Rethink Campaigns

B.C. Wins Big In Budget

From today's Vancouver Sun:

"B.C. was handed a major victory Thursday in a remarkably West-oriented federal budget that targeted three major barriers to resource industry growth - unnecessarily long and complicated environmental reviews, a skilled labour shortage, and opposition to the oilsands sector by environmental groups, the province's senior cabinet minister said Thursday.

But opposition MPs said the budget represented an "assault" on individuals and groups concerned about the pace of energy and natural resource developments.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's budget promised legislation to limit environmental reviews to no more than two years, and said from now on Ottawa will accept provincial assessments as the final word on many proposed projects.

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore said the cumbersome federal review process has caused an investment "chill" in B.C.

He cited the federal decision to reject the proposed Prosperity gold and copper mine about 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake even though a provincial panel had approved the project, which proposed using a trout-bearing lake as a tailings pond. A new federal panel is reassessing a revised Prosperity proposal.

"It's what British Columbia has been asking for a decade, and we're delivering on it," said Moore, MP for Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.

A starkly different message was sent to environmental groups that are waging an intense battle against the oilsands sector and especially Calgary-based Enbridge's proposal to build an oilsands pipeline to Kitimat.

The budget commits $8 million over the next two years to help the Canadian Revenue Agency target registered charities the government believes are too overtly political. The money will be used to "improve transparency by requiring charities to provide more information on their political activities, including the extent to which these are funded by foreign sources," according to budget documents.

The $8-million initiative was inspired entirely by work done on foreign funding of Canadian environmental groups by Vancouver researcher Vivian Krause, according to Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose."

To continue reading, click here.

Canada To Spend $8 Million on More Scrutiny of Political Activity by Charities

Today, as part of the 2012 budget, the federal government of Canada announced that it will provide the Canada Revenue Agency with $8 million over two years in order to ensure greater transparency and accountability on the part of charities, particularly those that are both politically active and are partially foreign-funded.

The budget states, "Recently, concerns have been raised that some charities may not be respecting the rules regarding political activities. There have also been calls for greater public transparency related to the political activities of charities, including the extent to which they may be funded by foreign sources."

This move is good because some charities such as Tides Canada Foundation appear to me to have been under-reporting their political activity.  In fact, in its Canadian tax returns, Tides Canada has consistently reported ZERO expenditures on political activity over the past ten years and yet, as it appears to me, Tides Canada has consistently been politically active at the municipal, provincial and federal level.

Examples of projects that have been supported by Tides Canada and that appear to me to include political activity are:

• Open Media - This project mobilized half a million Canadians to oppose a CRTC ruling on user-based internet billing.  This shows just how powerful a politically active project supported by Tides Canada can be. When questions were asked about the involvement of Tides Canada in Open Media, several web-pages at the web-site of Open Media were immediately re-written. 

• Organizing for Change - This project encouraged people to temporarily join the Liberal party of B.C. in February of 2011.  The party's membership tripled from 30,000 to 90,000.  Some political commentators suggested that this may have been an important factor in Christy Clark winning the nomination to become the current premier of B.C.

• The Dogwood Initiative - In re-designing its web-site recently, the Dogwood Initiative did not include its former web-page which listed its supporters and partners.  Internet archives (click here), show that Tides Canada has supported the Dogwood Initiative. U.S. tax returns show that Tides Canada has paid $87,293 specifically for Dogwood's coastal tanker campaign. 

• Pipe Up Against Enbridge - Internet archives show (click here) that during the summer of 2011, Tides Canada promoted the Pipe Up Against Enbridge campaign through one of its projects called Rainforest Solutions.  Tides Canada and Tides USA have received at least $4 million from U.S. foundations for Rainforest Solutions.

• Vancouver's Greenest City Initiative - With $50,000 from the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation, Tides Canada is partnering with the City of Vancouver and others to implement the Greenest City Initiative which is part of the political platform of Vision Vancouver, the municipal party of the current mayor and the majority of city council in Vancouver. The Bullitt Foundation also funded the Dogwood Initiative "to mobilize urban voters for a federal ban on coastal tankers" and then quietly re-wrote this grant days after I testified about it to a House of Commons Committee in Ottawa, in December of 2010. One of the questions that needs to be asked is will there be room for oil tankers in the Bullitt-funded vision for Vancouver? Or is Bullitt supporting this initiative, in part, as a way to create the context, the foil for someday saying that oil tankers have no place, or a limited role in the world's greenest city?

For pages 204 and 204 of the 2012 federal budget, click here.  These pages are also shown below:

Mayor Furney Asks Canada's Prime Minister to Remove Charitable Status of "Anything But Charitable" Organizations

Yesterday, Mayor Gerry Furney wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to express his concerns about foreign-funded organizations having charitable status in Canada. For the news story to which he refers, Half is not enough for the Great Bear Rainforest, click here. 

Below, here's the text of Mayor Furney's letter. For his original letter, click here. Mayor Furney can be contacted at the Town of Port McNeill at (250) 956-3111.

 

Dear Prime Minister:

Earlier this year, we wrote to you asking that "charitable" status be removed from the "anything-but-charitable" foreign-funded organizations that continue their assault on the resource-industries of British Columbia.

Enclosed is a current sample of their effort to increase the "protected area" of the west coast" from 50% to 70%. Such a suggestion shows no appreciation or respect for the economic drivers of our province.

These organizations are the antithesis of "charitable" in their actions and their claim to be "charitable" makes a mockery of the whole concept.

With best wishes,

Gerry Furney

Mayor

c.c. Honourable John Duncan 

To The Association For Mineral Exploration in B.C.: Thank You!

As I've mentioned before, there have been lots of questions about whether I've received any funding for this blog.  These questions are fair.  After all, I'm also asking others about their sources of funding.

In a previous post (click here), I have listed all of the sources of income that I've had since I left the salmon farming industry in the fall of 2003, eight years ago. I've also listed the honorariums that I've received for making presentations and writing articles, a total of nearly $15,000. Apart from the honorariums that I've listed, all of the presentations that I've given to date have been pro bono.

Yesterday, I was pleased to speak at a luncheon held by the Association for Mineral Exploration in British Columbia (AME BC), an industry association that represents the mineral explorers and developers who operate or are based in British Columbia. I will bill AME BC $10,000 for that presentation. Normally, speakers don't disclose their honorariums. However, to me, it feels right to do so. It wouldn't make sense to ask other people about their funding if I don't disclose my own. The fee from AME BC does not pay me for the research that I'm doing but it will help to cover some of the expenses that I've incurred.

I sincerely thank the Association for Mineral Exploration in B.C. for arranging yesterday's luncheon and I thank everyone who attended. It was especially nice to have the opportunity to make a presentation on home ice, here in Vancouver. Thank you very much!

Presentations & Honorariums

Since I began this blog, there have been questions about whether I am getting funding from somewhere.  These questions are fair.  After all, I am asking questions about other people's funding. Its fair that I disclose my own.

As I have said before, I work on my own, on my own nickel, unpaid. I am not funded nor affiliated with any industry, any company or any political party.  I didn't want it to be this way but back in 2007 when I started this work - five years ago - I couldn't find any one who would fund the work that I felt needed to be done so I went ahead and did it anyway.

In a previous post, I have disclosed all of the sources of income that I have had since I left the salmon farming industry nearly nine years ago, in the fall of 2003. In brief, the only sources of income that I have had from the salmon farming industry are a) $17,750 from two short consultancies that I did for the salmon farming industry in 2007, b) wages that I received for several weeks of employment in the constituency office of Conservative MP, John Duncan, during the spring of 2010, and c) child support from my daughter's father - to whom I am very grateful. For my previous post in which I have disclosed the details regarding the above, click here.

Although I have been looking into the science and the funding of environmental campaigns since the fall of 2006, it wasn't until the spring of 2010, that I was first asked to give a presentation about my findings. At the invitation of Mayor Bev Parnham, I gave my first presentation to the town council of Port Hardy in January of 2010.  A few months later, I gave a similar presentation to the town council in Campbell River, B.C..  Those presentations focused on the science and the U.S. foundation funding against the salmon farming industry, both in B.C. and internationally.

It wasn't until the summer of 2010 that I started to look into the funding for the RETHINK ALBERTA, a campaign against the Alberta tourism industry, funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Inc., through Corporate Ethics International and, apparently, also through Tides Canada.

The first presentation for which I received an honorarium was in July of 2011, in New York. That presentation focused on the science and the U.S. foundation funding behind the campaign against Canadian oil. That invitation to New York  was from the Atlas Economic Research Institute (a right-of-center think tank) and was attended by a group of N.Y. journalists. 

Below, is a complete list of all the presentations that I have given and the honorariums, if any, that I have received (or expect to receive).  Normally speakers do not disclose honorariums but given that there have been questions about whether I have been funded by anyone - questions that are fair - it seems right to me to disclose the honorariums that I have received (or expect to receive), especially since a couple of my presentations have been to oil/pipeline industry associations.

The honorariums that I have received came long after the research was done.  For the research itself, I was not funded nor directed by anyone.

Testimony to Federal, House of Commons Committees:

• Testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Study: Energy Security, December 10, 2010
• Testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Study: Pipeline and Refinery Capacity, February 9, 2011

Presentations:

• January 21, 2010- Presentation to the town council of Port Hardy B.C.
• April 13, 2010 - Presentation to the town council of Campbell River B.C.
• January 26, 2011 - Keynote Address at the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia
• March 15, 2011 - Presentation to the Round Table group at The Vancouver Club, Vancouver
• April 1, 2011 - Presentation to the Burgundy Luncheon Club, Vancouver B.C.
• June 13, 2011 - Presentation to the Probus Club at the Capilano Golf & Country Club, Vancouver B.C.
• March 19, 2012 - Presentation at an evening event organized by the Free Thinking Film Society, Ottawa, O.N.
• March 31, 2012 - Keynote Address to the Western Conference of the Canadian University Press, Vancouver B.C.
• April 4, 2012 - Presentation to a study group of Kerrisdale residents.

Presentations for which I have received (or expect to receive) an honorarium:

• July 12, 2011 - Presentation at a dinner meeting ("Meat The Press"), organized by the Atlas Economic Research Institute for New York media, The Rockefeller Center, New York, NY, Honorarium: $US 2,500.
• September 12, 2011 - Presentation at a lunch meeting organized by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Calgary, Honorarium: $5,000 to cover travel and expenses.
• January 27, 2012 - Presentation at the 16th annual conference of the Integrated Environmental Plant Management Association of Western Canada (I.E.P.M.A.), Kelowna. Honorarium: $1,000.
• March 23, 2012 - Presentation to a luncheon organized by the B.C. Association for Mineral Exploration, Vancouver, B.C. Honorarium: $10,000. 
• April 3, 2012 - Presentation to a meeting organized by the Canadian Energy Pipelines Association, Calgary Alberta. Honorarium: $10,000 plus travel.
• June 5, 2012 - Presentation at a luncheon of the Vancouver Board of Trade. For more info, click here. Honorarium: $10,000.

 As of April 5, 2012, no presentations on the horizon.

$37 Million Granted from Tides Canada Foundation to Tides Canada Initiatives. How was the money spent?

From 37 to 251 employees, Tides Canada's staff size has increased sharply over the past five years. Most of this increase has been at Tides Canada Initiatives Society (TCIS) where the number of employees increased from  72 in 2009 to 187 employees in 2010.  In just one year, TCIS took on 115 new staff members, according to what Tides Canada reported in its Canadian tax returns.

In essence, it seems to me that Tides Canada Initiatives is simply the internal projects of Tides Canada and that Tides Canada Foundation and Tides Canada Initiative Society are part and parcel of the same organization.  Tides Canada prepares consolidated financial statements for both organizations combined. In its annual report for 2010, Tides Canada refers to TCIS as its “operating charity” and says that it is “home to 40 of Canada’s leading social change initiatives.” 

The chart below, presented in Tides Canada's annual report for 2010, lists the projects of TCIS.

While Tides Canada Foundation grants millions of dollars to other organizations, TCIS does not. Since 2002, the total amount granted to other organizations by TCIS was only $141,162 ($7,084 in 2005, $57,734 in 2008, $51,422 in 2009 and $24,922 in 2010). What this means is that the vast majority of the total revenue of TCIS is spent internally.

TCIS did not make many grants to other organizations, TCIS did spend tens of millions of dollars on staff compensation and professional and consulting fees. In fact, according to Canadian tax returns, during 2008, 2009 and 2010, TCIS spent $27.4 million on staff compensation and professional and consulting fees. That's an average of $9.1 million annually. Of the $27.4 million, $11 million was for staff and $16 million on consultants.  Annual expenditures for TCIS's staff increased from $790,000 in 2003 to a high of $4.3 million in 2010. On top of that $4.3 million, TCIS also spent $4.7 million for consultants (professional and consulting fees).

Where is Tides Canada getting the money to pay for all of these new employees?  And what are they doing?

Based on my analysis of Canadian and U.S. tax returns for Tides Canada, it appears to me that roughly 83 percent of the total revenue of Tides Canada Initiatives Society has come from Tides Canada Foundation in recent years.

Since 2002, Tides Canada Foundation (TCF) has granted at least $37 Million to Tides Canada Initiatives Society (TCIS). As I see it, in essence, this is money that Tides Canada is simply passing from one pocket to another.  Of the $37 million that Tides Canada Initiatives Society received from Tides Canada Foundation, only $141,162 was re-granted to other organizations.  In my opinion, this raises a series of questions:

• What happened to the $37 million that TCIS received from TCF but did not re-grant to other organizations?  

• How was that money spent? Did TCIS use the $37 Million to pay its employees (110 full-time and 77 part-time as of 2010)? 

• Where did the $37 million originate? How much of that originated from American foundations?

The above questions are based on the information below.

$37.4 Million Granted from TCF to TCIS:

• $250,000 in 2002
• $3,252,984 in 2003
• $2,515,458 in 2004
• $2,058,741 in 2005
• $3,307,207 in 2006
• $8,478,608 in 2008
• $6,404,899 in 2009
• $10,755,933 in 2010

Spreadsheets on which these figures are based:

• Grants from Tides Canada Foundation to Tides Canada Initiatives Society: $37.4 Million

• Tides Canada Staff (2002 - 2010)

• Tides Canada & Endswell Staff (2003-2010): $61 Million

Notes: Tides Canada has two active entities: Tides Canada Foundation (TCF) and Tides Canada Initiatives Society (TCIS).  Tides Canada prepares consolidated financial statements for these organizations as a pair but they are legally distinct and file separate Canadian tax returns. Both TCF and TCIS are federally registered non-profits in Canada.  TCIS dates back to 1990 while TCF was goes back to 1999. TCF has equivalency status in the United States and files tax returns with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (I.R.S.) whereas TCIS does not. Tides Canada also has a third entity called the Tides Canada Centre Society but it has never reported revenues or expenditures.

Tides Canada Staff: From 37 to 251 (2006-2010)

From 37 to 251 employees, the staff at Tides Canada has increased sharply over the past five years. To put these numbers into perspective, consider that in 2010, the Vancouver Foundation reported 57 employees. For the same year, the Fraser Institute reported 71 employees.  Thus, in 2010 Tides Canada had roughly twice as many employees as the Vancouver Foundation and the Fraser Institute combined, according to Canadian tax returns.

Since 2000, Tides Canada has been granted at least $62 million by American foundations.  Three foundations alone have granted $50 million to Tides Canada. How much of the staff increase at Tides Canada has been made possible by funding from American foundations?

Links to staff size data in Canadian tax returns:

• Tides Canada Foundation: click here.
• Tides Canada Initiatives Society: click here.
• The Vancouver Foundation: click here.
• The Fraser Institute: click here.

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Less Transparency in Tides Canada's 2010 Tax Return

The CEO of Tides Canada, Ross McMillan, has called for "open, honest debate about our energy future." As groundwork for such a debate, I asked Mr. McMillan (by Twitter) if Tides Canada would please post its American tax returns at its web-site.  For more than a year, I have been requesting by e-mail that Tides Canada would please make its U.S. tax returns publicly available. The I.R.S. requires greater disclosure than the C.R.A. so ironically, one needs to read the American tax returns of Tides Canada in order to find out specifically what it has been funding.

Tides Canada has two entities: Tides Canada Foundation (TCF) and Tides Canada Initiatives Society (TCIS).  TCF has equivalency status in the U.S. and files U.S. tax returns but to the best of my knowledge, TCIS does not. In essence, what this means, as I see it, is that whatever Tides Canada spends under the banner of TCIS doesn't need to get reported to the I.R.S. - at least not in as much detail.

Over the years, TCF has transferred substantial funds each year to TCIS. In fact, for most years - except 2008 when TCF transferred $27.3 million to B.C. First Nations in a single cheque - TCIS has been the biggest recipient of funds from TCF.

In 2009, TCF made 25 grants to TCIS for a total of $5.3 million. The stated purpose of each of these grants was reported by Tides Canada in its U.S. tax return for 2009 so we could see how much money TCF allocated to each project.  For example, in 2009 Tides Canada reported: 

•  $848,966 on the Rainforest Solutions Project "in support of ongoing work to implement ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest."  The groups that make up the Rainforest Solutions Project are Forest Ethics Canada, Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club of B.C, according to the project's web-site. 

• $783,603 "for capacity building support of Forest Ethics Canada." 

• $505,134  for the Turning Point Initiative (Coastal First Nations) "to implement ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest."

• And so on.... for more about Tides Canada's 2009 grants, click here.

Last week, Tides Canada's U.S. tax return for 2010 became publicly available at the web-site of Guidestar, an American organization that routinely gathers and publicizes the tax returns of American foundations and charities.

In the list of grants for 2010 that Tides Canada included in its 2010 tax return, TCF simply reports one transfer to TCIS for a whopping total of $7.7 million.  The stated purpose of this grant is “to support TCI’s projects in the areas of social inclusion and civic engagement, leadership development and capacity building, food, environmental conservation, waters and oceans, climate and energy solutions."

Because TCF does not itemize specific grants for specific projects run by TCIS, as it did in 2009, it is not possible to know how much TCF allocated to various projects such as Forest Ethics, the "Tar Sands Education campaign," Hollyhock, The Turning Point Initiative, Canopy, the Tyee, and so on. In this way, it seems to me that there is far less transparency on the part of Tides Canada in its U.S. tax return for 2010 than there was in 2009.

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Tides Canada's American Tax Returns

• 2003
• 2004
• 2005
• 2006
• 2007
• 2008
• 2009
• 2010