EthicalOil.org Takes On Evil Americans

First Saudi Arabia ... then Chiquita Banana ... and now, American philanthropic organizations. Are there any scourges in the world that EthicalOil.org WON'T take on?

Our lifelong friends over at EthicalOil.org have found yet another foreign demon to slay in the name of oil sands righteousness, as they've launched an ad campaign decrying the money Canadian environmental groups have received from American interests to protest the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. Among the lucky targets of EthicalOil.org's ire this time are the American philanthropic organizations the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Wilburforce Foundation. Both organizations donated money to West Coast Environmental Law, a B.C.-based legal centre that has worked to prevent oil tankers from being allowed to operate along Canada's pristine Pacific Coast. Permitting oil tankers to sail along B.C.'s coast is an integral part of the plan to create a pipeline from Alberta's oil sands through the Rocky Mountains to the port of Kitimat, B.C., from which bitumen would be shipped across the Pacific to China and elsewhere.

Many of the companies involved in the oil sands, including China's Sinopec and Calgary-based Enbridge, have ponied up some $200 million to help get the pipeline through the regulatory process, for which public hearings begin next week. On the other hand, West Coast Environmental Law received $133,000 from U.S. interests, less than a thousandth of the amount that the oil industry has paid to get this pipeline approved and built (a healthy fraction of which, it bears repeating, comes from foreign interests).

Regardless of the facts, EthicalOil.org is now airing 30-second radio ads in northern B.C. that whinge about "foreign special-interest groups" getting in the way of job creation in the region, despite much of the province - and especially First Nations communities – being decidedly against the construction of such a pipeline. If you want to waste a couple minutes of your life that you'll never get back, by all means, drop on by ourdecision.ca to hear the ads and look at a hilariously photoshopped image of "foreign special-interest groups" playing puppeteer for Canada's environmental lobby. Or, you can look at cats in boxes.