The province unveiled its “real-time lost-revenue counter” Wednesday showing how much money has been lost since work on the Trans Mountain was stopped.
Vivian Krause, a researcher from British Columbia, said the application to appeal the pipeline was all brought about by a campaign to land-lock Alberta crude.
She said while the judge overseeing the Federal Court of Appeal may not have been influenced by money, the application to appeal wouldn’t have happened without the campaign funding.
She said her research has led her to believe the campaign is funded by American charitable organizations that don’t necessarily have the environment as a top priority.
“As I see it, they have four goals. I think three of them are good, we can agree on three out of four. The good ones are they want to promote renewable energy, they also want to increase energy efficiency – more kilometres per barrel and they want energy security. That’s all good, we can agree on all that. But, they have this fourth goal which is to bully Canada out of the global oil market and that’s not okay.”
Over the past decade, Krause estimates $10 million a year has been funnelled into over 100 charitable organizations to restrict Alberta crude.
She said the campaign was originally started by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to shift demand away from Canadian oil.
Krause suggested legal action might be the solution to ending this campaign, saying “these charities need to get back to charity and back to protecting the environment.”
Krause will present her research on the topic Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at the Quality Hotel and Conference Centre in Gregoire.
RSVP to the free event here.
