Greenpeace asks Elections Canada to investigate Ethical Oil

Greenpeace Canada has asked the commissioner of Elections Canada to examine whether the Conservative Party is colluding with the pro-oil Ethical Oil Institute in violation of the measures in the Canada Elections Act that prohibit donations to federal political parties from corporations.

"It's clear there's cooperation (between Ethical Oil and the Conservative Party) there," Greenpeace Canada energy policy analyst Keith Stewart said. "What we're asking Elections Canada to investigate is whether there's been collusion, which would be illegal under the Elections Act."

'Ethical Oil' Launches Neil Young Attack Site

A controversial pro-oil pressure group has launched an attack site against Neil Young following the rocker’s recent tour criticizing the oilsands.

EthicalOil.org, a political group founded by Alykhan Velshi, an advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has launched NeilYoungLies.ca, which attempts to debunk Young’s comments on the oilsands during his recent “Honour the Treaties” tour, which wrapped up Sunday in Calgary.

Al Gore Dismisses 'Ethical Oil': 'There's Only Dirty Oil And Dirtier Oil'

Former U.S. vice president Al Gore has torn a strip off the "ethical oil" campaign favoured by some backers of Canada's oil sands, telling an audience that it simply doesn't exist.

“There’s no such thing as ethical oil,” he said at Toronto’s Ryerson University on Tuesday. "There’s only dirty oil and dirtier oil."

He made the remarks during a public interview with Globe and Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse, who asked Gore about the controversial term that brands oil from nations like Canada, a democracy that works to protect human rights, as the ethical alternative to “conflict oil” from oppressive countries.

Ethical Oil charity complaint sparks Alberta corporate complaint

As is well known, the "Ethical Oil Institute," the Edmonton-based organization founded by Sun News Network commentator Ezra Levant to support petroleum extraction companies in Alberta, has complained to the Canada Revenue Agency demanding the charitable status of Tides Canada "be reviewed for violating Canada’s charities law."

Last week, Ethical Oil accused the Vancouver-based environmental and social issues charity of "'laundering' money from contributors to groups engaged in 'non-charitable' political activities," as the complaint was summarized by the Edmonton Journal.

The people behind Ethical Oil

I got some heat on Twitter this week after a story I wrote on Ethical Oil’s allegations against Vancouver-based Tides Canada.  Some folks were troubled by my story’s reference to EO having been founded by Alykhan Velshi, a Harper government insider.  I based that line on the following statement on EO’s website under the title “How it started.”

“EthicalOil.org began as a blog created by Alykhan Velshi to promote the ideas in Ezra Levant’s bestselling book Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands.”

Tides' charitable status questioned

A pro-oilsands industry lobby group with links to the Harper government is urging the Canada Revenue Agency to consider whether Tides Canada, a Vancouver-based environmental and social justice organization, has violated Canada's charity law.

Ethical Oil, in a lengthy legal brief sent to the CRA Wednesday, has accused Tides of "laundering" money from contributors to groups engaged in "noncharitable" political activities.

The Toronto-based group said that this activity, and Tides' alleged political work, means the charity may have violated CRA rules governing Canada's $190-billion charities sector that involves an estimated 86,000 organizations.

Oh Ezra Levant, pride of the west, where did it all go wrong?

What twist on the road led you from feisty Reform Party contrarian, magazine publisher, political candidate, author and cognoscenti darling to this? This being the constant squealing, near Smurf-like, in high righteous indignation on Sun News, about Communists and a cabal of journalists who allegedly undermine Canada from their base in – get this – “an Ottawa steakhouse.”

Television is the twist in the road. Television is to blame.

Levant's ethical oil case takes hits from all sides

TV host Ezra Levant raised some eyebrows by calling oil from Canada's oilsands "the fair trade coffee of the world's oil industry."

Levant, who has become a spokesperson for the so-called "ethical oil" movement and has made a career bolstering the Alberta oilsands, was a keynote speaker Tuesday at Pacific Northwest Economic Region's (PNWER) annual summit in Saskatoon.

Enbridge Ethical Oil Cartoon: Picture Used By Enbridge Showed Scowling Persian Gulf Gas Pump

A presentation by energy firm Enbridge Inc. at a private conference included a drawing of a scowling cartoon gas pump that labelled Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries as unethical oil sources.

However, the company says it wasn't singling out those countries for allegedly producing less ethical oil than the Alberta oilsands.

A few questions for Ethical Oil

TORONTO—Ever since Ezra Levant started the oil-funded group, Ethical Oil, we’ve been told to avoid so-called conflict oil and embrace oil from liberal democracies like ours.

It’s tempting, perhaps, to see irony in Canada currently ramming through a sweeping budget bill that cracks down on liberal freedoms. But focusing here does a disservice to the larger hypocrisy at play.

So let’s focus on the raison d’être of Ethical Oil and probe a little deeper into its mountain of contradictory rhetoric, which has nothing to do with freedom unless it’s the freedom that Big Oil obviously feels an entitlement to enjoy.  To that end, some simple questions.

Ethical Oil: David Suzuki Foundation Should Be Investigated Over 'Political And Partisan Activity'

EthicalOil.org has written to the Canada Revenue Agency asking asking for an investigation of the David Suzuki Foundation.

In a press release, the oil sands lobby group said it has compiled a 44-page letter detailing the "political and partisan activity" of the David Suzuki Foundation over the past year and it believes that the "environmental lobby group's charitable status" should be reviewed.

Ethical Oil points to David Suzuki's endorsement of Ontario Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty's record and his appearance in a Liberal Party of Ontario partisan ad. As well it cites "persistent calls to action," "frequent condemnation of government policy," and "trying to sway the Senate to abandon their inquiry on foreign funding of charities" as example of political work.

Earlier this month, Suzuki announced he had stepped down from the board of directors of his organization. He said he did this to shield it from partisan attacks.

"I want to speak freely without fear that my words will be deemed too political, and harm the organization of which I am so proud," he wrote in an open letter. "I am keenly aware that some governments, industries and special interest groups are working hard to silence us. They use threats to the Foundation's charitable status in attempts to mute its powerful voice on issues that matter deeply to you and many other Canadians."

Chinese money and ‘ethical oil’

This week the “ethical oil” argument adopted by the federal government took an interesting twist. While billions from China pour into Canada to develop the oilsands and fund the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline, on Monday the government announced its desire to revise the rules so that Canadians will have less time to share their concerns and properly review these massive projects.

Why the change? Because environmental organizations, “other radical groups” and, ironically, foreign money, are allegedly corrupting the process. Is this the future of ethical oil — a world where the Canadian government limits its citizens’ ability to talk over an issue so that China, a country the Prime Minister’s communications director calls a dictatorship, can be allowed to own and exploit Canada’s natural resources?

It’s a curious twist. Many Canadians — me included — agree with one part of Ezra Levant’s ethical oil argument: oil should be evaluated by its environmental impact as well as its effect on the respect for human rights and international stability.

But where does it leave the government’s case for ethical oil if Canadians are sidelined in the decision-making process to please a country both Levant and the Prime Minister have accused of human rights violations? Indeed, on his show The Source, Levant is often critical of China, hosting discussions on how “the freedoms of its people are still on the decline” and labelling the country a “dictatorship.”

Can Oil Be Ethical?

Despite overwhelming evidence that use of fossil fuels is causing a crisis of climate change, wealthy countries like Canada and the U.S. are unwilling to reduce their emissions.

In his book Ethical Oil, Ezra Levant raises an important point about the moral implications of products and activities in the global economy. I applaud the move to raise ethics to greater prominence in discussions around trade and economics. Questions around social justice, poverty, environment, and violence have propelled movements leading to action against sweatshops and child labour in the garment industry, to fair trade and shade-grown coffee products, to boycotts of California grapes and trade with apartheid South Africa.

Two days after he was appointed federal environment minister, Peter Kent took up Levant’s slogan, trumpeting Alberta’s tar sands as “ethical oil.” We rightly criticize oil-producing countries that support or indulge in violence, murder, oppression of minority groups and women, and so on. But because Canada does not overtly support or indulge in such practices, does that mean our oil is more ethical? Levant acknowledges that exploiting and using fossil fuels has environmental impacts. Does that mean there is a hierarchy of ethical practices or that one ethical practice cancels out other unethical activities?

A call to action: Non-violent civil disobedience against the tar sands

A defining moment in Canadian history will take place in Ottawa this month.

On Sept. 26, hundreds of individuals from across the country will participate in an act of peaceful civil disobedience. The objective is to send a clear message to the Harper regime, calling on the government to withdraw its unquestioning support of the tar sands industry and to provide leadership by forging the transition to a clean, just and renewable energy that respects Indigenous rights and gives priority to the health of our communities and the environment. It could well turn out to be the largest demonstration of environmental civil disobedience in the history of this country's climate movement.

For several years, many civil society groups and individuals have written letters, signed petitions, participated in actions across the country and sought to educate their elected officials on the moral imperative of stopping our addiction to fossil fuel and building a sustainable future. Yet, most of these efforts have been ignored, while the fragmentation between environmental, health and economic problems continue to intensify and the connections that intertwine them remain unaddressed.

Daryl Hannah’s ‘dirty’ talk has Brad Wall evangelizing ethical oil

Brad Wall is taking on Al Gore and Daryl Hannah in their own country.

The Saskatchewan Premier believes “mythmaking” and “conspiracy” theories around the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project are hurting Canada’s trade relationship with the United States.

Embracing the Harper government’s ethical-oil defence, Mr. Wall said he spoke “bluntly” recently to a group of influential American politicians about the star-studded protests in Washington against the $7-billion pipeline project.

He reflected on his speech and the message he delivered in an interview with The Globe this week.

“Here you have a friend, here you have a country that has the same core values in terms of democracy, freedom and human rights ... and that’s the country you target when you are happy to import oil from places where women are not allowed to drive, where gays are persecuted, where there is no democracy and I think it’s time that we speak bluntly about that because overall the relationship is suffering,” the Premier said.

Naomi Klein debunks ethical oil at tar sands action

Naomi Klein speaks out against so-called "ethical oil" in Washington D.C. on September 3, 2011  Special thanks to Dahlman Cook Productions.

Video
Source: Rabble.ca  

EthicalOil.org's Unethical Campaign

An oil sands PR campaign would be much better served if it didn't resort to name-calling and false dichotomies.

Recently departed Tory communications whiz kid Alykhan Velshi, all of 27 years old, has launched an ad campaign highlighting the merits of Canada's “ethical oil,” claiming that Alberta's oil sands are morally a better option for Western consumers than oil from the Middle East and elsewhere. The editorialists of The Globe and Mail herald the campaign as a means of counteracting all the spin coming out from environmentalists who see Fort McMurray as an engine for climactic disaster. “It's a necessary and direct response to the salvos of some environmental groups,” says the Globe, calling Velshi's project a “welcome effort to level the playing field.” We'll admit that the dialogue over the oil sands has been pretty lopsided, but fighting spin with even more egregious spin (Velshi can't help but call all countries with oil besides Canada “bastards”) will probably just end up handicapping the whole project in the long run.