Another *grassroots* industry-funded Con tank

Canadian Cynic wonders how the astroturf/fundraiser actiontank Conservative Voice, according to their own website, can manage to juggle :

"Conservative Voice believes that Canada needs an organized, non-profit voice financed by industry to ensure that the Canadian political landscape remains in balance"

with :

"Funded and supported by citizens who cherish individual freedom, free markets, and smaller government." 

Good question. They also declare :

"Conservative Voice is independent of all political parties."

The sole director for Conservative Voice listed at Industry Canada is Dan Hilton, who was personally hired on by Irving Gerstein as Executive Director of the Conservative Party of Canada in January 2009, a position Hilton held til October 2013. 
The Conservative Voice website was registered five months later in March 2014 and Hilton is still thumping up business for them.

(You'll perhaps recall Conservative Fund head Irving Gerstein told Hilton about Nigel Wright's $90K personal cheque to Duffy long before the rest of us heard about it.)

Political analyst Alise Mills, who divides her analyzing time between Ezra Levant's Rebel Media and CBC's Power and Politics, was named National Executive Director at Conservative Voice this past July by "Dan Hilton, Founder and Chair". 
Alise Mills' previously plumped for the astroturf pipelines booster site British Columbians for Prosperity, and apparently will continue to do so in her new gig at ConVoice : 

"On Monday November 9th, our Executive Director, Alise Mills, stands up for Canadian jobs, ethical oil and notes the hypocrisy of cancelling Keystone XL."

I'm not sure what Industry Canada means when it lists Conservative Voice as a "Non-Soliciting" Corporation, but ConVoice held a big fundraiser at the Marriott in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago on December 9 with guest speaker Tony Clement and Rebel Media's Brian Lilley.

Last year, Conservative Voice explained their fundraising objective : 

" ... the real battle takes place between elections."

“We need your corporate support now to build a campaign for the Conservative Voice .... This seed money should be considered a lobbying/activism expense as we promote your conservative corporate agenda. We are seeking funds to finance a national mail and telephone campaign to small and medium sized business owners to build our war chest ahead of the next election so that we can start to push our message in early 2015.”

Corps will get their tax receipt outside the writ period which imposes spending caps on PACs.

Their Mission Statement :

"To raise support and awareness for conservative ideals; and to keep Canada on the right track of Conservative principles and policies while keeping Canada’s political landscape balanced."

Big C in Conservative. Alrighty then.

Monday update : via Greg Fingus : How the Koch network rivals the GOP, overtaking political parties and candidates, infusing money and talent, and answerable to no one. 

This, Greg notes, underscores our need up here for counterbalancing citizens' movements  working across party lines. 
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Astroturf Illustrated!

Heh. After slagging off on the protesters on Burnaby Mountain for days for being "professional protesters", SunNews ran this headline banner reading "Ineffective Kinder Morgan Protests" under their friendly coverage of four huge pro-oil signs up on the mountain. 

But wait ... haven't we seen those counter-protest signs somewhere before?

Oh here they are! 
Back in May at the "No Enbridge!" protest on Sunset Beach in Vancouver, representing :  

CodyinCalgary's Canada Action 
"Full Value for Canadian Resources - Support Northern Gateway"

Just a couple of guys on a grassroots website with four counter-protest Canada Action banners big enough to block the view of the ocean.... and

• a *surprise* visit from Ezra Levant for Sun News, and

• an op ed in the CAPP/Postmedia partnership world of the Vancouver Sun :Pipeline fear factor is inappropriate, and 

•  an endorsement on their Support the Northern Gateway Pipeline pledge from CEO/ founder Bruce Lounds of local astroturf lobby group, British Columbians for Prosperity or BC4P -- currently managed by Brittany Allison, who is now also an *Energy Citizen* at CAPP's own astroturf site, Energy Citizens.ca, which is in turn a sister org to the American Petroleum Institute's astroturf group, Energy Citizens.org.

The big banner guys above signed up earlier this year at the email-harvesting site, Power of Canada, part of a public relations campaign meant to mobilize the public called the Partnership for Resource Trade. It's hosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. 

Power of Canada Advisory Council Members include  Perrin Beatty, Martha Hall Findlay, David Emerson, John Manley, Kevin Lynch, Ted Menzies, and reps from CAPP, TransCanada, Enbridge, Rio Tinto, Teck, Suncor, TransAlta, CD Howe, BMO, Asia-Pacific Foundation, Mining Association of Canada, Port Metro Vancouver, etc. etc. 

From the Power of Canada P4RT mission statement (italics -mine) :

"We aim to foster a favourable environment for policy decisions that enable responsible resource development and trade.We will do that by informing, energizing and mobilizing a broad coalition of Canadian thought leaders, stakeholders, small- and medium-sized businesses and informed Canadians in a countrywide fast-to-action, grassroots public education and advocacy campaign."

In May, CCC CEO Perrin Beatty offered a $2000 student scholarship for producing a video on the merits of P4RT and its objectives. Rule # 1 : 

"In order to be eligible for the contest, students must be registered as full-time students as well as like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) on Facebook, follow the CCC on Twitter, and subscribe to the CCC’s Youtube channel. In addition, students must sign themselves and five friends up on the PRT website: Power of Canada."

So I guess we can be expecting a lot more 

"Canadian thought-leaders" with their 

"fast-to-action grassroots" websites and banners in the near future.

P.S. I'm reliably informed that fake grassroots ad campaigns are commonly known in the adbiz as "blowjobs".

Here's one to get them started : We Heart Blow Jobs.

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TransCanada astroturfers

TransCanada has dumped its US pr firm Edelman 10 days after the Greenpeace leak of documents outlining their joint dodgy strategy to use third party front groups to aggressively attack opponents of the Energy East pipeline, and to do and say what “TransCanada can’t" :

"TransCanada immediately denied it had implemented those tactics, which were widely criticized."

The leaked docs - some adorned with the TransCanada logo - date back to May and include various tactics for targeting opponents like Council of Canadians using forty Edelman employees and nine TransCanada staffers.

TransCanada referred to the "controversy" as "a distraction" and said they would like a do over now please : "We are therefore starting a fresh conversation."

"In the current environment, we can't have the respectful conversation that we want to have with Canadians and Quebecers about Energy East," TransCanada spokesman Tim Duboyce said Wednesday in a release. h/t CBC

Quite. 

About Edelman's astroturfing, which they describe as "third party support" and "an echo chamber of aligned voices"...

Edelman's pointman for TransCanada "Grassroots Advocacy Vision" astroturf is Mike Krempasky from their DC office. As documented by Greenpeace, Mr.Krempasky - Tea Party promoter and co-founder of RedState.com - previously had a pretty good run using fake grassroots paid bloggers in their folksy Wal-Marting Across America campaign before one was outed as working for the US Treasury and another a staffer at Washington Post.

Greenpeace astroturf backgrounder :

"Krempasky’s Energy East “Pressure” team includes Brian McNeill ... director of opposition research for Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. McNeill made national news when it was revealed that he was one of three Edelman employees who were authoring all of the blogs ..." 

on yet another Wal-Mart fluffer campaign. Meanwhile ...

"Edelman was paid $51.9 million to run the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) public relations campaign, which has involved Edelman managing multiple websites and online advertising efforts asking officials to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, support tax deductions for the oil industry and expand access for drilling on public lands.
Central to this strategy is the pro-oil group “Energy Citizens”, which was unveiled as an API-sponsored astroturf group by Greenpeace USA. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers recently launched its own version of Energy Citizens in Canada."

So despite CEO Richard Edelman statement in August in response to separate allegations regarding their work with climate change deniers that :

"We do not work with astroturf groups"

let's have a quick look at Energy Citizens Canada, launched by CAPP, and presumed sister site to the US Energy Citizens, launched by the American Petroleum Institute in 2009.

So far the Canadian version seems to be mostly about harvesting emails of future possible tarsands flufferbots.
As encouragement, the Spotlight on Energy Citizens page profiles Energy Citizens Brittany Allison and Hardave Birk.

Brittany Allison was "a Policy Researcher in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa" and a "Research Officer in the B.C. Legislature in Victoria", prior to her work as Public Affairs Advisor for Fraser Surrey Docks LP, "working to gain federal approval for a coal expansion project".


Currently Ms Allison is Manager of the astroturf tarsands site, British Columbians for Prosperity. 

btw Is CBC Power and Politics regular Alise Mills still the "Media Relations Director" for BC4P?
Will she still write columns for 24 Hours, just bought out by PostMedia, with the bi-line :
"Alise Mills is a political commentator who speaks for British Columbians for Prosperity. Visit moneytrail.ca."

The only other Citizen Spotlight candidate so far is former president of University of Calgary Students Union, Hardave Birk, whose's bio notes he is legislative assistant to Senator Doug Black.

While in no way a reflection upon Mr. Birk, this seems as good a time as any to remind ourselves that prior to becoming Senator Black, Doug Black was president of industry lobby group Energy Policy Institute of Canada, or EPIC, where he worked with vice-chairs Bruce Carson, Gerry Protti and Daniel Gagnier on a national energy program representing their 38 energy member organizations, including TransCanada and CAPP.

Two years ago EPIC put out a presser taking credit for how they have shaped current Con policy on property rights, pipelines, public participation, and First Nations :

"Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced legislative changes that would put EPIC's recommendations into federal law. Regulatory changes within omnibus Bill C-38 reflect recommendations of EPIC surrounding regulatory streamlining." 

"You are the secret sauce," Doug Black once wrote to Bruce Carson, whose trial on illegal lobbying and influence peddling will not begin till September next year.

More Insider Tarsands Astroturf.  We are awash in the stuff.

Update : Energy Citizens Canada has just added another "Featured Citizen" to their Spotlight : Alishia Klein, Communications Coordinator at Canadian Natural Resources Limited.

Upperdate : Astroturf  Illustrated!

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Insider tarsands astroturf - Power of Canada

A month ago, former MP and Liberal leadership contender Martha Hall Findlay had a piece in the G&M : Northern Gateway : You don't build a nation by saying 'No" in which she echoed Tarsands Minister Joe Oliver in invoking pipelines as "nation-building" projects similar to building the "national railway and the St. Lawrence Seaway". 

Nation-building is apparently no longer about bringing people together in economic resilience but now consists of petrocorps getting their toxic unrefined bitumen to China as quickly and easily as possible. 

What you may not have known because the G&M failed to mention it is that MHF was writing as a member of an insiders corporate PR group spun off from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce called Partnership for Resource Trade and its website Power of Canada [powerofcanada.ca].  

If you want to hear even more about the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Saint Lawrence Seaway as precursors of nation-building pipelines and how the resource sector is the "front lines of environmentalism" - these are your go-to guys.

Power of Canada Advisory Council Members include Perrin Beatty, David Emerson, John Manley, Kevin Lynch, Ted Menzies, MHF of course, and reps from CAPP, TransCanada, Enbridge, Rio Tinto, Teck, Suncor, TransAlta, CD Howe, BMO, Asia-Pacific Foundation, Mining Association of Canada, Port Metro Vancouver, etc. etc.
  
While you're there you can sign up to pledge your support and add your sig to a petition to MPs : "I believe in the Power of Canada".

As the Canadian Chamber of Commerce put it in a letter to their local branches :

"Through the Partnership for Resource Trade, we want to recruit and empower local champions ... and add your voices and passion to the public debate. In coming days we will provide more tools that can help you and your members become involved in the dialogue.  I encourage you to visit the web site powerofcanada.ca."

Here's two local champions who took the pledge and signed up at Power of Canada :
Cody Battershill, Calgary, AB
Wyatt Webster, Surrey, BC

As I've mentioned before, Wyatt Webster co-wrote a pro-pipeline op ed in the Vancouver Sun with Christopher Wilson in June where they advised readers to check out their own grassroots website, Canada Action - "Support Northern Gateway", which in turn also signs up supporters - including Bruce Lounds of the pro-pipeline astroturf group British Columbians for Prosperity.

Sample Canada Action supporter comment :
"The Northern Gateway pipeline is a nation building project, every bit as important as building the St Lawrence Seaway"
  
Here Canada Action is seen staging, in Cody Battershill aka codyincalgary's words, an "Awesome Pro-Resource, Pro-Pipeline" counter-protest at the "No Enbridge" rally in Vancouver in May - with massive professional-looking banners and a special surprise visit from tarsands advocate Ezra Levant. 

Wilson and Webster state in their Vancouver Sun op ed : "Are we financially supported by a company, an association or a charitable foundation? No."

The first comment under the article is from Cody Battershill aka codyincalgary : 

"Why is Canada the only top oil reserve country targeted with such sophisticated, well financed and coordinated opposition?"

Sigh. We're obviously going to have to massively redefine "grassroots" and "astroturf" before this is over.


h/t Waterbaby for Power of Canada link.
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Bad week for tarsands astroturf

"British Columbians for International Prosperity is an independent group of concerned citizens looking to promote practical resource development, international trade expansion, manufacturing development, and other initiatives bringing prosperity to British Columbia, Canada, and our Global partners."

Dear retired oil execs*: Don't run astroturf ads under the rubric "independent group of concerned citizens" unless you feel like disclosing who those other concerned citizens are and who made and paid for the glitzy ad you just shot in my back yard. 

Also, about your claim that Canada pipeline companies have a 99.9% safety record :

Exxon Confirms Ruptured Pipeline in Ark. Carried Canadian Dilbit

"A pipeline that ruptured and leaked at least 80,000 gallons of oil into central Arkansas on Friday was transporting a heavy form of crude from the Canadian tar sands region, ExxonMobil told InsideClimate News. 

Local police said the line gushed oil for 45 minutes before being stopped,according to media reports."

 A 2010 spill in Michigan, which released a million gallons of dilbit in the Kalamazoo River and has cost pipeline operator Enbridge more than $820 million, continues to challenge scientists and regulators as they work on removing submerged oil from the riverbed."

National Resources Defense Council :

"The [Arkansas] Pegasus tar sands pipeline rupture adds to growing evidence that tar sands poses additional risks to our nation’s pipelines and communities.… While U.S. regulators don’t differentiate between tar sands pipelines and conventional crude pipelines, states with pipelines that have moved the largest volumes of tar sands diluted bitumen for the longest period of time – North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan – have spilled 3.6 times as much crude per pipeline mile as the national average.

Tar sands diluted bitumen is substantially different from the conventional crude historically moved on the U.S. pipeline system. It is a combination of heavier than water bitumen tar sands and light, toxic natural gas liquids or other petrochemical diluents. Together, this mix is called diluted bitumen, a substance that is fifty to seventy times thicker than conventional crudes like West Texas Intermediate (North America’s benchmark crude) and moves at higher pipeline temperatures "

British Columbians for International Prosperity Executive Director Bruce Lounds really is a concerned citizen of course. His concern is that approval of TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline running from the tarsands to Texas will cut BC out of Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline action :

Keystone XL Environmental Approval Bad for BC

“B.C. stands to lose a lot should the project go ahead,” Lounds said. “If Keystone is approved, our province will be left on the sidelines, looking in on prosperity and job creation from the outside. Make no mistake, B.C. stands to be a big loser if this project goes ahead.”

A Bad Week for the Tarsands :  Shit Harper Did

* h/t Reddit for http://i.imgur.com/kbepooq.gif

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4 pm Update : Whoa! Aerial footage of Arkansas pipeline spill from videojournalist Adam Randall.
[h/t Toe at Bread and Roses] Go to full screen.



Well so much for keeping the dilbit out of the lake. Plus ...

Think Progress : "A technicality has spared Exxon from having to pay any money into the fund that will be covering most of the clean up costs of its Arkansas pipeline spill. ... A 1980 law ensures that diluted bitumen is not classified as oil, and companies transporting it in pipelines do not have to pay into the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. "
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