Foreign (US) role in Alberta elections alleged by blogger

Long before the United Conservatives Party spanked incumbent New Democrats in Alberta elections Apr. 16, questions of foreign influence cried for attention.

Vivian Krause, a Vancouver blogger, has for years infuriated environmental pressure groups by divulging their funding sources.

She also has stoked ire against US money shown to flow into Canada to pay for opposition to Canadian energy projects.

Resentment toward external resistance to Canadian work is especially high in Alberta, which desperately needs pipelines stymied by political opposition.

The issue is a prominent reason UCP Leader Jason Kenney is replacing the NDP’s Rachel Notley as premier.

Before the election, Krause skewered Notley, for whose government she said she had worked since July 2018 on efforts to spur pipeline construction.

Writing in the Apr. 12 Financial Post, Krause said political considerations kept Notley from criticizing the Rockefeller Brothers Fund of New York for its backing of groups opposing pipelines, especially the Tar Sands Campaign.

She said she had been forwarded an email detailing anti-UCP campaigning by Progress Alberta, an advocacy group.

Progress Alberta and Leadnow, which relayed the email, receive funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, some by way of the Tides Foundation, a clearinghouse of money for environmental campaigns based in San Francisco.

“Does this explain why Notley refuses to stand up to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and its campaign to landlock Canadian oil?” Krause asked in her Financial Post article. “Is this why Notley has rarely if ever publicly mentioned the Rockefeller-funded Tar Sands Campaign?”

The blogger overcooks her argument by disparaging an impossible “US monopoly that has kept Canada over a barrel while benefiting US interests to the tune of billions” and implying complicity by the New York group, which famously advocates divestment of oil and gas investments everywhere.

She nevertheless performs a service by illuminating where environmental grass really has its roots. And her influence shows in Kenney’s victory-speech warning to environmental groups: “Your days of pushing around Albertans with impunity just ended.”

(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Apr. 19, 2019. To comment, join the Commentary Channel at www.ogj.com/oilandgascommunity.)