Please read: Copyright Notice & Disclaimer
According to my calculations and analysis, shown below, during 2009 Tides Canada made grants for a total of $9.4 million. Of that, about half (48 percent) was spent on projects targeting B.C.'s north/central coast, my analysis finds.
In 2008, the percentage of Tides Canada's total grants that was ear-marked for B.C.'s north/central coast would have been even higher since Tides Canada made a mega-grant for $27.3 million to the Coast Conservation Endowment Fund Foundation, a non-profit that benefits exclusively, a select group of First Nations on the north/central coast of B.C. That one grant alone accounted for 73 percent of the total funds that Tides Canada granted in 2008. For 2010, Tides Canada's U.S. tax return is not yet publicly available and has not been provided by Tides Canada.
This analysis suggests to me that of all the places in Canada, and of all the issues that Tides Canada could tackle, Tides Canada has chosen to focus a large proportion of its resources on a small but strategic part of the coastline of Canada: the north/central coast of B.C. This happens to be right smack where freighters and oil tankers would need to travel in order to allow Canadian oil and other products to be exported to Asia.
It may be that Tides Canada's focus on the north/central coast of B.C. has nothing to do with oil exports. Regardless, by providing such a large amount of money to a large number of organizations that oppose oil tanker traffic on B.C.'s coast, Tides Canada appears to me to be playing a role in making possible a concerted effort that would landlock Canadian oil within North America, and continue the U.S.'s virtual monopoly on Canadian oil exports. Its easy for me to see how this benefits the United States, and may be in the interests of Tides Canada's U.S. funders. However, I do not see how this is in the best interests of Canada nor other countries. My analysis of U.S. tax returns shows that American foundations have paid Tides Canada at least $57 million since 2000.
Worksheets:
Comments