Posted on 05/09/2012 12:13:04 PM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA - A foreign charity that has given millions to Canadian environmental groups has quietly - and retroactively - re-written grant descriptions days after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty warned in his budget the federal government would apply heightened scrutiny to the political activities of charities in this country.
"We have modified and added additional content to some grants to reflect progress, lessons learned and achievements," the Geneva-based Oak Foundation said in an April 2 posting at its website.
While Oak's description of the changes is vague, researcher and blogger Vivian Krause has written in the Financial Post, "The changes mostly remove aspects of grant descriptions that might draw criticism and regulatory attention."
Krause was the first to identify the funding connection between foreign organizations and Canadian environmental groups. Last week, Environment Minister Peter Kent accused Canadian groups of "laundering" foreign money to block Canadian resource development projects.
QMI Agency has independently verified the Oak Foundation edited the description of its grants to Greenpeace Canada.
Back in December, QMI Agency reported the Oak Foundation had given Greenpeace Canada $860,000 in part "to create financial and political uncertainty" about the oilsands.
That grant description has since been changed to read "to create awareness of the financial, regulatory and political uncertainty that surrounds investments in the tarsands."
Krause has written she has found additional changes involving grant descriptions for the anti-oilsands campaigns of Tides Canada, Forest Ethics, and the West Coast Environmental Law Foundation.
In the case of Forest Ethics, Krause said the original grant was for "creating a perception of economic risk" to get the Canadian government to back off its support for the industry.
That, too, has apparently been changed to "create awareness" of risk, while dumping the part about getting Ottawa to change its oilsands attitude.
British billionaire Alan Parker set up the Oak Foundation.
Since 2007, it has divided almost $2.6 million among various activist groups for campaigns against oilsands development.
I wanter to add some.
OK now I see one.
Gee do you think any Saudi or Iraqi oil petrodollars might be flowing in to Canada and America to help our home-grown anti-growth anti-technology organizers use our own legal and legislative systems to slow down or stop development of our own energy resources?
Oh, no. That’s just too unlikely. No one would ever think of such a strategy. I’m just a right-wing kook.
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