar weeks ago, but I didn't have an e-mail address for him. I do have a phone number from an old press release, so I gave that number a call in order to request the e-mail address for Mr. Millar. ' Turns out, the number that I have is for his cell phone.
"I'm Vivian Krause," I tried to tell Mr. Millar, but before I could get very far, he told me, "I know who you are and I'm not going to talk to you." He added, "All righty?" Then, he hung up.
Shortly after that, I found the e-mail address for Mr. Millar and sent him an e-mail to inquire about his role, if any, in Christy Clark's campaign. Its also fair to ask, I believe, whether simultaneously, one of the clients of FD Element was Tides Canada, a registered charity.
NORE: as of March 14, 2012, several up-dates were made to this post to reflect new data in tax returns for 2010. 1) The amount of money granted to the Wilburforce by the Letwins was up-dated to $93 million from $80 million. 2) The amount of American money granted to Tides Canada was up-dated to $62 million from $57 million. 3) The amount paid by Tides Canada for staff and consultants was increased from $$51 million to $61 million to account for the $10.4 million that Tides Canada paid in 2010 for staff compensation, professional & consulting fees.
