[All] Fwd: New Government of Canada Terminates Environmental Network Partnership

[Carole Clinch]

  *Hill Dispatches: $ for polluting industry; cuts for science and
environmentalists<http://news.google.ca/news/url?sa=t&ct2=ca%2F0_0_s_3_0_t&ct3=MAA4AEgDUABgAWoCY2E&usg=AFQjCNFFo4oM1ac1TzDEfnuMYSc-NoUdaw&did=4d6d01e62d2e43ba&cid=17593954789207&ei=N22YTsCRD43WrQHTXA&rt=MORE_COVERAGE&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Frabble.ca%2Fblogs%2Fbloggers%2Fkarl-nerenberg%2F2011%2F10%2Fhill-dispatches-polluting-industry-cuts-science-and-environmen>
*
By Karl Nerenberg
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-nerenberg/2011/10/hill-dispatches-polluting-industry-cuts-science-and-environmen

    In its letter to the Canadian Environmental Network, made public
yesterday, the federal Department of the Environment said it was not
renewing financial support for the Network because of a broader shift away
from "core organizational funding*.*" This was prudent fiscal management in
these tough times, the government said. The Environment Department is
seeking, it explained in the letter,

"*to allocate its resources in the most efficient and cost effective manner
to ensure a safe, clean and sustainable environment for Canadians."*

Ironically, yesterday's news also carried a story about another
"environmental" initiative, which the government deemed worthy of generous
support: the "Canada School of Energy and Environment," based in Calgary.
That organization *received $15 million* from the federal government and a
good part of its vocation has been, in the words of Postmedia News, *
*

*"to clean up the dirty oil image of Canada's oil sands and provide the
public with a more balanced view of its environmental performance*."

So, maybe, the notion that profitable resource companies don't need public
funds to support their advocacy is wrong. Maybe they are the needy ones, not
the environmental movement.

The Calgary-based "School" was in the news, yesterday, because of the
shenanigans of its former executive director (and former Harper staffer)
Bruce Carson. It seems that *Carson used thousands of the school's public
dollars for his own private purposes*. The organization has managed to
recover some of that money, by withholding payments it owed Carson; but
there is still about fifteen thousand missing, and they have given up on
that.

The current Chairman of the school, Robert Turner, now says that trying to
recover that remaining money: ". . .would not do the school one bit of
good." Whatever that means...

The troubling part of all this is not that a Conservative-connected person
gets to keep money he inappropriately used for personal purposes. That is a
minor, mini-scandal, at best.

*What is more scandalous is that **the government believes that the very
profitable oil and gas industry needs taxpayer money to help it promote its
own interests, while scientists and advocates for the environment can look
after themselves*.
* *Carole
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