Temporary Foreign Wanking

Evan Solomon asks why restaurants don't just raise wages to attract workers : "Guess what? This is the criticism - raise the wages and they will come."

Jerry Lundegaard Garth Whyte of Restaurants Canada : "So let's raise it to $100 an hour - we'll still need them [temporary foreign workers]. That's the issue, we have, uh, you know, people, we're, this is well above the average wage, we're putting it well above ... "        [h/t Press Progress for above vid]

Ok, let's look at that. This is Slide #20 in a 2012 powerpoint presentation given by Ron Reaman, VP, Ontario, of Restaurants Canada, formerly known as CRFA [Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association],  bragging about their lobbying success in freezing the minimum wage in 2011 : 
hi-liting mine 

And here's slide #21 - a survey of Restaurants Canada's members :

Q: What factors, if any, are currently having a negative impact on your business?

Notable that while 67% of them answered "Rising labour costs", slightly less than a third complain about "Shortage of skilled labour" and only 14% say "Shortage of unskilled labour".


Both slides rather put the boots to Garth Whyte's plaint at top that importing temporary foreign workers is not about wages, and by extension, keeping them down for everyone else.



Back in November 2007, Mr Reaman and Joyce Reynolds of CRFA appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology to complain about labour shortages. Ms Reynolds suggested "a bridge from temporary to permanent residency" for temporary foreign workers and that they be allowed to apply for it from within the country. 

She then thanked the Conservative government through the Chair for streamlining the LMO process and raising the number of years TFWs could remain in the country from one to two years. She asked that it be increased once more to four years. And lo - in 2011, it was.

More on Restaurants Canada and its US lobby counterpart.
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The Temporary Foreign Workers Pipeline

For some time now we have had a government in the business of preventing people from working within their own country, as Boris from the Beav once put it.

This is the Cons' other pet pipeline - their TFW Pipeline.
In 2007 they raised the length of a temporary foreign worker permit from one year to two; in 2011 they raised it again to four years.

And today we add Canadian helicopter pilots to the growing list of occupations that are filled by cheaper temporary foreign workers - some pilots working at half the going wage according to one of them.

The Cons are shocked, shocked I tell you, that employers are actually making use of their program designed to drive down wages in Canada. Who could have foreseen such a thing? As Kellie Leitch once put it : "We expect firms to comply" and by god they do seem happy to do so.

Foreign workers drove unemployment higher in B.C.: C.D. Howe report

"In 2008 BC and Alberta received 94,000 temporary foreign workers.The sudden surge was the result of a federal government pilot project in the two provinces between 2007 and 2010, largely in response to demands from employers who wanted easier and faster access to temporary foreign workers. 

The project ended in 2010, but B.C. and Alberta continued to hire temporary foreign workers by the tens of thousands."

Still, there are appearances to keep up and Kenney has promised "another phase of further reforms" to the TFW program yet again, including fast-food sector suspensions. Luckily for employers though, there's still a workaround ...
CTV : 

"Are you an employer keen to hire help from abroad, but nervous about the controversy dogging Ottawa's temporary foreign worker program?

The government of Canada may have a solution for you.

Under the International Experience Canada program, as many as 20,000 workers aged 18 to 35 will soon be coming to Canada -- just as Canadian youth begin pounding the pavement in search of summer jobs. 

The program allows employers to bypass the labour market opinion process, which means there's no need for government approval. As well, companies are not obliged to pay their workers the prevailing market wage."

From the Canadian embassy websites in Spain, France and Ireland : 

Many Canadian employers consistently hire temporary workers under IEC again and again in industries such as:

• Tourism

• Food Service

• Hospitality

• Engineering

• Commerce

You can hire young workers from Ireland [Spain, France] without a Labour Market Opinion normally required by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. Canada issues a two-year work permit to qualified applicants.”

In 2012 Jason Kenney went to Dublin himself to drum up biz, with various employers and recruiting agencies in tow . How'd that pan out again?

A week ago immigration lawyer Vanessa Routley wrote about calling up a recruiting agency in Alberta and posing as a foreign worker looking for a job at KFC in Canada. The whole transcript - from the initial pitch to have her pay $1000 to apply, to upping it to $1250, to downgrading it to $100, to her revealing her real identity at the end - is well worth a read but here's the part of it she high-lighted herself :

One grand for a High Impact Dream Job Pack just to apply for a job bagging chicken at KFC.

Yesterday "the government refused to release detailed information on the controversial Temporary Foreign Workers program on the grounds that doing so "would produce a prohibitively large document."

I'll bet.

May Day : Terry Glavin on the "permanent underclass of perpetually 'temporary' non-citizens"

"There were 338,000 people in Canada at the sufferance of the Temporary Foreign Workers program at the beginning of last year. When you add in other non-citizens working or at least entitled to work, including farm labourers, nannies, foreign students, “Experience Canada” exchange students and so on, you’ll find that you’re looking at more than 600,000 people whose subservience and obsequiousness is disciplined on pain of deportation.This is a number of people that exceeds the size of the entire labour force of Saskatchewan  and its existence inside Canada’s already underemployed working class will have implications that should not require an economics degree to comprehend.

Glavin piece via Owen on Labour Racketeering 

Additional resource : Canadians Against the Temporary Foreign Worker Program
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EPIC's epic NEP - Part 2

Con "fixer" Bruce Carson and Lib National Campaign Co-Chair Daniel Gagnier worked together on a national energy program for industry lobby group, the Energy Policy Institute of Canada, and have both given speeches and published numerous papers in support of it. 
Former EPIC president, now Senator, Doug Black was duly grateful :

"I would like to acknowledge our three vice chairs that presented our work to the energy ministers: Bruce Carson, Gerry Protti and Daniel Gagnier."

In light of EPIC's subsequent presser in 2012 (h/t Hugh) that :

"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." 

... I thought we might take a look at a few of EPIC's regulatory streamlining recommendations and how they have shaped current Con policy on property rights, pipelines, public participation, and First Nations.

EPIC itself has been offline since last Thursday's press coverage of new RCMP allegations against former vice-chair Bruce Carson.
Tuesday Mar 11 Update :  EPIC's website is now a single blank page with a note saying HACKED BY and a very long name which seems to be Turkish.
Tuesday update #2 11am : EPIC website back up, listing same leadership as before. 

Let's start with Property Rights under the push for tarsands-to-tankers pipelines. 
Theirs, not yours. 
EPIC : Canadian Energy Strategy Framework, Page 31 :

"It is a well established common law principle that a right to mines and minerals includes the right to do all things necessary to work and recover the minerals. In other words, since a grant of mineral rights is essentially meaningless unless accompanied by the right to actually recover those minerals, it is assumed that the grant of mineral rights includes the right to recover the minerals as well.

Therefore, since an initial grant of mineral rights also conveys the right to recover the minerals, the regulatory scheme should focus on how these rights are exercised, not whether they can be exercised. Otherwise, the initial grant of rights would be rendered meaningless.

This does not suggest that a right to recover minerals provides the rights holder with a free pass to recover those minerals in any way they see fit, regardless of the environmental or social implications. It does suggest, however, that if recovering the minerals will necessarily result in certain and acceptable environmental effects, then the initial grant of rights should be interpreted as impliedly authorizing those effects."

I had never considered that mining or mineral rights automatically pre-approves accepting their resulting effects on the environment - as say the results from fracking - but EPIC cites the Aberta courts and Supreme Court of Canada as backing them up on this.

For what this looks like in real life, see: Alberta Mother Fights Five Neighbouring Fracked Wells (h/tMogs)

Back to EPIC :  

"If the regulatory scheme determines whether or not each resource development should be allowed to proceed based on equal consideration of environmental, social and economic factors, then the scheme is failing to take into account the previous acquisition of property rights and is disregarding long established legal principles relating to private property. "

Consideration of environmental and social factors subordinate to corporate rights to private property!
EPIC then extrapolates a further extension of those rights in getting product to market.

 "... just as there is a presumption that mineral rights-holders should be able to recover the minerals in question, there should also be a presumption that mineral rights-holders should be able to transport recovered minerals to market, such as through a pipeline. Otherwise, the mineral right would lose its inherent value. 

This does not mean that all proposed pipelines should automatically be approved without examination of environmental and socio-economic considerations. What the presumption does mean, however, is that the need for a pipeline required to move resources to market should be evident in the proposal itself, and that any proposed pipeline project that aims to connect a new supply basin to market must be evaluated with the understanding that a pipeline (though not necessarily the specific pipeline project being proposed) should be allowed to proceed to allow producers to access downstream markets.
Otherwise, the upstream mineral rights become worthless.

With respect to most renewable resource projects, pipelines, transmission lines and nuclear generation projects, similar logic should also apply.

Just as the initial grant of mineral rights creates a presumption that those rights
should be developed, a preliminary determination by elected public representatives that a renewable project, pipeline, transmission line or nuclear generation project is needed and in the interest of the province or country ought to create a presumption that the development should be allowed to proceed."

Wow. I wonder if that would obtain under legal challenge or if, as Steve would say, it's a "no-brainer".

And speaking of Steve : 

"Statements from the Prime Minister claiming that Canada should become an “energy superpower,” and his recent promotion of Canada as an energy supplier to China, are examples of the kind of leadership required, at least at a general policy level, to provide clear signals of the government’s intent to officials, regulators, industry and other governments."

Strong stable Steve gets a cookie. A fortune cookie. Public regulators get the point.

Tarsands-to-First Nations-to-Tankers Pipeline, Page 24 :

"The federal government needs to take a proactive role in negotiations with First Nations to ensure the national interest is effectively represented. [Well hello, Jim Prentice!]  Almost all potential opportunities for market diversification require new or expanded infrastructure and the collaboration of First Nations."

Tarsands-to-tankers-to-China, Page 25 :

"China, Korea and Taiwan are seeking more secure supplies of oil and natural gas. Both the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder-Morgan expansion in Vancouver could help to meet this growing Asian demand, and there is clearly an opportunity for even further capacity development."

Public participation, Page 52

"Joint review panels are a unique aspect of environmental assessments in Canada that have created a plethora of legal concern and given rise to significant delays and accompanying costs with no apparent benefit to the decision-making process. 

In addition, joint review panel members are often independent from the regulators and are divorced from governments’ overarching energy policy goals.  

The federal government must develop regulations that restrict participation in federal EA reviews to those parties that are directly and adversely affected by the proposal in question. 

... determining whether increasing energy infrastructure from Alberta to the west coast is in the Canadian public interest, but once that policy has been determined it should not be revisited in specific project reviews. Regulatory proceedings for specific projects should focus on the merits of the project and the evidence on the record. The only third parties that should be allowed to participate in these reviews are those parties that have the potential to be directly and adversely affected by the proposed project."

... which is exactly what we got in the pipelines hearings in BC. 

So there it is - EPIC's word made flesh in the Environmental Assessment Act 2012.

I guess EPIC's bragging rights about their influence on government legislation for their 38 energy member organizations wasn't an exaggeration at all. They wrote it.

To you small and large L liberals. I'm sure it's royally pissed you off that I've tarred Liberal national campaign co-chair Daniel Gagnier for his work with Bruce Carson. 
I don't much care about Carson - he's gone as a fixer for Steve. 
What I do care is that we now have Gagnier, representing EPIC's views since 2010 and currently their registered lobbyist and President , as still shown at EPIC as of Friday, fixing up a tarsands agenda for Trudeau.

Thank you for reading.
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EPIC's epic National Energy Program, Part one

Bruce Carson : "the secret sauce"

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Two tales of RCMP Excessive Response Teams

What was the point of this exactly? 

Sending in snipers in camo with dogs to crawl through the grass towards a group of unarmed people blockading a road because they fear the wholly-owned Canadian subsidiary of a Houston, Texas exploration company is setting up to frack their land. 

Oddly enough, Canadian law supports the rights of the foreign company to frack over those of the people attempting to protect their community from it. 

Hence the blockade protest, ongoing since Sept 30 when Elsipogtog First Nation Chief Aaron Sock issued the company an eviction notice not recognized by our courts and government. 

Yesterday, three days after the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples called conditions facing First Nations in Canada "a crisis" and the same day our PM also left the country, hundreds of RCMP moved in to enforce the rights of the fracking company.    40 people including the chief were arrested for refusing to abide by the court injunction to leave and the media was presumably pleased with their pictures of burning cop cars after the situation blew up.

In France, fracking has been banned since 2011 - despite legal challenges from corps - due to its potential for contamination of groundwater and causing earthquakes.
In BC, 85% of our 8,000 natural gas wells are fracked with another 40,000 on the way.

Elsipogtog Update : Eyewitness account at Halifax Media Co-op - excellent, important read.

Another Excessive Response Team story from rural BC.

Here's a guy from the RCMP Emergency Response Team with his M-16 exactly as he looked when he and three others set out to arrest war veteran and PTSD sufferer Greg Matters for assault in Sept 2012 after Matters and his brother got into a family fight the day before. 

Matters was unarmed and surrendering to them when he was spooked by the ERT helicopter sent in from Kamloops full of more officers circling closely overhead and tried to run away. When a faulty taser failed to work on him, he was shot twice in the back with an M-16 and died. 

The Independent Investigations Office which had cleared the officers of "having committed a criminal offence" in April stated Matters was shot "in the chest" but last week a forensic pathologist testified at the coroners inquest he was "shot twice in the back". He either was or was not wielding a hatchet at them according to officers' testimony.

The ECT also assaulted and arrested Matters' mother and had no warrant so the BC Civil Liberties Assoc. has lodged a complaint with the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP.

Prince George Citizen : RCMP jumped the gun: lawyer

How did anyone with an ounce of sense think a stressed out guy the police knew had PTSD from having been physically attacked by superiors in Bosnia would react to four guys dressed like this showing up on his property accompanied by a helicopter?  

The Elsipogtog First Nation are in negotiations with the fracking company and local government officials; Greg Matters had a number of people he trusted to bring him in for questioning over what was a family dispute .
Yet somehow they both wound up dealing with RCMP escalating excessive response teams advancing on them through the grass with sniper rifles. 

There's something very wrong with this picture.
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Lockheed Martin : "We never forget who we're working for"

That famous LM motto ... which in the main of course refers to their $47.2 billion client, the US government. 

Not just an arms manufacturer anymore, LM builds spy satellites for the NSA, plus surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, the NSA, the Pentagon, the Postal Service, and the US Census Bureau.

Lockheed Martin - counting some people, blowing other people up.

Rather infamously up here in Canada, Lockheed Martin developed and supplied the data-analyzing software to Statistics Canada that scanned the 2006 census forms using “optic recognition” software and helped rework the program for the 2011 count - sparking fears that famous motto meant census info about Canadians would be funnelled to their biggest client via the Patriot Act.

Today, 89-year-old WW2 war veteran and peace activist Audrey Tobias is in court for refusing to fill in her 2006 and 2011 census. If convicted, Tobias will refuse to accept a fine or community service on the grounds that either would be an admission of guilt. It's jail for her or nothing. 
Her refusal is based on her dislike of LM and their cluster bombs :

“Giving it to a foreign military company sends a message to the Canadian people from our prime minister and cabinet that he supports military solutions. I didn’t like that,” she said.

She doesn't care about the possible invasion of her privacy by the NSA via Lockheed Martin but her lawyer will. 


Lockheed Martin press release, April 2013 :

"Lockheed Martin is a leading provider of cyber security technology and services to the NSA and a number of defense and intelligence agencies."

From 2008 : 

"American officials are pressuring the federal government to supply them with more information on Canadians, says an influential analyst on Canada-U.S. relations."Not only about routine individuals, but also about people that you may be looking at for reasons, but there's no indictment and there's no charge," Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute told a security intelligence conference."

Back in 2006, President of Lockheed Martin’s Americas Region and former Pentagon advisor to Dick Cheney, Ron Covais, was succinct on the subject of integrating corporations like his into the US and Canadian governments :

"We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes," says Covais. "Because we won't get anywhere."

A LM presser on its relationship to Canada refers to "the development of a North American defense industrial base" :

"Beyond our defence partnerships, Lockheed Martin Corporation stands ready to continue and grow our support to Canada's Census, health care management, information technology, as well as infrastructure and border security to ensure the safe, secure and efficient transit of people, goods and services between Canada and the US."

Health care management? Yeah, they do that too. 

And didn't you guys just get hacked by China a couple of years ago?

In 2010, Tony Clement announced he would "introduce legislation this fall to remove threats of jail time for persons refusing to fill out the census and all mandatory surveys administered by the federal government." But then he didn't.

Fun juxtaposition  : The witness for the Crown against Tobias -Yves Beland, operations director at Statistics Canada - says he has never heard of Edward Snowden and testified that all Canadian census data is completely safe from Lockheed Martin.

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Wed. Oct 9 Update : Tobias acquitted!

"The judge also described the Justice Department's decision to prosecute Tobias, a Second World War veteran, as a "PR disaster."

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Get Your NSA On - Five Eyes and an Ear and A Mouth

The NSA is breaking the internet

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The Washington Post reveals that the NSA spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year paying private companies for access to large fiber optic communications backbones - part of the agency's Corporate Partner Access Project.

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Chris Hedges, socialism, and the NDP

Part 6 of a 7-part interview from the Real News Network with Chris Hedges, author and activist following 15 years as a foreign correspondent with The New York Times.

"To even call yourself a socialist in this country is to essentially remove yourself from the acceptable parameters of public discourse."

Certainly the NDP agrees with that statement - its delegates having voted 960 to 188 three months ago to expunge the word "socialism" from their constitution, presumably in the vain hope of dampening Steve's enthusiasm for flinging it about come 2015. 
Well, it's only a word, right?

Thought experiment.
We are starting society over from scratch - the laws that determine our relationship to each other, to food and energy and the production of same - the works.
Hands up everyone who agrees to give corporate shareholders control over the government, the law, food production and distribution, our jobs, the life and death of our very ecosystem to do with as they please. 

No? No takers for that system? Because that's what we are currently voting for over and over and over again, and the longer it persists, the more of it we're voting for and what's worse - we know it. 
And this is the moment in time when we so desperately political support for an alternative vision that the NDP has chosen to deny their own roots in hopes of being mistaken for the other parties. 
Because it's only a word, right?
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Cons pay manufacturers to move to China

From Blacklocks, via The Jurist, a tale of taxpayer-funded government-facilitated corporate welfare off-shoring :

"Cabinet paid millions of dollars in grants to Canadian manufacturers to move production and jobs overseas in the name of foreign aid. 

Newly-released accounts show the program paid cash grants totalling $3,852,927 to manufacturers to move production out of Canada, including $450,000 paid to one applicant that told Fantino’s department it had to “establish ourselves in Mexico so we can offer lower costs.” "

But most went to factories in China - automotive parts, rugs, fencing, furniture, plastics recycling .... over a two year period in 2006-7.

Because clearly China, the world's 2nd largest economy by GDP and we're #11, btw , is sorely in need of our "foreign aid" and "manufacturing jobs".

"International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino ... had not heard of the grant scheme called the Industrial Cooperation Program."

Ah well, that's because you guys rebranded it in 2010 as the Investment Cooperation Program  or CIDA-INC.  According to the DFAIT website : 

• Managed by DFAIT, the Investment Cooperation Program, formerly the Industrial Cooperation Program, supports developmentally beneficial direct investments by Canadian firms in developing countries.

But only Canadian firms with at least $2M in annual revenues were eligible for 50- 75% taxpayer coverage of up to $1M of their costs in assessing and moving a project abroad.

Happily touted as a Canadian success story as late as March 2012 by the previous International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda, CIDA-INC was the object of damning internal audits until it was finally shut down on May 18 2012 by Trade Minister Ed Fast in a statement citing "irregularities" and "taking immediate action to recover taxpayer funds that had supported these particular INC projects" and promising a "fundamental review of the program, expected later in 2012-13".

Terrific. 

What about those intervening six years of sending Canadian manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere - you know, the period from 2006-7 covered by Blacklocks and up to when you shut it down last year?

And does your newly branded "foreign aid" model of "doubling down on partnership with the business sector" and "vigorously promoting and defending Canadian interests and values abroad” benefit anyone here in Canada? Outside of those in the business sector looking for new avenues of taxpayer money to send Canadian manufacturing jobs overseas of course.

5 pm Update : I see SNC Lavalin had a multi-year contract with the Investment Cooperation Program, dated 2011-11-04.

"The purpose of this Investment Cooperation Program (INC) contribution agreement is to support responsible, developmentally beneficial, private sector engagement in developing countries leading to sustained economic growth and poverty reduction."

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CIDA doles out corporate welfare to mining giants

In Oct 2010, Bill C-300, An Act respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas in Developing Countries, went down to defeat 140 to 134 because 13 Liberals, 4 Bloc, and 4 NDP skipped the vote. The bill sought only to limit Canadian tax dollars being spent to subsidize mining abuses committed by Canadian-registered companies abroad and only if they agreed to it.


A couple of months later in January 2011, Bev Oda, Minister of 'Not Kairos' and International Cooperation, acknowledged that Canadian tax dollars were subsidizing mining companies' CSR (corporate social responsibility) projects through CIDA - half a million to Barrick Gold, another half million to Rio Tinto, etc etc up to a total of $50-million for the year.

Today's G&M : CIDA funds seen to be subsidizing mining firms

This marks the first time that CIDA and mining firms are jointly funding aid projects abroad ...         The mining industry is welcoming the new trend in Canada’s foreign-aid policy. 

“There is a policy shift under way, and it’s one we’re encouraged by,” said Pierre Gratton, the president of the Canadian Mining Association.

while World Vision Canada, a CIDA partner with Barrick Gold in Peru, put it this way  (italics mine):

 “Anything we can do to encourage and advocate for better mining practices, and support the communities that they are displacing or affecting, we’re contributing to a better lifestyle and environment for them.” 

Yes, sadly, communities will be displaced but at least our taxes will be there to help polish the image of their new corporate landlords . 


It's particularly galling that multinational mining giant Rio Tinto ($US15 billion-plus earnings in 2011) is receiving Canadian corporate welfare after locking  800 Canadian workers out on New Years Day in Quebec for protesting having their union jobs replaced by contract workers. Additionally, a court injunction only permits 20 workers to demonstrate at any one time and only at a distance of 150 metres from the front gate.


Back to the G&M :

Federal officials said the policy shift at CIDA is co-ordinated with efforts by International Trade and Natural Resources to encourage the growth of Canadian firms abroad

Sure it is.
A couple of days ago, Rio Tinto took majority control of Canada's Ivanhoe Mines which owns 66% of Mongolia's Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, the rest being owned by the state of Mongolia. 
As it happens, Bev Oda was in Mongolia last August :

"looking to assist Mongolia to strengthen its democratic governance and economic growth"

 presumably with the help of China :

"In 2010, Rio Tinto said that it had held talks with its biggest shareholder, Chinalco, about the possibility of bringing in the Chinese state-owned company as a partner in Oyu Tolgoi"

Why are Canadian tax dollars subsidizing these massive multinational mining corps with corporate welfare again?
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Enbridge Joe Oliver and his 19 radical foreigners

Tonight on As It Happens, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver continued on with his rant published in today's G&M against the "foreign special interest groups" and "jet-setting celebrities" that use "a quintessential American approach" to "hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda."

"The system is broken," he wrote. "It is an urgent matter of Canada's national interest."


"Canada's national interest" here being the proposed Enbridge tarsands project and the Cons need to derail the shitstorm of protest coming down the pike at them by discrediting pipeline opponents as unpatriotic pawns of sneaky foreign astroturf experts.


About those radical foreign special interest groups.
Carol Off noted that 4,522 individuals had registered to make their allotted ten minute submissions to the hearing.
Yup, said Oliver : "thousands of people repeating repeating the same the same studied lines." 


Well, said Off, most of them appeared to live along the proposed pipeline route, and in looking though their requests to appear before the hearing listed on the Natural Resources website, "19 of the 4500 people were registered in the United States."


Nineteen. 
A regular juggernaut of 19 jet-setting hi-jacking celebrity furriners, each speaking their allotted 10 minutes in their radical 'quintessential American approach' . 
How will Canada's national interest ever survive three hours of it?


And yet, continued Off, "on that list, the foreigners appear to be mostly oil companies."


Well that's different, explained Oliver. They're bringing tens of billions of dollars to "diversify our markets to Asia" .


But "the concern here is that foreign influences do not have Canada's best interests in mind," pursued Off. "How is it that you can trust the foreign oil companies who are intervening to have Canada's best interests in mind?"


Because they're bringing their own money, repeated Oliver.




Here's the show. Complete transcript below. 
Well done, Carol Off.

"Canada's economic development is being hindered by radical environmental groups financed from the US.

That was the thrust of an open letter published today written by Canada's Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver.
In the letter Mr Oliver called for a revamp of how environmental reviews are done, namely that they be protected from interference by environmental lobby groups. This comes just one day before the public hearing into Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway project. if approved the pipeline will run from the Alberta oil sands to the coastal town of Kitimat, BC.


We reached Joe Oliver, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, on his cell phone in Toronto."


Carol Off : Mr Oliver, who are these radical groups you mention in your letter?


Oliver : Well I'm not going to name names but there are, as people know, a number of groups who are opposed to the development of hydro carbons - they even oppose hydro-electricity development. I don't know where they think we're going to get the energy to maintain our current level of civilization but that's where they're coming from and they're trying to game the system.


Carol Off : Why can't you tell us who they are?


Oliver : Well because I don't think we need to get into that level of specificity. The point is they're there, some of them are being financed by, er, by groups, and we think that these decisions which are so important for the Canadian economy, for Canadian jobs, should be made by Canadians in Canada.


Carol Off : If you can't tell us who the people are that you're concerned about - the radical groups - can you tell us what their sources of money are?


Oliver : Well we know for example the Tides group is one but there are others that are providing, er, that are providing funding, and that information I think is available or will be available.


Carol Off : And do they have less money or more money than the oil companies who are lobbying to have the project go through.


Oliver : The issue is what they're using the money for and how much money is being used.


Carol Off : There are 4,522 individuals who are registered to make oral statements, according to your website - they will get about 10 minutes to do that - and 216 registered intervenors. How many of these are under the influence of these radical groups?


Oliver : Well I don't know precisely but it's uh ... and I don't want to get into that particular project which is under regulatory review ... but this is not an unknown tactic where a particular organization will send many of its members in to repeat the same message. In a court environment that wouldn't happen; the court would take a count of the numbers but they would wanna hear from people who have something new, different, and relevant to say ... rather than just you know thousands of people repeating repeating the same the same studied lines.


Carol Off : Well, these kinds of hearings, especially something this large, often attract hundreds and even thousands of people who have something to say, and just looking at the website, on your Ministry of Natural Resources website, it shows that most of these people appear to be Canadians who live along the pipeline route. In fact we found 19 of the 4500 people were registered in the United States.


Oliver : Well the issue ... and some from you know Venezuela and so on ... but um the issue is whether people who are participating - and that's something that the panelists will look at - but just as a broad statement, yeah, the issue is whether panelists have something new, different, and relevant to say or whether they're just simply parrotting a message. You know what these letters are, and we receive them and I imagine CBC sometimes receives them as well, where people are basically have been given a line and they just add their name to essentially the same letter. When we receive that, we take account of the numbers but understand that the hundreds, the thousands of letters relating to a particular issue represent a particular perspective. It's relevant to know how many people have that perspective but we don't have to take each letter and question each person if they're merely using a form to sign a letter. I think everyone understands that and it's the same kind of issue in respect to an oral presentation.


Carol Off : So the letters and oil statements are just simply that - they make a statement or sign a letter - but the intervenors are obviously more important where they can actually cross-question, and on that list the foreigners appear to be mostly oil companies.


Oliver : Well I was talking about foreign money supporting Canadian intervention. The distinction here which is fundamental is that there are a number of foreign companies who are supplying capital to finance this project. This is the largest industrial project in the entire world. We don't have enough capital in Canada to finance it therefore we have welcomed foreign investment from the US, France, England, China, and other countries - companies who see the economic prospects for the development of our resources and are investing tens of billions of dollars to advance the creation of infrastructure which will help us in our in our historic choice here to diversify our markets to Asia.


Carol Off : But I guess the question is .. the concern here is that foreign influences do not have Canada's best interests in mind. How is it that you can trust the foreign oil companies who are intervening to have Canada's best interests in mind?


Oliver : Because they're investing in Canada and their financial success is tied to the success of the projects which are Canadian projects which will generate employment and economic activity for Canada.


Carol Off : But not necessarily tied to the protection of the Canadian environment and to Aboriginal rights.


Oliver : Those issues have to be dealt with by objective regulatory review which will hear the interests of the Aboriginal communities and of environmental groups. I have no problem and neither does the government have any problem with Canadian environmental groups presenting their case because at the end of the day we want these projects to be safe for the environment and safe for Canada.


Carol Off : Mr Oliver, thank you for your time.
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