Noted in Chapter One of this series was the fact Bruce Lourie had created, amongst others, the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network several years ago but the organizations name had been changed to Environment Funders Canada (EFC). Lourie has a habit of creating entities associated with the “climate change” objective and later on changing their names. The other strange thing about his creations is the websites related to the creations seldom, if ever, have a “search” capability so as a result it is virtually impossible to find any references on the site connecting them to the founder which is the case with EFC. Lourie is not listed as either a member of the Board of Directors or in the list of Staff and searching in their posted articles and their annual statements will not have his name pop up! His biography posted on CCI (Canadian Climate Institute) where he sits as a Director does note that he was “a founding Director of the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network“. One should wonder does that suggest perhaps he is a humble individual but, if that was the case, his biographies posted on the web presumably wouldn’t suggest he would seek speaking engagements for a fee!
Bruce A. Lourie is listed as the President in the Ivey Foundations 2019 CRA filing but the 2020 filing shows the President is Bruce A. Laurie. There is no “directors” listed in the 2021 filing! One would assume that “Laurie” is simply an error unless they have replaced him with someone with an almost identical name, but the latter seems unlikely.
The IVEY Foundation on their site state; they were “Established in 2014 as a strategic priority, Ivey Foundation’s primary focus is the Economy and the Environment granting program.“ Back in 2020 they basically said all future grants would be towards support of reaching the elusive “net-zero” emission target which implied no grants would be made for any other purpose. As noted in Chapter One back in late November 2022 Lourie announced the Ivey Foundation would disperse “its entire $100 million endowment over the next five years beginning in 2023.”
Interestingly enough should one review the CRA filings (December 31, 2021) for the Ivey Foundation it discloses the “Compensation range” for their employees. The following screenshot depicts that someone in the Foundation is paid in excess of $350K annually! The above noted five-year windup will mean the “someone” at the Ivey Foundation may have been paid $1,750,000 to run a charity! Not too shabby!
Now, imagine how much the $1,750,000 would help food banks trying their best to feed families and seniors experiencing poverty due to energy costs rising which drive up the price of everything including what they need to eat? Now also imagine how many families could be fed with the “$100 million endowment” destined for Lourie’s alumni.
A brief review of the “grants” file on the Ivey Foundation website disclosed approximately $1,245,000 went to five (5) members of the Strathmere Group (Environmental Defence, Ecojustice, etc.) and $3,090.000 to five (5) of Lourie’s creations (Environment Funders Canada, The Transition Accelerator, Efficiency Canada, etc.) or where he was instrumental in their creation.
For some reason we should expect none of those employed by the Ivey Foundation or the ten companies we searched for on the Ivey “grant” site are worried about “energy poverty” or about the harm they and the myriad of climate cult charities entrenched within the CRA listings are causing.
Curiosity arose when the Ivey grants were totalled so a search of the Federal Government’s “Grant” files for the last 5 years was undertaken for those same ten entities referenced above and as it turns our the five (5) members of the Strathmere Group were handed grants of approximately $19.7 million and the five (5) entities associated with Bruce Lourie seem to have received grants of around $47.1 million. We should be pretty sure that much money would have helped lots of food banks across the country feed the undernourished families suffering from energy poverty!
We seem to be witnessing the advent of the “Circular Economy” that will apparently benefit the elite of our society which in this particular case are weirdly classified as “charities”!
Bruce Lourie over the years has become a celebratory related to his life’s work advocating for “climate change and the transition to a net-zero economy.” His biography can be found numerous times via a simple Google search, and they make him sound saintlike perhaps due to his ability to influence elected politicians in the advancement of the “Just Transition”.
One of his bios notes; “he has been instrumental in creating more than a dozen organizations that play a critical role in Canada’s transition to a net-zero economy, including Canadian Climate Institute, the Institute for Sustainable Finance, Farmers for Climate Solutions, Efficiency Canada and The Transition Accelerator.“
Yet another bio posted on CCI (Canadian Climate Institute) where he serves as a “director” states; “He is a founding Director of the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network and Canadians for Clean Prosperity as well as a Director with Philanthropic Foundations Canada and the Ontario Power Authority.“ The Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network has had a name change and is now called: Environment Funders Canada!
Lourie, as CEO of the IVEY Foundation has gained recent fame with the announcement back in late November 2022 stating; “the Ivey Foundation announced Tuesday that it will wind up operations by the end of 2027 and disperse its entire $100 million endowment over the next five years, beginning in 2023.“
Handing out money you didn’t generate in order to save the world from “climate change” would seem to be an easy task and obviously Lourie is committed to it. It is also fascinating Lourie has an ability to found other “organizations” dedicated to the same objectives and seems capable of obtaining Government Grants to get those organizations such as “The Transition Accelerator” (TTA) up and running.
Reviewing the Government Grant files for the foregoing discloses they have obtained $1,750,000 to execute and push “clean fuel standards”, and “awareness” of them! The Transition Accelerator, (a registered charity) based on their CRA year-end filing for December 31, 2021, not only received funds from the Federal Government but also reported funds were handed to them from both provincial and municipal governments totaling $360,000! It also received $2,201,983 from other “registered charities”. They reported spending $1,926,429 on “professional and consulting fees” and claimed “expenditures on charitable activities” of $2,266,848 which was 71% of their gross revenue for the full year! Hmm, we should wonder who really benefited from that charitable activity and who was the beneficiary of the $1,926,429 spent on those “professional and consulting fees”?
Strangely enough the Ivey Foundation in their CRA filing for the year ended December 31, 2021 only reported “expenditures on charitable activities” of $1,049,390 so less then 50% of what the TTA reported! As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.
The TTA, despite being a charity, has received zero (0) dollars in the five years of filings with the CRA that required them to issue a tax receipt. One should wonder why Lourie decided it should be a charity and not simply a “not-for-profit” as it’s not attracting any real charitable donations?
In a review of the IVEY Foundation grants they reported $1,210,000 in funds were donated to The Transition Accelerator over the two years of 2020 and 2021 suggesting the “circular economy” may have evolved within the “climate change” advocate’s domains!
Nevertheless, despite the above we should wonder where the TTA’s $2,266,838 of “charitable activities” actually went and why the CRA allows this to happen!
Suspicious about how those IWT (industrial wind turbines) were generating unneeded power for the past couple of days, a review of IESO data for May 19th and May 20th disclosed the awful truth!
Ontario households and businesses took a nasty hit as those IWT were producing nothing but unneeded power for the last couple of days as is their habit in the Spring and Fall. On May 19th IESO accepted 31,052 MWh and curtailed 1,200 MW from the IWT generators and then on May 20th IESO accepted 42,542 MWh and curtailed 6,681 MW.
As is quite frequent during this time of the year the demand for power in Ontario wasn’t needed so IESO were busy getting rid of it selling it off for pennies of its cost to Michigan, New York and Quebec with net exports (exports minus imports) on May 19th of 55,382 MWh and 56,382 MWh on May 20th. As one can easily understand those net-exports on both days were well in excess of what those IWT delivered meaning they were not needed as peak demand on the 19th reached only 14,413 MW at hour 18 and 15,561 MW on May 20th at hour 20.
The parties buying and selling the excess energy surely had a field day as the average HOEP (hourly Ontario energy price) or market price averaged only $10.96 (about one cent per kWh) on May 19th and even less on May 20th as the HOEP averaged $5.92/MWh (less than one cent per kWh).
The net result was IWT generation (accepted and curtailed) on May 19th cost $4,336,020 and May 20th IWT generation (accepted and curtailed) cost $6,544,820. Collectively the two days brought those IWT owners’ gross revenue of $10,880,540 due to their “first-to-the-grid” rights under their contracts with IESO.
Over the two days the HOEP sale price of that unneeded IWT generation earned a miniscule $591,515 (5.4% of their cost) putting the net cost of that power (our neighbours happily snapped up) to $10,289,315.
The weight of the McGuinty/Wynne GEA (Green Energy Act) pushed by Gerald Butts continues to hammer Ontarians with costs providing no value except to the owners of those IWT and our neighbours!
Those who voted for the Ford led government surely hoped their gaining a majority in the Provincial Parliament would somehow result in a different outcome. Electricity costs of energy are essential to the daily needs of households and businesses but for some reason their rising costs are not dealt with.
Just another problem brought to us by the “climate change” fanatics our politicians seem unwilling to challenge as we watch our costs rise and energy poverty increase!
Canadian Climate Institute: One of the Federal many bureaucracies as previously noted, has received extensive coverage from yours truly in both a series of articles and one recent one! Its creation by the Trudeau led government went through three name changes in just three years and is now called, the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI)! They are handed millions of our tax dollars annually and as recently noted have become a “charity” officially recognized by the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) on July 29, 2021. Their March 31, 2022, filing indicated they received a total of $5K in tax receipted donations which represents about 2% of what the CEO, Rick Smith was paid annually with out tax dollars so may have covered one weeks pay for him! To make matters even more ridiculous CCI also was handed a $500K grant which is double his salary. If they have been allocated an annual budget and are now receiving taxpayer funded grants, why should they need to become a charity one should ask!
Grand Challenges Canada: Another government bureaucracy called; Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) has also recently become a registered charity! GCC claim their mission is; “To catalyze innovation that saves and improves the lives of the most underserved in Canada and low- and middle-income countries“ and their vision statement is “A world in which innovation accelerates the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals“
Grand Challenges Canada was launched in 2010 by Jim Flaherty and then was “aimed at solving some of the world’s most pressing health challenges“ but under the Liberals it seems to have changed directions or emphasize the current buzz word! A search on the website using “climate change” generates hundreds of links to it’s reputed role in dealing with those health issues in the “low-and middle-income countries” and within Canada’s “indigenous communities” as a result of “climate change”! In the case of GCC their entity created back in 2010 didn’t simply morph into a charity and instead created a “Foundation” recently which was registered with the CRA June 20, 2018. They receive around $30 million annually of taxpayer dollars handed out by Global Affairs Canada as well as lots of other funding from foreign government entities and even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Their “foundation” filing as of March 31, 2021, stated their total assets were $99,960. One year later the March 31, 2022 statement filed showed total assets (cash) of $3,737,825 but total revenue during the most recent year’s CRA filed report was only $614,035. which included tax receipted donations of $604,035. Anyone with some basic math skills would wonder where did that $3 million plus in cash suddenly come from? They claim it is “deferred revenue”!
For those of you who wonder why CCI and GCC supported extensively by Canadian taxpayers are doing what they do, you need only look back in time when several “environmental charities” were under threat of investigation by the CRA for their political activities. Shortly after the Trudeau led Liberal Party won the election those investigations were cancelled. At least six of those on the list were environmental charities such as Environmental Defence where Rick Smith (now CEO of CCI) was the head honcho until he wandered off to the Broadbent Institute!
It seems ironic that several of those charities who were being investigated back in the days when Harper was the PM now have unprecedented influence over the current government and additionally receive grants and contracts from them all at the cost of us taxpayers.
It also seems apparent the current government under PM Trudeau are determined to create more “charities” to support their “climate change” manifesto with our tax dollars.
Marc Patrone had me on his show today and we chatted about how wind and solar generation adds heavy costs to our electricity supply due to it’s unreliable nature. We touched on a few other subjects related to our demand in the province during the Spring and Fall as well as baseload power.
You can listen to my May 18th chat with Marc on the podcast here starting at 68:07 ending at 82:45!
Well once again Ontario ratepayer’s and taxpayer’s generosity was in full swing as those IWT (industrial wind turbines) were in full motion throughout the day. IESO forecast they would generate 60,760 MWh or about 52% of their capacity (enough to supply over 2 million average Ontario households) but accepted 51,130 MWh meaning about 9,630 MWh were curtailed.
The cost of the foregoing at $135/MWh for what was accepted was $6,902,550 plus another $1,155,600 for the curtailed power at $120/MWh bringing the total cost to $8,058,150 for the IWT output. The big problem with yesterday’s IWT output was; we didn’t need it as demand throughout the day was less than what our baseload (nuclear and most hydro) provided and peak demand only reached 14,757 MW at Hour 21.
What the foregoing resulted in was seeing all that surplus generation exported while driving down the market price (HOEP) which averaged only $3.40/MWh over the day. As a result, IESO data disclosed our net exports (exports minus imports) to Michigan, New York and Quebec were 57,732 MWh. Going further, the IWT accepted generation of 51,130 MWh represented 88.6% of what we gave away. If we included the IWT curtailed generation those IWT could have generated 105% of what we sold off for pennies of their guaranteed “first-to-the-grid” costs.
The results from having those IWT generate their intermittent and unreliable power is costs to Ontarians for just yesterday’s unneeded generation was just shy of $7.9 million.
The above clearly shows how layering unreliable and intermittent generation like wind and solar drives up the costs of our energy consumption.
Despite the obvious there clearly is no intention IESO will reduce those costs as a Press Release from them yesterday illustrates they are going to add yet another layer. They announced the “largest energy storage procurement ever in Canada“ and the bulk of it will be battery storage allowing the IWT owners to double down on the revenue grab from us ratepayers. Those battery storage systems will allow them to buy their intermittent wind generation (we are obliged to purchase) for the cheap market price and sell it back into the grid at higher prices when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.
We should all wonder; when will commonsense ever return or is this meant to drive more of us into “energy poverty” to save the world from “global warming”!
PS: The overnight temperature in most of Southern Ontario in mid-May was around zero (0) degrees Celsius which suggests we may have solved the UNIPCC crisis!
The foregoing is a quote of Malcolm Muggeridge an English journalist famous for bringing the Mother Teresa story to world attention. My belief is the quote is appropriate to amplify how eco-warriors have continued their pursuit of what they once labelled “global warming”, but the world didn’t warm! Because it didn’t warm, they changed the overriding message to “climate change” which most sane people in the world would easily agree has been happening during their lifetime and for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
The following article and chart below was written and posted on the web almost eleven years ago and the message contained in it hasn’t changed materially other then it’s full-on amplification here in Canada and around the world because people fail to see; it is really old news!
My hope is to expand on the activities of those in the below article through further research in an update that falls directly in line with what Malcolm Muggeridge so aptly delineated in his quote.
Stay tuned but read the following and see if you agree with the quote and remember the below article well be 11 years old next month so it’s old news!
Bruce Lourie’s Spider Web Grows and catches more Prey and Tax Dollars
An article I wrote in May 2012 identified the extent of Bruce Lourie’s reach into the world of climate change/renewable energy through a plethora of charities, not-for-profit and for-profit entities that he founded or where he exerts influence. This was elaborated on with a follow-up article that looked at three of the companies he founded and attempted to trace some of the millions of taxpayer dollars that have found their way to those three. Included with the latter was a spider web that attempted to trace the connections and the money flow.
This piece will look at two more of the Lourie creations which are; The Sustainability Network and the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network (CEGN).
Reviewing the Sustainability Network’s website is an exercise in trying to define what they are trying to accomplish. The focus becomes somewhat clearer after reading what they see as their mission referred to as: “ Our mission is to enrich Canadian environmental leaders and non-profit organizations through programs, services and support that help them increase their capacity to lead, manage and strategize.” …and, “We are about sustaining the organizations that work on sustainability.”
So from all appearances, the Sustainability Network, who have received almost $1 million dollars from the Trillium Foundation (where Lourie sat as a Director) work with our tax dollars to sustain sustainable organizations. The inference is that the organizations that expect us to lead “sustainable” lives, can’t even sustain themselves. The Network also received support from the Ivey Foundation (Lourie is the President), Salamander Foundation (an Ivey affiliated foundation) and several other Foundations including Suncor Energy Foundation. It is ironic that the “renewable energy” crowd continually rant that the anti-wind and solar groups are funded by big oil, but they willingly take money from big oil while fighting further oilsands projects and the building of pipelines. Strange bedfellows!
The Sustainability Network has also received grants from Tides Canada, the Oak Foundation, the Catherine Donnelly Fund several other private foundations and a “Certified “B” Corp” referred to as “green living”. For those unfamiliar with Certified “B” corporations check out the MaRS Discovery District. A Certified “B” corporation is reportedly a business corporation that uses its powers to “solve social and environmental problems”. It operates somewhere between a for-profit and a not-for-profit is the way the writer interprets the gobbledygook. “B” corporations are an import from the US where they are seeking special tax status from municipal, state and federal governments. Green Living has an Advisory Board that includes; A. Heintzman of the Premier’s recently announced Clean Energy Task Force, Rick Smith who is on the same task force and the Executive Director of Environmental Defence, Geoff Cape of Evergreen, Bob Oliver of Pollution Probe, Dr. Moole of David Suzuki Foundation and Tim Gray of the Ivey Foundation.
The Sustainability Network is a charity, but you are hard pressed to find that out through a visit to their website as they don’t even appear to have a “donate” button. As a registered charity sustaining yourself through grants must allow you to preach to others how to go about doing the same and turns the CRA’s governance of charitable institutions into a joke. Those “strange bedfellows” (ENGOs & Oil Companies) mentioned above become stranger still if one looks at the Clean Air Renewable Energy Coalition (CAREC) originally founded by Suncor and the Pembina Institution in 2000. The member list now includes; Friends of the Earth, Pollution Probe, World Wildlife Fund, Toronto Environmental Alliance and many of the oil companies and renewable energy developers as well as OPG and Toronto Hydro. The objective of the organization is defined as; “Clean Air Renewable Energy Coalition is a group of corporate and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) formed to accelerate the development of Canada’s renewable energy industry.” and defines its target as: “The coalition has been most targeted on, and influential at, the Federal level of government in Canada by advocating measures to narrow the gap (writer’s emphasis) between the price of “green power” and the price of “conventional power”.
On the latter point the ENGOs have been very effective in Ontario, simply by convincing the Liberal Government to drive up the price of electricity by paying above market rates to those industrial wind and solar developers that are represented on CAREC’s membership list.
The offices for the Sustainability Network are located at 215 Spadina Ave. Toronto which is coincidentally the same address as Tides Canada’s Toronto office and until recently also the home of another Lourie creation, the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network.
The latter Lourie creation, CEGN has as its mission; “To expand the scope and effectiveness of grantmaking in support of the Canadian environment.” and noted that the need for the network grew out of issues that reputedly are of a cross-border nature as the following attempts to explain: “There is growing interest on the part of American grantmakers in support to Canadian environmental issues and organizations.” If one, then looks at the membership list of CEGN it becomes obvious that foreign grantmakers and Canadian taxpayer owned foundations and other public sector organizations make up a large portion of the 59 members. There are 11 public sector entities such as the Ontario Power Authority, Trillium Foundation, Toronto Atmospheric Fund, Friends of the Greenbelt, etc. listed as members along with at least 7 US Foundations including several mentioned in Vivian Krause’s many articles in the Financial Post and on her website. Those include the Oak Foundation ($426,000 grant to Environmental Defence, $218,000 to the Sierra Club, $98,000 to OSEA, $87,000 to Pollution Probe and $1.4 million to Tides Canada), The Bullitt Foundation, the Wilburforce Foundation, etc. The Canadian members include three of the Ivey related foundations and in addition; Tides Canada, Suncor Energy Fund, the Shell Environmental Fund and the Canadian Boreal Initiative (not a foundation).
Another interesting aspect of the CEGN website is that they thank their “sustaining” members “whose very generous support of CEGN is much appreciated” and one of those on that list is the Trillium Foundation where Lourie sat as a Director for many years. One would think that with the hundreds of millions of dollars represented by the “private” foundations that are members of CEGN that they wouldn’t need to go cap in hand to a taxpayer owned institution for a grant, but they did and also got Trillium Foundation to become a sustaining member. One would also wonder at the wisdom of those dealing with the CEGN application at Trillium when confronted with the request for a grant. Environmentalists apparently are perhaps not concerned that the funds they take away for their own purpose might actually go to a truly worthy cause.
CEGN commissioned Tyler Hamilton, Editor in Chief of Corporate Knights and occasional writer for the Toronto Star to complete a paper titled: “How to Accelerate Canada’s Transition to a Green Economy and the Role for Philanthropy”. In the process of preparing this “Building Bridges” paper the author reportedly interviewed 11 Canadian “Thought Leaders” including Don Drummond, former Chief Economist of TD Bank, Jim Stanford, Economist with the CAW, Marlo Raynolds, Executive Director of Pembina, Preston Manning and several others. Leafing through the report is an interesting exercise to see how statements can be used in a fashion that decidedly puts these “Thought Leaders” in the environmental camp. The author’s conclusions identify the need to educate the unknowing public when it comes to climate change. Others reading this might conclude some of these “Thought Leaders” were suggesting a form of “brainwashing” which brings to mind the “thought police” of George Orwell’s book, 1984.
The one summary in the paper that caught my eye was the one that stated; “be more creative with the use of public money”! As a taxpayer and ratepayer in Ontario my view is that the ENGOs have been extremely creative and continue to be. They all seem determined to tank the rest of the Canadian economy as they have effectively done in Ontario and along the way have used tax dollars and foreign grants to further their cause. To gain some idea of the creative ability of Mr. Lourie one only has to view the attached spider web of his connections and see how those connections work in conjunction with the money flows from taxpayers and foundations.
Reading “About the Author” of this paper was amusing as near the end of the list of his accomplishments; the point is made that Mr. Hamilton is now an adjunct professor at York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies. Any of us following the craziness that is now labelled “climate change” or “renewable energy” is aware that York is the main breeding ground for the bulk of our self professed environmental experts including Bruce Lourie.
It is ironic that the taxpayers are picking up most of the costs to train the next generation of environmental “thought police”.
Mother’s Day which was March 14th this year, has come and gone, much like we grandfathers, grandmothers, sons and daughters here in Ontario have just had over $4 million taken from our pockets to pay for the intermittent supply of IWT (industrial wind turbines). The money is gone because we didn’t need any IWT generation but because of their “first-to-the-grid” rights embedded in their contracts we were obliged to pay the IWT owners.
The day was atypical for the spring with demand reaching a lowly 5-minute peak of 14,627 MW during Hour 21 (hour ending at 9 PM) versus those much higher demand hours in the summer and winter months.
Needless to say IESO were busy trying to get rid of our surplus power by selling it off to Michigan, New York and Quebec as nuclear plus our baseload hydro were more than enough to supply us for the full 24 hours. As it turned out net-exports (exports minus imports) were 65,498 MWh (about what 2.2 million households consume daily) and the market price, ie: HOEP (hourly Ontario Energy Price) averaged only $3.88/MWH or 0.04 cents/kWh! What that means is we earned a grand total of only $$254K from their sale but our costs for their generation was up around the $7 million mark.
Naturally a big part of the above costs were the IWT generated power as IESO forecast they would generate 33,627 MWh but they only accepted 23,822 into the grid so the other 9,805 MWh were curtailed. As most Ontarians know we pay $135/MWh for grid accepted IWT generation and another $120/MWh for what is curtailed so the total amount we taxpayers/ratepayers paid to the IWT owners was approximately $4.4 million or about 63% of the $7 million cost of all the exported surplus power.
It is worth noting grid accepted IWT generation only represented around 36% of the total net-exported MWh we sold but their generation and curtailed power surely played a significant role in driving down the market price as the buyers would recognize we had to sell it off or give it away for nothing.
As if to reinforce the latter the HOEP for 12 of the 24 hours yesterday reported by IESO was 0.00/MWh!
Once again, the events surrounding the intermittent and unreliable nature of those IWT clearly demonstrated their uselessness unless it is to reduce emissions from coal plants* located elsewhere!
*A recent Scott Luft post demonstrates how we Ontarians are helping Michigan reduce their emissions from those nasty coal plants but they are not giving us any carbon credits we could sell off to recoup some of the IWT costs!
Well May 10th clearly demonstrated the volatile nature of IWT yesterday bouncing from producing a low 24 MWh at Hour 9 when they were forecast to produce 25 MWh to a forecast generation of 1,316 MWh at Hour 24 but at that hour IESO only accepted 881 MWh meaning they curtailed about 435 MWh. Those IWT presented themselves in a backward motion as at Hour 9 Ontario’s demand is usually on the rise and at Hour 24 demand is heading down. At Hour 9 it reached 14,077 MW and at Hour 12 it fell to only 12,507 MW which nuclear and hydro easily provided and perhaps why IESO curtailed some of that wind generation we ratepayers are obligated to pay for.
As is frequent during our Spring and Fall seasons demand is almost always low whereas peaks during our summers are often in the 22,000 MW range and in the winter in the 20,000 MW area. Those latter seasonal peaks are generally when the wind isn’t around!
So yesterday, wind was very wimpy and those IWT could have delivered only 12,100 MWh (IESO curtailed about 890 MWh) so would have operated at 10.3% of their capacity which is well below their yearly average of 29/30%. Due to their “first-to-the-grid rights they will be fully paid for what IESO accepted and curtailed even though it wasn’t needed.
Because it was a well below average day for IWT output, it won’t cost Ontario’s ratepayers and taxpayers too much (about $1.6/1.8 million), even though it was probably all exported or caused our cheaper power supply to be sold to our neighbours in Michigan, New York and Quebec.
What the foregoing demonstrates is we ratepayers/taxpayers should be thankful for those too infrequent Spring and Fall days when the wind isn’t blowing.
The CCI was originally called the Canadian Institute for Clean Growth and Climate Change(CICGCC) when originally created by Catherine McKenna as the Federal Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. The announcement was made as an outgrowth of a reputed “competition” and McKenna handed the winning bidder; “The Pan-Canadian Expert Collaboration” a group headed up by Kathy Bardswick, former President and CEO of The Co-operators Group Ltd; $20 million of our tax dollars. That $20 million was for the anticipated five (5) year process of using; “Their expertise is a source of clean-growth solutions for Canada and the world and can help all of us mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.“ The original name suggested whatever was to come from this new taxpayer funded organization produced by their “expertise” was a foregone conclusion so the name was changed to the “Canadian Institute for Climate Change” or CICC.
It is now called the Canadian Climate Institute and they have; presumably with the blessing of the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency), converted this government created organization to a CHARITY!
One should wonder why they became a charity as they were a “not-for-profit” institution annually receiving the $4 million to display their “expertise” via those unbiased reports (sarcasm intended) promised by former Minister McKenna. It appears the annual $4 million of our tax dollars wasn’t enough as displayed on page 2 of their Annual Impact Report for 2022-2023! It states:
“The Canadian Climate Institute is a non-partisan pan-Canadian charitable organization. Our work is made possible through the financial support of Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the generous support of the Ivey Foundation, Scotiabank, Loblaw Companies Limited, QuadReal Property Group, and the Trottier Family Foundation.“ As an aside a review of the above only disclosed one contribution of $20K from the Trottier Foundation via the CRA filings whereas the Ivey Foundation failed to provide their “donee” list to the CRA. One should wonder why the CRA doesn’t enforce its regulations?
The CRA filing for CCI provides the salary ranges for the top 10 employees and the top earner, who presumably is the current CEO, Rick Smith, earns somewhere between $200,000 to $249,999! No energy poverty for him!
Back on January 3, 2022 Rick Smith had an article published in Macleans titled “Let’s make climate change boring in 2022” and in it was the following paragraph:
“The U.K., for instance, has halved carbon emissions since 1990. It has settled into an annual cycle of executing the national carbon reduction plan, assessing progress against the plan, updating the plan, then repeating. It’s boring. It’s predictable. It’s working.“
Interestingly enough Mr. Smith failed to even consider how reducing emissions would drive up home energy costs and they did; adding over 2 million more households in 2022 as the following quote from an article in the Guardian on February 28, 2023 notes: “The number of households in England who spend more than 10% of their income, excluding housing costs, on energy has increased from 4.93m households in 2021 to 7.39m in 2022.“ He seems determined to do the same thing to Canadian households. At his taxpayer funded salary however it is unlikely he will experience “energy poverty” so he presses on to increase energy poverty for the rest of the population!
Now looking at this charity it is interesting to note the financial information filed with the CRA for the year ended March 31, 2022, indicates charitable donations represented 0.2% (2/10th of 1%) of their gross revenue strongly suggesting logical individuals fail to recognize them as a “charity”!
Now having a look at Government Grants we should note CCI back on December 5, 2022 were handed a $500K Grant from the Federal Government described as “Policy analysis and stakeholder views on climate and environmental impacts of inactive oil and gas wells“. Apparently the $4 million per year handed to the CCI is insufficient so they must gobble up another $500K of our tax dollars.
CCI Collaboration
Looking further at the CCI Annual Impact Report for 2022-2023 it is interesting to read the message from the President, Rick Smith as he notes “In March 2023, the federal Sustainable Finance Action Council published the Taxonomy Roadmap Report. Our experts contributed to this inaugural taxonomy proposal, which starts to define what “green” and “transition” investing could look like in Canada, helping drive crucial private investments into activities that reduce emissions.“ The Smith message went on to say “In July 2022, the Climate Institute hosted our first roundtable showcasing Indigenous-led research and policy on climate change. And in October, we teamed up with the Net-Zero Advisory Body to cohost our first in-person national conference“
Sustainable Finance Action Council: For those who are not familiar with the Sustainable Finance Action Council it is another organization created by the Trudeau led Government on May 12, 2021, under Finance Minister Freeland and Jonathon Wilkinson, then Minister of Environment and Climate Change. They appointed Kathy Bardswick (former Chair of the CICC before it’s name change to CCI) as the inaugural Chair and the Press Release stated “Sustainable finance is about incorporating environmental, social and governance factors into investment decisions and is a fast-growing market that is gaining speed as more and more businesses address climate change and transition to a low-carbon economy and seize the economic opportunities it presents.“ The council was basically charged with aligning ESG within the controls of the many companies operating in the confines of finance including banks, insurance companies and pension funds. Needless to say in the time that followed they had numerous meetings, plenary sessions etc. with various parties within the “financial sector” but none of the meetings, etc. appeared to be with sectors that manufacture products or distribute them, grow food and sell or serve it, those who supply energy and others who would be most affected by applying ESG standards to their businesses. One should wonder why their views were not sought?
Net-Zero Advisory Body: This may be another unfamiliar named organization by the Trudeau led Government announced on February 25, 2021 by Jonathan Wilkinson, the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change at the time and he met with the newly appointed; Co-Chairs, Marie-Pierre Ippersiel and Dan Wicklum. The latter is CEO of the Transition Accelerator one of the many charities founded by Bruce Lourie where he sits as the Chair. In a look at the CRA Charity files for the Transition Accelerator it discloses they have NEVER had a donation where they have been required to issue a “tax receipt”! They have been quite successful at obtaining Government Grants however, of at least $1.8 million.
Turning now to the Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB) we should note in January 2023 they delivered their first annual report. The co-chairs message to Minister Guilbeault about his “Emission Reduction Plan” had this to say: “The measures proposed in the 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) set credible foundations upon which a more ambitious transition can be built. While we are confident our advice will help put Canada on the right path, bringing the full suite of ERP measures and proposals to fruition as quickly and rigorously as possible is required for success.“
They said the foregoing despite the scary part of his original message which claimed: “Climate change is a crisis that persists and will only grow if we do not do more, faster. Flooding, landslides, drought, and wildfire—the mounting costs of extreme weather underscore the need to chart towards a future where Canadians have both a clean environment and a strong economy.“
It is amusing and mind-blowing to scan the 75 pages of the NZAB’s annual report and to visualize the destruction that will be caused to Canada’s economy via the 25 pieces of “advice” the report recommends in support of Guilbeault’s ERP. The issue related to costs of each piece of advice are not examined or commented on and only one reference to annual costs can be found. if one searches using the “$” sign only 9 can be found. If one searches using “net-zero” however it generates 464 hits and “emissions” brings 171. We should have no doubt this is what was anticipated!
In respect to costs the report doesn’t analyze any of their “advice” and quotes other reports with only one in respect to the total annual costs which seems low: “For example, one study shows that a pan-Canadian energy transition in all sectors would cost up to $43.3 billion annually until reaching net-zero“ That would represent about 1.6% of Canada’s annual GDP (2022 estimates) and approximately 22.7% of the 2023 annual budget. One should wonder where those billions will come from as we are already running significant annual budget deficits.
In other news about the NZAB they seem excited as some of them attended the COP 26 Conference in Glasgow and while there: NZAB, the CICC (now the CCI) and the IVEY Foundation (Bruce Lourie is the CEO) co-hosted an informal gathering with guests from the Canadian delegation and the ICCN. The two Co-Chairs posted pictures on their site with Trudeau, Guilbeault and Wilkinson but it’s hard to judge their excitement as they all have their masks on.
We should be pretty sure the above attendees at COP 26 in Glasgow were there thanks to the generosity of Canada’s taxpayers along with the other 270+ Canadian delegates that were in attendance.
It seems readily apparent the Trudeau led government who will spend over $34 billion annually to service our national debt have no problem at spending another $43.3 billion annually to achieve the net-zero targets, even though it will have no effect on “global warming”! It brings to mind our PM’s quote:
Ah, yes; “you’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy!”
Well then, could you PM Trudeau, at the least stop granting charitable status to institutions your government creates and stop throwing our tax dollars to them via “grants”!
Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives 