The Magic That Made Seven Million People Disappear

Quark

And it is much more comfortable in Canada to object to pipelines and the Alberta oil sands than to rail against the building of houses on prime farmland. To do so might bring about the question of runaway population growth, and when that becomes the topic, inevitably the role that immigration plays in that growth would come up. And we can't have THAT, can we? So what is the Green response? Sprawl, not immigration-driven population growth is the culprit. And what is the cure for sprawl? "Planning". Planning is the great elixir for all the ills that growth causes.

As Green icon William Rees, once the head of the faculty of planning at UBC, said, there is no reason that 'greenfield' acreage can be protected while population growth proceeds. No reason, that is, except political reality. The reality is that the kind of planning decisions that would protect farmland are made by local governments, and local governments are controlled by developers. In his study "Funding City Politics", Professor Robert McDermid found that even the smallest donations affect the voting behaviour of local politicians, and that incumbents are heavily supported by developers. On the local level, more than any other level of politics, MONEY TALKS. Ask Norm Smith, who ran for Mayor in Chilliwack, BC on an anti-growth platform against a real estate agent. He was outspent ten to one.

One way to get Greens thinking about mining, frakking, drilling and old growth forests is to steer their focus with donations. Walton International, for example, makes money by buying up farmland on the perimeter of cities like Calgary and waiting for a developer-friendly government to rezone it for housing development. Despite the fact that the killling zone for most of the 500 endangered species in Canada is found at the vanguard of sprawling cities, Nature Conservancy says nothing because Walton International donates money for their high-profile purchases of land elsewhere. Shell Canada is also one of their patrons.

Here is another thing to chew on. If oil from Alberta can't be shipped by pipeline, what is the alternative? Rail. Who has a big stake in Canadian National Railway? Warren Buffet. Who donates to anti-pipeline green groups?

Another dot to connect. West Virginia is the biggest coal producing state in the union. It supplies coal to 24 states, and coal supplies a huge chunk of energy to the United States. The long time Governor and now senior Senator for West Virginia is Jay Rockefeller, contributes to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) has sent millions of dollars to Canadian green groups to fight the oil sands project. Does the RBF underwrite any efforts to shut down West Virginia's coal industry? Do they send money to any Canadian green groups who would make a noise about the 21 million metric tons of coal that is shipped out of Roberts Bank (south of Vancouver) to China?

Try this. The David Suzuki Foundation has been given 10 million dollars from US corporate foundations to fight BC salmon farms. Meanwhile, nothing is said about salmon ranching in Alaska.

Many other questions like these can be raised about the motives of corporate "philanthropy". One recalls that the East India Tea Company supported Wilberforce's efforts to abolish slavery. Coincidentally, there main commercial rivals were the tea plantations in the West Indies worked by slave labour. Was that support motivated by moral angst about the treatment of slave labourers? It was not as if they treated their own workforce like kings.

If one looks at the corporate funding of Canada's environmental groups, particularly those in Western Canada, one has the uncomfortable feeling that that these groups are being played for pawns. Or as Stalin would call them, "useful idiots". It is not only comfortable for them to ignore ecological destruction in their own cities, it is financially rewarding.

Earlier this year, the Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada said, "No one tells the Sierra Club what to do." Yeah right. And no one tells city councillors how to vote either.

You don't need a smoking gun. The optics speak for themselves. The David Suzuki Foundation and the Sierra Club of BC have accepted money from big banks like RBC and the TD Bank, institutions that are all about promoting growth. How coincidental it is that neither of these green crusaders will challenge growth. Instead, they speak of "smart growth". That is just the kind of trained dog that Big Money likes. One that can be put off the scent.