Al Gore experts, some help, please for a concerned Canadian.

[tuvor]

Gore accuses big oil of bankrolling Tories

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore has accused the oil industry of financially backing the Tories and their "ultra-conservative leader" to protect its stake in Alberta's lucrative oilsands.

Canadians, Gore said, should vigilantly keep watch over prime minister-designate Stephen Harper because he has a pro-oil agenda and wants to pull out of the Kyoto accord -- an international agreement to combat climate change.

"The election in Canada was partly about the tar sands projects in Alberta," Gore said Wednesday while attending the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

"And the financial interests behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win the election . . . and to protect their interests."

I can't find evidence anywhere that big oil has financed Harper, and Gore doesn't seem to have an official website where he cites his evidence. I'd love to believe what he's saying, but I'm coming up empty.

Is anyone able to point me in the right direction?

[saltpoint]

1. I don't have a website to send you to, but will say only that Al Gore's

most defining issue might be the environment.

I would definitely take his remark seriously.

[electropop]

2. Gore knows how Big Oil works.

They did the same thing to him, only more blatantly, when they stole an election to install an all-oil-people administration here in the USA.

[LiviaOlivia]

3. Cheney went to Alberta

What are the records of his visit? Did he promise anything? Who did he meet with?

My guess is he meet with oil people and their government puppets.

[applegrove]

5. No he didn't go.

[LiviaOlivia]

7. I beg your pardon.

You are right. I forgot. He had "heart problems" at the last minute and cancelled. No physical visit.
Doesn't mean Cheney and his minions weren't doing his evil biding. But that doesn't negate that some Canadians have bought into Cheney. IMHO.

[applegrove]

9. Especially in the oil rich province. And that place is filled with

Americans. In the academia. On the oil fields. Been going on - well - since people have been lookin for oil there.

Same pattern as in the USA - from Texas to megachurches. Or, if you prefer, from Saudi Arabia to the middle east & Africa.

[applegrove]

4. The Calgary School of economics. The Fraser Institute. The Business

Council on National Issues. The mega church in Toronto.

Find out where they have got their funding or their American pals from.

Who has conservative business funded over the years. What boards of directorships have been handed out?

Neocondom is a movement.

Xtians in Canada came up with Peace, Order & Good Governance as the motto. Harper erased it from his agenda. Came up with a "new set" of Canadian values.

Same as in the USA (where oil funded xtians who hate gays and secular humanists).

Was happening two decades ago.

Same as in the USA.

Look at what the Fraser Institue has published over the years. And how it has changed. Look at how MBA schools have changed (economist article really good). Excess profits of corporations (many of which are sub-stations) have been pro-whatever America is up to.. for eons.

Canada is seen as just an offshoot of whatever trend is going on in the USA. Conservative line of anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-taxes... has been spreading across the business community & xtian churches.

[Mabus]

12. More the Fraser Institute and Harper

They've Americanized it, run the money through the think-tanks so they will issue what the donors want and then get your people elected.

Who funds the Fraser Institute?

The Fraser Institute's 30th anniversary a good time to review its financing, influence

By DONALD GUTSTEIN

Donald Gutstein photoAspiring reporters are taught in journalism school to "follow the money" when doing business or government stories. Who's financing the project? Who will benefit from the rezoning or tax break? Who will lose out?

***

Tax-exempt foundations must list recipients of their grants, so it is possible to identify most of this foundation money. Four large Canadian foundations provide the lion's share of nearly $3.5 million from this source.

Until recently, the leader was the Donner Canadian Foundation, a key organization in the project to change the ideological fabric of Canadian society. It is known as paymaster to the right and it's safe to say that the reactionary right would have made little headway in Canada in the past decade without Donner's backing. Stephen Harper would be a nobody, for instance.

***

The Ottawa Citizen editorialized that the Fraser Institute is a dissenting hero standing up to the socialist establishment. Another interpretation is that the Fraser is a small cog in a global wheel of reaction designed to roll back the democratic gains of the 20th century. Hundreds of millions of corporate and foundation dollars make the wheel go round.
source: http://www.yourmedia.ca/library_articles/041028_gutstein_fraser.html

[bahrbearian]

6. Is that because the "Supreme Court " up held the energy

policy meetings ,as secret?

[applegrove]

8. This is new. Why are the churches & business think tanks all of "one mind"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=188103

[peacetalksforall]

10. Gore was highly praised by name scientists for the book he wrote

about the environment. I remember them saying something like it being a serious, well researched book - there didn't seem to be any flack coming from die-hard scientists. They praised his scholarship.

I mention this to say that I believe he checks out these kind of statements. If they are going to after him on the color of his shirts or his neck size, they sure are going to get him about mis-statements.

But think about this... I believe we are in the process of getting screwed by more the the U.S. I believe the Echelon country partners are all trying to go right and take us over. But who cares what I think? Echelon partners - U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

[applegrove]

11. It is the "of one mind" thinking that gets me. Harper won by appealing

to new immigrants with traditional views on gayness, and views on abortion and the like. And I hope he thinks for himself. Perhaps actually getting into power will help him temper his views. The realities of governing are much different than theory.

Only someone as uncurious as bush would implement the whole list of things the creators of the movement want.

Why I hope Manning becomes Ambassador. So he can get a chance to deal with reality too.

[tuvor]

13. I appreciate everyone's efforts. I'm just annoyed that there seems to be

no easy way to dig into what he's saying, so that I can cite facts and figures immediately.

What's he doing without an official website, anyway? For crying out loud, he invented the Internets! :)

Thanks again, folks! I'll see where your tips take me.

[Fredda Weinberg]

14. The timing of the no-confidence vote was curious

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2005/11/17/1311486-cp.html

The first conference of parties to the Kyoto Protocol is expected to draw more than 8,000 delegates to Montreal from around the world, including many ministers and heads of government.

The purpose of the conference to protect and broaden the international effort to curb the accumulation of greenhouse emissions in the atmosphere.

Environmentalists fear the negotiations could be jeopardized if there is a federal election during the conference which runs from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9.

The opposition is expected to introduce a non-confidence motion Nov. 24 and vote to bring down the minority Liberal government Nov. 28 or Nov. 29.

[Fredda Weinberg]

15. Interesting history in Alberta

http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewLetter.cfm?REF=1565

Not a lot of Canadians understand that a large portion of Alberta Crown land was taken up by Americans looking for farmland at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. There was a heavy in-migration of American attitudes from the province's beginning. This was reinforced by the development of oil and gas in the 1940s and 1950s, and has been reinforced further still with the recent development of the tar sands.

Look at the Alberta government's Internet site where Ralph Klein lists himself under the heading Executive Branch, a purely American expression not even applicable to parliamentary government. Look at Klein's ugly public outbursts which remind one of nothing so much as a Tom Delay or a Newt Gingrich.

Remind yourself of Harper's record of saying things like Alberta should build a firewall around itself, an American gated community on a grand scale. Look at the city of Calgary whose lighted glass blocks are positively eerie at night in a city which virtually empties to the suburbs at five or six o'clock, American-style. No street life, none of the flavor of Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal. A colony of dangerous Dallas.

[tuvor]

18. Speaking for myself, having spent my first 30 years in Edmonton...

I always felt very nonAmerican. I know my friends and family did, too. The cultural influence of course was/is inescapable, but not the attitudinal influence.

And Edmonton's downtown also emptied once the quittin' bell rang. Still does, as far as I know, despite the best efforts of City Hall. Wasn't so much "eerie" as it was boring. I think it has as much to do with the inclement winter weather as anything else.

Sorry for straying off topic.

(Thanks for your several posts, by the way.)

[Fredda Weinberg]

19. My privilege

Let me know if you're up for more, but for now, bon soir.

[eve_was_framed]

22. I agree. Living in Calgary I know what you are talking about.

[radio4progressives]

20. Just recently learned of War Plans for Canada drafted in early

part of the 20th century... i think it was posted here if someone has the research archives available to them..

would be of interest to access those documents for reference.

[Fredda Weinberg]

16. An article from the Washington Post w/an interesting quote

http://www.canadiancontent.net/forums/about5857.html

Oil companies have been struggling to replace aging fields whose production has tapered off. Many have been frustrated by oil-rich countries in the Middle East and elsewhere that refuse to open their doors to Western companies.

"We are all kind of fighting each other in the rest of the world where oil production is not increasing," said Michael Rodgers, a senior director of PFC Energy, a Washington-based consulting firm. "We have to start thinking about unconventional resources. A lot of companies are saying, 'We do have this option in Canada.' "

[Fredda Weinberg]

17. Do you believe David Suzuki?

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/Suzuki/2003/07/30/149759.html

After the federal government adopted the Kyoto Protocol last December, Canadians could be forgiven for thinking that the issue had been solved, that the country was united in its quest to reduce the emissions responsible for climate change.

Unfortunately, that assumption would be wrong. Groups that lobbied against the climate treaty in the first place, like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), simply changed course and are now hard at work trying to make sure industry targets are marshmallow soft - even if that means sticking it to taxpayers.

CAPP lobbied hard against the Kyoto treaty, making outrageous claims about how reducing greenhouse gas pollution would cripple Canada's economy and send us spiraling back into the stone age. Of course, few people really believed their claims, especially when oil companies like BP have been reducing their emissions and turning a profit. But CAPP, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein and companies like Imperial Oil are very influential. They want to make sure the oil industry has to do as little as possible to meet Kyoto, and their efforts appear to be working.

[applegrove]

21. They also want to make sure oil profits in Alberta have as little to do

with the Federal Government as possible.

[eve_was_framed]

23. David Suzuki is the only one with credibility, the oil thugs are

Canadian style neo pigs!