Did Jack Layton Sabatoge Kyoto?

When Mike Harris was in government in Ontario, he tried to push through a deal on behalf of one of his most generous backers, The Cortellucci Group, who wanted to turn an abandoned mine into a dump site for Toronto's garbage.

Though the city of Toronto was initially interested, a group of concerned citizens around the Adams Mine, opposed the site, because the Harris government had curtailed any environmental assessments, which would have shown that this could have poisoned the ground water.

Harris fought tooth and nail. After all, groups like Cortellucci didn't come around often.

There is no doubt Cortellucci's Tory connections run deep, as do his pockets. Since 1995, the Cortellucci group of firms have donated almost $1 million to the party and played host to one of the marquee fundraising events on the Tory calendar a dinner every fall that brings in more than $300,000 in one evening. The $900,000 in donations to the party made up until 2001 represent the largest amount of money to come from any one company or group of companies with common ownership, outpacing even the firms owned by Peter Munk and the Barrick Gold fortune. Donations made since midway through 2001 are not yet publicly available. (1)

They would also contribute $47,000 to Jim Flaherty's leadership campaign and $ 40,000 to Tony Clement's, when they were running in 2002 to replace Harris, not to mention $100,000 to Stockwell Day when he was running for the leadership of the Alliance Party (1) (Clement was president).

At the Toronto meeting, two councillors who were concerned with the environment, presented a showing of the Simpsons "Trash of the Titans" that helped to sway the vote, and the dump was turned down. Those two councillors were Jack Layton and his wife Olivia Chow.

However, I have just started reading Elizabeth May's latest book: Losing Confidence, and was surprised to learn that Layton had apparently worked out a deal with Stephen Harper to sabotage Canada's role in Kyoto, and all for political gain. This is distressing to me because I voted for the NDP then.

What I didn't realize at the time was that Jack Layton had entered into a coalition with Harper to take Paul Martin down at the throne speech. He eventually backed out, but had I known I probably would not have had anything to do with the NDP after that. However:

By fall Of 2005, Jack Layton had decided he was not content with forcing changes to the minority government's budget. In a meeting with other opposition leaders, he struck a deal to bring down the Paul Martin government on November 28, 2005, unless Martin agreed to trigger an election and end his government early in the New Year ... What the news media missed, as they focused on whether Canadians would stand for an election over Christmas, was the most galling element of the Harper- Layton and Duceppe gambit; November 2 8 was the opening day of the most important global climate negotiations in history. The Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ... Worse yet, Canada was the host for those negotiations, set to take place in Montreal. With Canada's government falling on the opening day, the whole process could be derailed. The president of the COP was, under the UN terms of hosting, the environment minister from the host country, Stephane Dion. Environmentalists from around the world were horrified. (2)

I always liked Stephane Dion and he handled himself very well at that conference. In fact to make sure that it went forward as planned despite the election call, Dion announced that on December 8 he worked for the UN and would not resume as a Canadian politician until December 10. How many people would do that?

I remember phoning Jack Layton to beg him not to bring down the government on the opening day of the climate conference. I had known and liked Jack since he was on Toronto City Council. He had been enormously helpful, volunteering as an auctioneer in local Sierra Club events. He told me when he ran for leader of the NDP that he was only seeking a role in federal politics to deal with the climate crisis. I had believed him. As he threatened to sabotage the most important global climate negotiations in history, I recall leaving a message on his cellphone: "How will you look at yourself in the mirror if you do this?" We spoke a few times. He was angry that Sierra Club had issued a press release saying, "There's more at stake than Christmas" and highlighting the threat to the Montreal talks. I had begged him to wait for a money vote in the House already scheduled for December 8. It was to no avail.

... I may never have been as devastated as when Stephen Harper was elected, knowing he would do whatever he could to stop progress in reducing greenhouse gases. What we didn't see as a further disaster in bringing down the government on November 2 8 was that it effectively rendered the Montreal negotiations invisible to the Canadian public. The media was off on the typical brainless pursuit of Canadian election as horserace. Policy and science, particularly UN discussions of the climate crisis, were not going to be covered in an election campaign.

It is only with hindsight that I have come to believe that the climate negotiations were not merely collateral damage to the incidental timing of November 2 8. I now believe that Harper and Layton had a shared desire to pull the plug before the Martin government had a chance to look good on the world stage. I think it is extremely likely, given the way Layton downplayed the climate threat in 2oo6, that a conscious decision was made by NDP strategists. They had to make sure the key issue remained Liberal corruption for the NDP to avoid losing votes to the Liberals.

Even during the 2008 election campaign, the NDP opposed the carbon tax as aggressively as the Conservatives, only saying later that they thought it was a good idea. I was so mad, because it was a good idea.

I certainly have a different opinion of Jack Layton now. So what does he stand for? Two election campaigns and he worked against action on climate change.

As a result we've had more than four years of no action at all. The 2006 platform called for a Made in Canada solution, but what few people knew was that the draft was written by a supposed non-profit group called Canadian Renewable Fuels Strategy, headed up by none other than Kory Teneycke. The same Kory Teneycke who became Harper's communication's chief and the same Kory Teneycke who is now flogging Fox News North.

Look at the brochure they printed. Filled with pictures of Conservatives, yet they claim to be non-profit and non-partisan. And they are still being promoted on the government website.

They appear to be an extension of Guy Giorno's anti-environmental group: Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions. It was an astroturf front group for Giorno's employers, National Public Relations (NPR), who are the lobbyists for the oil patch. John Baird spoke at one of their conferences, before he entered federal politics, bashing Kyoto, and yet became one of our environmental ministers.

We've been royally had. And to think that Jack Layon could have done something but chose his own political career, makes me very disappointed. Because according to the Star today: Global warming 'undeniable,' it's getting hotter every year.

“A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record,” the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, the report said its analysis of 10 indicators that are “clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable.”

So Stephen Harper may have been able to direct our attention away from climate change, believing he's won, but not even he can simply put it on hold.

And Jack Layton, I am very angry with you. What Simpsons episode are you going to show now? Roasting on an Open Fire?

Sources:

1. Developer's Tory party ties run deep - Caught in controversy over land deal: Proposal involves Adams Mine, By Kate Harries and Caroline Mallan, The Toronto Star. May. 9, 2003

2. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics, and the Crisis in Canadian Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 2-7

Guy Giorno Wins by Reviving Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

What does the article say about Guy Giorno? "Any discussion with insiders about control from the centre quickly turns into a debate over the relative strengths and weaknesses of director of policy Guy Giorno ... Nicknamed `Rasputin'...he is, some say, the ultimate insider, a right-wing true believer who sidelines any ministerial move that doesn't jibe with his ideology ... I am concerned when I see that nothing can get through without the thumbs up from Guy Giorno. I asked before, what riding does he represent? What constituency elected him? (1)

Guy Giorno, as many are no doubt aware, is not just a consultant or chief of staff for Stephen Harper. He is Stephen Harper. It's only been since 2008 that the media has started calling Harper a brilliant strategist. Before that he was kind of a lunk head. Always putting his foot in his mouth.

Then along comes Guy, and nothing is left to chance. I'll bet Harpo has a little chip embedded somewhere with Giorno choreographing his every move. "Watch out for that step" ... "There's a car coming" ... "You forgot to zip up."

I've realized that I have to do the same with Stephen Harper as I did with Mike Harris. Ignore him and go straight to his puppet master: Guy Giorno.

So when I learned that Canada is going to continue with tax breaks for the oil patch I was not at all surprised. Giorno is a lobbyist. In fact he is the king of lobbyists. Maybe even the emperor of lobbyists.

And when Canada was adopting the Kyoto Protocol this emperor of lobbyists swung into action creating the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions, which was an astroturf front group for National Public Relations (NPR), the lobbyists for ... you guessed it ... the oil patch.

Some of Ernie Eves’s top cabinet ministers partied last week with Kyoto-bashers the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions, a lobby group with close ties to both Ralph Klein and the energy industry ... It took place in the Queen’s Park dining hall and was a very chummy shrimp-and-wine gathering, a chance for members of the coalition -- the Canadian Association of Oil Well Drilling Contractors, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Landmen, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, etc -- to schmooze Tory heavies. (2)

And guess what hand picked former federal environmental minister was on hand for the festivities?

There were speeches by coalition organizers, and a particularly passionate Ontario energy minister, John Baird, made his anti-Kyoto rallying cry. Needless to say, the audience was very receptive. Baird’s parliamentary assistant, Scarborough MPP Steve Gilchrist*, who at one time helped block developers’ plans for the Oak Ridges Moraine, was busy propping open doors with chairs to give relief to a very hot and stuffy room. I couldn’t help remarking to him that perhaps the room was so unbearably hot because of climate change. He was not amused. (2)

And of course we find the big guy, 'Big Guy', lurking in the shadows:

While Eves has been slightly slippery on just where he stands on Kyoto, it was interesting to learn that this meeting was organized by Guy Giorno, Mike Harris’s old chief of staff and ultimate Tory party insider. Giorno now works with National Public Relations (NPR), the coalition’s high-priced lobby firm.

Two days after the meeting, Giorno sent every MPP at Queen’s Park an e-mail suggesting what they might say in op-ed news pieces or letters to their constituents about Kyoto. Then Liberal and NDP members, for whom the missive was obviously not intended, were sent a second e-mail that read, "Unfortunately, materials from the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions were sent to your office in error in a previous e-mail. I do apologize for any inconvenience."

So now we have Mike Harris’s former number-one man trying to dictate environmental policy to our government members. It might make you wonder if the Eves government is really any different from Harris’s where the environment is concerned. It certainly doesn’t seem to be. Then there’s Klein’s relationship with the coalition, which is kind of like that of an organized crime boss and his "legitimate business activities."

Leaves me asking the same question as they asked in 1997 about Guy Giorno: "What riding does he represent? What constituency elected him?"

Footnotes:

*Steve Gilchrist was the former boss of Harper MP Paul Calandra: "The Conservative minister of municipal affairs and housing is under Ontario Provincial Police investigation after allegedly telling developers to go through his own personal lawyer, Tory fundraiser Peter Proszanski, to get an audience with him — a privilege that'd cost them $25,000 each ... Even juicier, Gilchrist has a criminal record for tax evasion dating back to 1984, shared with his father, who was at the time a federal Tory MP." (3)

Sources:

1. Ontario Legislative Assembly, Official Records for December 2, 1997

2. Big Oil's Kyoto Party: Harris whiz kid pulls strings at wine and shrimp fete, By Josh Matlow, NOW Magazine, October 24, 2002

3. How Mike Harris and his minions manipulate TV news, Ryerson Review of Journalism, Summer 2000

Canada Now a Laughing Stock on Climate Change. We are Deemed Irrelevant.

I don't know how much longer the Reform-Conservatives can drag their heels on addressing climate change, but it would appear that we are now a laughing stock on the International stage. I've always wanted to be a laughing stock.

But did we really expect anything less from a man who called Kyoto a 'socialist scheme'. A man who hired climate change deniers to sit on the board and recently named Nigel Hannaford to write his speeches. Apparently when you plan to do nothing, you must have a speech writer who can sell doing nothing to the Canadian people.

This is Canada? We used to be world leaders. How did we let this happen?

Critics rip Canada's Kyoto failure
Inactivity on climate change turning Canada into international laughing stock
By PETER ZIMONJIC, NATIONAL BUREAU, SUN MEDIA
The Ottawa Sun

OTTAWA - If the world successfully hammers out a new climate change deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December, Canada won't be able to claim one shred of credit for the accomplishment.

This is the view held by some academics, politicians and NGOs in Canada who say our failure to develop any climate change policy since the Tories came to power, or make any efforts to adhere to Kyoto, have disgraced Canada on the world stage.

"Canada is the one country that has said it's not going to make any effort to achieve the Kyoto target even though we are still part of the regime," says Douglas MacDonald of the University of Toronto's Centre for Environment.

NEGATIVE IMAGE

"Canada is going to be seen in negative terms ... It's a disgrace and it's a national shame this government is putting Canada in this position."

MacDonald says it would be better if the federal government was honest about its intentions, opted out of any further global climate change talks, and refused to go to Copenhagen.

"They won't do that presumably because there would be a political price to be paid, making the failings of Canadian policy much more visible," said MacDonald.

In a newspaper interview published Friday, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said reaching a global deal this December was unlikely.

"The fact that Prentice is pooh-poohing the possibility of a deal in Copenhagen, and still refusing to release any details on what this country's plan is, is just horrific," said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence.

'WE ARE IRRELEVANT'

"The best case scenario is we are irrelevant, the worst case scenario is that we are actively obstructing a global deal. It's a pretty sad state of affairs if the best role we can have is one of irrelevance," Smith said.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said she is concerned negotiations leading up to Copenhagen have not been active enough, but she notes that the European and U.S. leadership appear far more keen on a deal.

"If the rest of the world adopted Canada's approach, the future for our kids would be unthinkable," she said.

Harper-Bush Inaction on Global Warming Isolated Their Citizens from the Rest of the World

"Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations." - Stephen Harper, The Star, January 30, 2007

Though Stephen Harper promised an aggressive 'Made in Canada' solution to Global Warming before being elected in 2006, once in office he did a complete flip flop.

Taking George Bush's lead he pulled Canada out of Kyoto and set new goals, which were shocking in their ineffectiveness.

He also moved toward an 'emissions intensity' scheme, a system rendered impotent.

In place of mandatory caps on greenhouse gases, Bush announced a plan to seek an 18 percent decrease by 2012 in the "emissions intensity" of carbon dioxide pollution from power plants and utilities. But notice the sleight of hand: "emissions intensity" is a measure of emissions as a percentage of economic output. Because the administration forecasts significant growth over the next decade, by Bush's own calculations, carbon dioxide emissions will actually increase 14 percent in the next ten years. (1)

In their Book on Bush, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, discuss how Bush's actions damaged international relations, and was one of the reasons that so many countries refused to join him in Iraq.

President Bush further deflated efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by removing the United States from the Kyoto Protocol, the internationally negotiated program to limit CO 2' . Bush had said all along that he would not submit the treaty to the Senate, so his decision itself was no surprise. It was his complete disengagement from the international environmental process—first refusing to cap greenhouse gases domestically, then, pulling the United States out of Kyoto—that generated such worldwide danger. While Bush promised the media that the United States would continue working multilaterally, in the corridors of international diplomacy people regarded the world's only superpower and biggest polluter as pulling stakes on a problem that demands international cooperation.

Consider, for example, that the radiation from Chernobyl fell on Bridgeport, Connecticut—a perfect example of what UN secretary general Kofi Annan calls "problems without passports." The later hostility of European countries to Bush's Iraq policies was sown by his handling of Kyoto—in the anti-war editorials of 2003, they often linked his unilateralist foreign policy with his unilateralist environmental policy. In the international press, Bush's 'CO 2' announcement was referred to as "suicidal," "tragic," "irresponsible," -outrageous," "a low point in world environmental history"—and that was just from our allies. The (Scottish) Sunday Herald wrote of the president's speech: "It was the callousness of his words, the naked self-interest of his sentiment and the disregard he showed for the health and safety of the rest of the world, that really shook people." (2)

And it's Canada shaking the world now. George Montibot wrote for the UK Guardian that 'Canada's image lies in tatters'.

When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world's peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country's government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee's tea party ...

... So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush. Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

The harm done by us will outweigh our century of good works. And it was not only in the UK that this was being noticed.

Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma made a move to have Canada removed from the Commonwealth because of our sabotaging of climate conferences and failure to address this serious issue. Canada!

And in October of 2009, 77 Developing nations walked out on Canada when it was our turn to address the conference.

The government's push to abandon much of the Kyoto protocol prompted dozens of developing countries to walk out on Canada's address during recent climate talks in Thailand, The Canadian Press has learned. The mass walkout came after the Canadian delegation suggested replacing the Kyoto Protocol with an entirely new global-warming pact, according to one of the negotiators and notes taken by others at the meeting.

A widening and bitter rift between rich and developing countries over climate change was laid bare last week when delegates from 180 nations met in Bangkok to shape a successor to Kyoto before its first phase expires in just over two years. The United Nations hopes to broker a draft deal in time for a meeting in Copenhagen this December. (2)

And when Obama was addressing the united Nations, Harper instead made a donut run.

All of this contributed to Canada's losing it's seat on the UN Security Council. It had nothing to do with Michael Ignatieff. It was all Stephen Harper and George Bush.

Sources:

1. The Book on Bush: How George W. (mis) Leads America, By Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Penguin Books, 2004, ISBN: 0-670-03273-5, Pg. 13-15

2. Canadian position prompts walk-out by developing countries at climate talks, By Steve Rennie, The Canadian Press, October 12, 2009

Friends of Science Just Friends of Stephen Harper

During the 2006 election the Conservatives pulled out all the stops, leaving nothing to chance. It failed to give them the Majority they craved and needed to push forward their agenda, but it did win them the election.

They took a page out of George Bush's campaign strategies, to run a Karl Rove attack. They laundered money through non-profit agencies and religious groups to help augment advertising and even tried to defraud taxpayers in a scheme now referred to as the "in and out".

However, one of the biggest challenges facing Harper during that campaign, was his weak stance on the environment, and complete denial of climate change.

Enter a group calling themselves the Friends of Science, who flooded the airwaves with attacks against Kyoto and global warming. But who exactly are these people so concerned with fighting environmental issues?

Oil Companies Funding Friends of Science

A Globe and Mail feature article by Charles Montgomery today has delivered what should be a death blow for the climate change denial and anti-Kyoto attack group, the Friends of Science.

The G&M says that FOS has taken undisclosed sums from Alberta oil and gas interests. The money was funneled through the Calgary Foundation, to the University of Calgary and on to the FOS though something called the “Science Education Fund.”

All this appears to be orchestrated by Stephen Harper’s long-time political confidante and fishing buddy, U. Calgary Prof Dr. Barry Cooper. It seems the FOS has taken a page right out of the US climate change attack group’s playbook: funnel money through foundations and third party groups to “wipe the oil” off the dollars they receive.

This comes as no surprise considering the FOS has been linked to some of the most notorious oil money-backed scientists in the US, including Drs. S. Fred Singer, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood Idso, Willie Soon, Robert C. Balling and Pat Michaels.

Liberals question Conservative link to anti-Kyoto group
David McGuinty was baffled when he first heard provocative advertising about global warming in the midst of the 2006 federal election.
By Canwest News Service

April 20, 2008

OTTAWA - David McGuinty was baffled when he first heard provocative advertising about global warming in the midst of the 2006 federal election.

The radio spots criticized a consumer energy conservation program along with the climate change policies of the government of the day and appeared to come from nowhere, he said.

"I was having to explain an awful lot about climate change at the door, as a candidate," said McGuinty, the Liberal MP for Ottawa South, in an interview. "So when I heard this, I thought, 'Well, why would anybody even run these ads in Ottawa? Why are they going here? And I didn't know they were going across the province in five zones at the time."

The mysterious ads were part of a campaign launched by the Friends of Science - a group formed by retired academics and oil industry insiders who banded together in Calgary to stop the former Liberal government from committing Canada to mandatory targets to reduce its greenhouse gas pollution under the international Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The ads ran only in vote-rich Ontario during the election in the regions of Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Ottawa, Peterborough and Thunder Bay.

At the time, McGuinty probably would never have guessed that the radio ads would result in a law enforcement investigation and an internal audit about the anti-Kyoto group's elaborate funding system which consisted of getting donations at a community charity organization to flow through trust accounts for research at the University of Calgary for advertising, lobbying and public relations activities.

Federal Liberals are now asking questions about the group and whether they are actually linked to the Conservative party.

Although the university publicly released its internal audit of the accounts last week, it blacked out sixteen passages of the report on the grounds that the information might "interfere with or harm an ongoing law enforcement investigation." Under income tax laws, donations to a registered charity cannot be used for partisan purposes, while elections regulations require third parties to register with the chief electoral officer before spending $500 or more in an election campaign.

The audit revealed that Morten Paulsen, a veteran Reform and Conservative party strategist who was also a Tory spokesperson during the 2006 campaign, was simultaneously in charge of a consulting firm that received at least $25,000 from the Friends of Science to develop the radio ad campaign and select which cities would be targeted right before Canadians went to the polls.

When asked for comment, Paulsen declined to answer questions, explaining that he did not want to elaborate on current or former clients for professional reasons.

Before the 2006 election, the Friends of Science pledged in a newsletter to have a "major impact" on the vote through their ad campaign. After Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative party formed a minority government, the group boasted in another newsletter that its campaign "was working." The ads generated 300,000 hits to the group's website in the days leading up to polling day, the Friends of Science said in a January 2006 newsletter.

Federal Liberals even suggest that some ridings narrowly shifted towards the Tories in the targeted regions because of the ads, but Environment Minister John Baird shrugged off McGuinty's allegations that his Conservative party was aware of the ad campaign, and was now being influenced by the Friends of Science to adopt weak federal regulations to cap pollution from industry.

"Blah, blah, blah," Baird said in the Commons last week. "(McGuinty) puts on his tinfoil hat and develops these great theories."

More than half a million dollars flowed through the university accounts to pay a major public relations firm, APCO Worldwide and well-connected lobbyists such as Paulsen who contributed to producing and promoting a sophisticated video on the climate change debate, as well as the radio ad campaign, according to the audit.

Although the University of Calgary has severed all ties with the Friends of Science and shut down the accounts which were set up in 2004 by political science professor Barry Cooper, the anti-Kyoto group is still using the same charity, the Calgary Foundation, to collect money and issue tax deductible receipts for anonymous donors.

The money is now going through an independent think tank, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg, which has received at least $50,000 since last fall, according to a document released by the Calgary Foundation. The Frontier Centre has indicated that it wants to produce a climate change video for children in schools.

Friends of Science audit released

University looks into policies regarding research funding

Jon Roe, Features Editor

April 17, 2008

The University of Calgary has discontinued its relationship with the controversial Friends of Science organization and, after the results of an internal audit released Mon., Apr. 14, the U of C will revise policies related to research funding. But the audit did not determine whether funding from two trust funds at the university for an anti-Kyoto ad campaign was in violation of the Canada Elections Act.

The Friends of Science is a Calgary-based organization that questions the science behind the Kyoto protocol and argues that the sun is the prime driver behind global warming. The audit was released Mon., Apr. 14 after a request filed Feb., 12 by Canwest News Service under the Freedom of Information and Privacy act which asked to review the funding and expenditure of two U of C trust accounts.

The Friends were previously funded via two trust accounts set up at the U of C by political science professor Barry Cooper and the Science Education Fund, a fund set up at the Calgary Foundation under the University of Calgary's name. "We had sufficient concerns last year to sever any relationship with Friends of Science," said U of C provost Alan Harrison in a press release.

"That decision has not changed."The two accounts are now closed. Individuals can still make donations to the Science Education Fund through the Calgary Foundation's online donation form, but the Friends have removed any reference to the fund from their quarterly newsletters.

Funding to the two trust accounts totalled $507,975, $182,875 of which was from individuals and corporations who received tax-deductible donation receipts, according to the audit.

Cooper's name was removed from the audit under a section of the FOIP act designed to protect personal privacy, but in Nov., Friends vice-president Eric Loughead identified Cooper as the lead researcher with the video project.

According to the audit, Cooper was approached by representatives of the Friends who were interested in collaborating with him on a video research project about climate change. Cooper applied for two trust accounts in the fall of 2004 to fund the video project.

The first version of the Friends' video contained the U of C crest, which was removed after the university sent a letter requiring the Friends to discontinue use of the U of C's name or logo.

According to the audit, the U of C was unaware that the logo would be used on the video, contrary to an assertion made by Loughead. "That was our information from Barry Cooper, he said that he had clearance from the [U of C] legal people to do that," Loughead told the Gauntlet in Nov.

The University Audit Services started the audit after an unnamed private citizen brought concerns to the university about the U of C's involvement with the Friends. The audit focused on four allegations: that the U of C was a conduit for funding for the Friends via Cooper's trust accounts, that the Friends ran an anti-Kyoto radio ad campaign funded indirectly or directly through Cooper's trusts during the last federal election, which violated rules for third-party advertisers in the Canada Election Act and the activities of the Friends funded by the trusts were not legitimate scientific research and were funded by anonymous donors.

The fourth allegation was severed from the released report under sections of the privacy act governing disclosure harmful to business interests of a third party and disclosure of advice or recommendations developed by the university.

Other parts of the released version of the audit were removed because they may interfere with or harm an ongoing law enforcement investigation.

The audit was unable to determine whether the video called Climate Catastrophe Cancelled video was a legitimate project and that there was collaboration between Cooper and the Friends of Science because there wasn't an agreement between the U of C and the Friends outlining the terms of their relationship. The audit also couldn't conclusively say that the research undertaken with funding from the two trust accounts set up by Cooper at the U of C was legitimate, but added that there is no evidence that the Climate Catastrophe video was "not based on an intellectually honest search for knowledge.

"Cooper explained to the auditors that the video's objective was educational and not political. The original version of the Climate Catastrophe Cancelled video included archived footage from Canadian Parliament sessions featuring members of the Liberal and NDP party yelling about the dangers of climate change and according to Loughead, the Friends weren't too happy with this introduction.

"We admit the way it was structured originally­--because the political science department at the U of C was behind it--there was a strong political element that we weren't too happy with," said Loughead.

The audit recommends several changes to the way the U of C funds research projects and identifies political activities. U of C management says they agree to all of the recommendations in the audit and has a set a timeline for implementation.

The audit was unable to determine whether the ads ran during the 2005 federal election campaign are considered third-party advertising, but noted that participation in political activities must be identified on a tax form by the university. Currently there is no process to identify and track expenditures on political activities at the U of C for tax-reporting purposes.

Elections Canada has been asked by contributors to the website sourcewatch.org and the DeSmogBlog to investigate the third-party election campaign allegations. Elections Canada requires advertisers who promote or oppose candidates or issues associated with specific parties during an election campaign to register with the Chief Electoral Officer for that election.

The Friends did not register during the 2006 election campaign and maintain that they did not need to register because the ads were booked before the election was called.

Liberal member of Parliament for Ottawa South David McGuinty raised the Friends of Science and the third-party election campaign funding issue in the House of Commons during question period Tue., Apr. 15.

McGuinty noted that Cooper is a good friend of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and of another U of C political science professor, Tom Flanagan, who was Harper's campaign manager during the 2006 election.

"
Mr. Cooper was the head of the Friends of Science, a group being investigating for defrauding the University of Calgary by circulating anti-Kyoto ads during the last election campaign," McGuinty said. "What did the government offer in exchange for Barry Cooper's help during the last election campaign?"Minister of the environment John Baird dismissed McGuinty's question as part of a made-up scandal.

McGuinty alleged that the Friends are now advising Baird on his climate change policy and that Baird oversaw the Friends' ad campaign that ran during the election."Mr. Speaker, blah, blah, blah," said Baird. "The member for Ottawa Centre puts on his tinfoil hat and develops these great theories. There are two reasons why this government is in office. One is the leadership of the Prime Minister of Canada and the other is because of the support of the Liberal Party of Canada."