Bruce Lourie’s Creations of “Climate Change” Entities Transition into Charities Chapter Two

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”!

IWT Just Removed over $10 million from Ontario Ratepayer and Taxpayer’s Pockets

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 19^th and May 20^th 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 19^th IESO accepted 31,052 MWh and curtailed 1,200 MW from the IWT generators and then on May 20^th 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 19^th of 55,382 MWh and 56,382 MWh on May 20^th.  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 19^th reached only 14,413 MW at hour 18 and 15,561 MW on May 20^th 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 19^th and  even less on May 20^th as the HOEP averaged $5.92/MWh (less than one cent per kWh).

The net result was IWT generation (accepted and curtailed) on May 19^th cost $4,336,020 and May 20^th 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!  

Why is the Federal Government allowing Charities to be Created by Government Bureaucracies?

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.

“All new news is old news happening to new people”

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”.

Parker Gallant, June 30, 2012

PS: One of the original posts of the above can be found at the following website and contains many of the links to the aforementioned parties! Hey Ontario!……..wanna know who’s getting your money?………..Not Health Care!!!! | The Big Green Lie (wordpress.com)

The Strathmere Group Have Been Gobbling up our Tax Dollars

As pointed out in a series of eleven articles starting back in September 2020 and concluding in September 2021 the “Strathmere Group”, consisting of ten (10) charities and two (2) not-for-profit entities, were out to save the world from “climate change”! 

The history of the group and their partnership with each other as well as 21 U.S. environmental groups was inspired by none other then Jerry DeMarco who is at present the Federal, Environmental Commissioner, in the Auditor General’s office.  A paper written by DeMarco stated, “environmental non-government organizations (ENGOs) must overcome the “silos” isolating them from one another in order to “think and act like a movement”. 

Needless to say, with some minor shuffles in the “Strathmere Group” they certainly overcame the “silo” and now benefit substantially with our tax dollars while we taxpayers suffer the consequences of their agenda which has been totally endorsed by the current minority Federal Liberal Government and supported by the NDP.

The  Strathmere Group and their leaders in 2009 were:

Rick Bates, Executive Director, Canadian Wildlife Federation, Gerald Butts, President and CEO, WWF-Canada, Bruce Cox, Executive Director, Greenpeace Canada, Stephen Hazell, Executive Director, Sierra Club Canada, Eric Hebert-Daly, National Executive Director, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Bob Oliver, Executive Director, Pollution Probe, Devon Page, Executive Director, Ecojustice, Marlo Raynolds, Executive Director, Pembina Institute, Sidney Ribaux, Executive Director, Equiterre, Peter Robinson, President, David Suzuki Foundation, Graham Saul, Executive Director, Climate Action Network Canada and Rick Smith, Executive Director, Environmental Defence Canada.

The reader will notice three names have been highlighted above who are; Gerald Butts, Malo Raynolds and Rick Smith and most readers will instantly recognize why! Those three have either played significant roles in executing their beliefs or continue in positions influencing politicians in both the Federal and Provincial governments. Butts will be remembered as being Trudeau’s right-hand man and also responsible for the Green Energy Act pushing renewable energy in Ontario and doubling electricity bills. Raynolds should be regarded as primarily responsible for the Strathmere Group’s formation and mandate. Raynolds was also a losing Liberal candidate in the 2015 Federal election but despite that became Chief of Staff in 2015 under Catherine McKenna when she was Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Rick Smith moved on from President of Environmental Defence to become President of the Canadian Climate Institute created by the Trudeau government with $20 million of our tax dollars to push the “net-zero” agenda.

Interestingly Raynolds now is the “Executive in Residence” at Arc Financial Corp. whose website states: “ARC is focused on investing in conventional oil and gas and in sustainable energy industries. Located in Calgary, the heart of the Canadian energy sector, ARC has access to attractive, competitive opportunities and a pool of talented and experienced entrepreneurs.“ It appears Raynolds has been hired to presumably get ARC to exit the oil and gas sector and move their $6 billion portfolio into those wind, solar and hydrogen renewable developments that he was pushing when Chief of Staff in his former position which presumably included doling out government grants! Surely someone dedicated to the philosophy he visualized when creating the Strathmere Group will continue his life’s mission in his new job!

Our Tax Dollars going to the Strathmere Group members:

As it has been well over two years since the series of articles about the Strathmere Group, it’s worth looking back over the past five (5) years to see if our tax dollars have found their way into the pockets of the ten (10) charities.

While there were twelve members in the group the “charitable status excludes Greenpeace and the Climate Action Network! The latter is simply an association of ENGO (environmental non-government organizations) whereas Greenpeace lost or gave up their charitable status when being investigated by the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency).  The investigation also was reviewing others in the Strathmere Group including; the David Suzuki Foundation, Pembina Foundation, Environmental Defence and Equiterre whose co-founder was reputedly none other than our current Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault.  When the Justin Trudeau Liberal led party won the majority in 2015 one of the early things that happened was the investigation suddenly disappeared.

Accordingly, with the above in mind and the stature of some of those signatures on the Strathmere declaration having risen to places of influence within the bureaucracy of the Federal Government, a review of the charity filings seemed logical.  A look over the past five years of CRA charitable filings was therefore executed along with a review of the Grants and Contributions and the Federal Contracts websites.

What was Discovered:

CRA Filings:

1(a). According to the five years of CRA filings by the ten charities they reported having received $51,440,000 from the Federal Government, $14,985,000 from provincial governments and $677,000 from municipal governments. 

1(b). Those ten charities over the five years have also received $81,723,000 from other Canadian charities plus another $45,208,000 from Foreign parties with a portion of those donations also receiving tax receipts.

1(c). Collectively the ten charities received tax-receipted donations of $253,859,000 but two of the ten charities (World Wildlife Fund and Canadian Wildlife Foundation) received 60% ($152,018,000) of the foregoing with the other eight charities receiving the remaining 40%. Those donations saved the contributors approximately $190.4 million in taxes (75% of contributions) meaning the Federal government deficit increased with absolutely no benefit to ordinary Canadian citizens via improvements to the health care system, reducing poverty, etc. etc.

2. Federal Grants and Contracts:

Reviewing the Federal Grants and Contributions website those ten (10) charities have been granted $48,229.000 over the past five (5) years and via the Contracts website were awarded Federal Contacts of $1,826,000.

Summary:

Looking at just the effect on tax revenues, the ten charities comprising the Strathmere Group basically were responsible for consuming $257.6 million* of our potential and actual tax dollars over those five years.  Those ten ENGO are but a small portion of the active ENGO of whom most are charities and receive tax dollars either directly via grants or benefit from the tax deduction used by their contributors.  The Climate Action Network (a Strathmere Group member) has almost 150 members including such well known names as CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees). 

Other organizations such as the Canadian Environmental Network also have members and regional groups by provinces but the website GoodWork.ca goes well beyond the CAN or CEN by linking to various provincial organizations as well as Green Business & Environment Industry Associations. We should be confident that the hundreds of ENGO and renewable energy companies spread across the country are enjoying the benefits provided by all of the individuals and businesses whose tax dollars they receive.

The Strathmere Group merely highlights the waste of our tax dollars to achieve the “net-zero” target of emissions for Canada when we represent only 1.5% of global emissions. 

Destroying Canada’s economic wellbeing will not change the temperature!

*Forgone taxes $190.4 million plus Federal Grants of $51.4 million plus Provincial Grants of $15 million plus $700K of Municipal Grants = $257.6 million

Isn’t that ironic? Billions in Grants to the CFI

I was doing research on the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) having discovered they had received grants totalling $14,596,747,987 (yes, that is billions and most of the grants have been doled out since Justin Trudeau became PM) from the Feds to disperse to Universities, Colleges, Research Hospitals, etc. 

It appears they once aimed their activities at handing out tax dollars to the above mainly focused on research for health care issues. 

The CFI now seems instead to focus on issues related to “climate change”, “global emissions” “the circular economy”, “climate crisis” and all those scary things like wildfires, floods, etc. The message from the Chair and the CEO state the following in their remarks in their recent annual report:

“After two years of a global pandemic, and in the face of pressing global challenges like climate change, we are in a position to help foster the public’s trust in science, particularly among the next generation.“

Wandering around their website led me to a short video posted on YouTube headlined as; “Why does the CFI track the progress of itsfunded projects? I watched it and it was atypical BS presumably meant to justify their existence in living off the taxpayers largesse!

Suddenly when the short CFI video finished a Dr. Ian Plimer video from 9 years ago popped up and it appears to have been him speaking in Poland and was 50 minutes long including a Q. and A. session near the end.  Intrigued I watched; I actually just listened as he had no charts or anything else on it but it was great as he basically took us back to the beginning of the earth to the present with geological realities that dispels all of the current BS about mankind’s influence via CO 2 emissions. 

Link to the video: (133) Australský geolog Ian Plimer na FŽP – YouTube

I know Plimer has been featured on Friends of Science on a few occasions but just in case you have never seen or heard this particular video it is definitely worth the time to listen to or watch.

It should be required viewing for every teacher, professor and politician around the world!  Oh ya, and Central Bankers too as it now turns out based on the Bank of Canada’s recent “Disclosure of Climate-Related Risks 2022” that they need some basic geological training!

Net-Zero Escalation “Here, There and Everywhere” will Surely Create Green Inflation

Reducing Farm Yields

A short video interview with Canadian farmers attending the Ottawa Valley Farm Show posted on the Farmers Forum website, associated with Trudeau’s announcement asking farmers to “voluntarily” reduce their use of fertilizers, went over like a lead balloon!   The farmers interviewed noted in addition to the cost of fertilizer increasing in price by a factor of two to three year over year caused by carbon taxes, etc., etc. ensured farmers were only using what they felt could produce reasonably good yields to provide them with enough income to survive.  The cost of fertilizers zoomed up due to the cost of producing and transporting it to them and they expressed concern that “volunteering” to use less would ultimately result in a government mandate similar to what has happened in the Netherlands and cause hardship.

Record Spending by Environmentalists

 An article from the US, Capital Research Centre (CRC) a month ago in the first sentence stated:  “The greenest thing about Big Green is its mountain of cash“ and went on to note the environmental left poured out U.S.$2.4 billon pushing their agenda! The article went on to state the CRC examined 166 left-leaning charities whose primary focus was on climate change or environmental regulation and in 2019 they raked in almost U.S.$2.7 billion. They spent the latter on their agenda and doled out “$435,311,881 in grants to other, mostly left-leaning nonprofits“.  The article also names the top 20 of the 166 they examined and those in the top 20 such as World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Sierra Club Foundation, Greenpeace, etc. amongst the list are familiar names to us here in Canada. If the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) was as good as the US is in disclosure a personal guess would be that Canadian charities with the same objectives as their US peers would generate around 10% (CDN$270 million) of what was generated south of the border. Personal knowledge of those fighting the eco-warriors here in Canada discloses all of them are NFP (not-for-profits) without charitable status. We are severely outgunned by the sanctimonious “Greta” crowd!

IESO Needs More Money

The IESO recently received the blessing of the Ontario Minister of Energy for their 2023-2025 Business Plan which sought increased revenue “of 5.8%, 4.8%, and 5.2% over the three year planning period.“ Needless to say the “plan” pushes the objectives of the Ford led provincial government which echo the McGuinty/Wynne leadership days which drove electricity prices up by well over 100%. As one example the business plan states “Pairing energy storage with wind or solar generation can improve operational efficiency and help meet the province’s emerging electricity needs. For this reason, the integration of hybrid storage/generation resources has been designated a priority project within the IESO’s Enabling Resources initiative“ The obvious fall-out from adding “hybrid storage“, etc, will drive-up energy costs while they forecast increasing demand!  The “plan” states they need “to support the significant growth in the industrial, mining and agricultural sectors, as well as major expansion in transportation electrification, which will collectively drive higher electricity demand than Ontario has seen in many years“.

It seems apparent the Province in it’s recently announced budget (Building a Strong Ontario) recognizes “higher demand” will increase budget requirements for a jump in the Electricity Cost-Relief Programs of 9.6% (up $571 Million) from the current year ending March 31, 2023 at $5.946 billion to $6.516 billion for the upcoming year. The other scary item in the budget was the announcement the province would launch a “Clean Energy Credit Registry” suggesting it would boost competitiveness and attract jobs. It is scary as they claim: “A CEC registry provides businesses with a tool to meet these goals and demonstrate that their electricity has been sourced from clean resources, such as hydroelectric, solar, wind, bioenergy and nuclear power. Funds generated through the purchases of CECs could be returned to ratepayers, to help lower electricity costs and support future clean energy generation.”  It is hard to understand or believe requiring companies to purchase “Clean Energy Credits” will “boost competitiveness and attract jobs.“  It will simply increase costs and be inflationary!

The UK’s Energy Import Bill in 2022 Jumped by 117%    

 An article out of the UK “reported that the cost of imports soared from £54bn in 2021 to £117bn last year, breaking the £100bn barrier for the first time.“  The UK government and many of the EU countries have fully endorsed the “net-zero” push and it is impacting them severely so the pushback has expanded as more and more households suffer from “energy poverty”.  In the UK an article in the “Conversation” stated: “In October 2021, an estimated 4 million households in the UK were in fuel poverty. But the largest increase in gas and electricity prices ever in April 2022 has pushed a further 2.7 million UK households into fuel poverty, bringing the total number to 6.7 million.“ To put that in perspective; 6.7 million UK households represents 23.8% of all households in the UK and in just six months the number suffering from energy poverty grew from 14.2%.  Just over a year ago the UK government imposed a 25% windfall tax on oil and gas producers in the North Sea and it, coupled with a ban from purchasing Russian fossil fuels, has obviously resulted in the substantial increase in energy poverty.  Interestingly the OEUK (Offshore Energies UK) calculates “the North Sea still has oil and gas reserves equivalent to 15bn barrels of oil – enough to support the nation’s needs for the three decades needed to build the offshore wind and other low carbon energy systems essential to power the future.“ More proof politicians in the developed world seem to have abandoned their citizens all in the name of saving the planet from the hyperbole of “climate change”!   

 Banning Plastics                                                                              

As most Canadians are slowly finding out should they buy anything from a fast-food outlet or go grocery shopping the Canadian Government under Justin Trudeau’s leadership has banned the use of six types of single use plastics which includes straws, plastic bags, stir sticks, etc.  We were told by them the ban would improve the environment while delivering economic benefits.  The article in the Financial Post a couple of days ago clearly demonstrated the policies invoked by the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, will both increase waste and increase costs citing inaccurate claims made by the government in respect to how plastic waste is handled in Canada. Needless to say the inaccurate claims were repeated by the media such as the CBC without any fact checking.  The substitutes for the banned single use plastics will not only have “higher climate change” impacts but will also double the amount of waste created. The government’s own study stated only 1% of plastic waste in Canada “were discarded outside of the normal waste stream (i.e., not landfilled, recycled or incinerated)“.  So we should wonder; why ban those plastics if the ban increases waste and disposal costs?

Conclusion:                                                                                                                                                                  The foregoing articles clearly demonstrate how the push to achieve the elusive “net-zero” target continues to have no affect on the climate while it inflates costs and creates energy poverty.  As our politicians continue to set policies advocated by the ENGO “Green Inflation” will grow!

Unreliable Industrial Wind Turbines Barely Evident on March 2, 2023

Just two days ago, on March 1, 2021 at Hour 22 (hour ending at 10 PM) Bruce Nuclear’s Unit G-3 with a capacity of 784 MW was shut down for major component replacements (MCR) and will not return to service until sometime in 2026.  Daily that unit has been supplying enough generation for 12% (627,000) of Ontario households with (18,800 MWh) their electricity needs. The refurbishment of that unit brought down Ontario’s nuclear baseload to just under 8,000 MW so coupled with all of Ontario’s run of river hydro it is insufficient to meet our peak needs and we can’t count on Quebec to always be there to cover our shortfalls.  The Society of United Professionals pointed out why we can’t count on Quebec to help us out in a February 2021 report in which they stated: “importing firm baseload power from Quebec is not as simple as signing a contract and flipping a switch. As a result of bottlenecks in Ontario’s transmission system, pressures on Quebec’s power supply and Ontario’s ongoing reliance on Quebec for summer peak power, there are multiple reasons that imports are not the simple solution they may seem.“

Likewise, even though Ontario has grid connected IWT (industrial wind turbines) with a reported connected capacity of about 4,900 MW (6 times the G-3 unit) their average annual generation is only in the 29/30% range. Further because of their intermittency they cannot be counted on to generate power when it is actually needed. March 2^nd is a perfect example as over the full day they only generated 11.6% (13,619 MW) of their capacity with a peak at Hour 18 of 957 MW (19.5% of capacity) and a low of 275 MW (5.6% of capacity) at Hour 1.

Fortunately, yesterday was a relatively speaking; a mild winter day in Ontario and Quebec and peak demand came at hour 20 when it reached its high for the day at 18,579 MW and those IWT contributed only 2.6% (486 MW) of demand at that hour. Because it was a somewhat mild winter day Hydro Quebec was able to supply around 38,000 MWh while we were busy selling about 24,000 MWh to Michigan. Had it been a cold winter day Quebec would have needed the power they supplied Ontario via our intertie connections. As it turned out we were a net importer of power for twenty-two hours and a net exporter for only two hours of the day which is a big turnaround from when our nuclear baseload was higher in the 10,000 MW range only a month or so ago.

What really stepped up to the plate for Ontario yesterday was our natural gas generation thanks to its flexibility and over the 24 hours it supplied us with 68,552 MWh or about what 2.3 million average Ontario households (45% of Ontario households) consume daily.  At our peak hour it provided 3,957 MWh or 21.3% of demand and over eight times what those IWT generated. It should also be noted the abilities of natural gas generation to be so flexible presumably resulted in the HOEP (hourly Ontario energy price) remaining relatively stable throughout the day in the $30/MWh range.

The good news is Bruce Nuclear’s Unit 6, the first unit to be refurbished under the MCR project, is scheduled to return to service later in 2023 and its life cycle will be extended to the early 2060s! Perhaps by then politicians will have abandoned the concept of wind and solar being a reliable supply of electricity and the eco-warriors will have returned to their caves!

Hey Ontario, Your Taxes are Blowing In The Wind

Southern Ontario is currently experiencing what the eco-warriors would call “global warming” with lots of wind so it led to a IESO DATA look and it was a bit shocking to see what was going on.  The wind was doing a great job at generating intermittent and unneeded IWT (industrial wind turbines) generation that wasn’t needed but with their “first-to-the-grid” rights IESO were forced to accept both lots of it on February 14^th and 15^th as the following highlights.

As a co-incidence a Provincial press release about the provinces 2022-2023 finances hit the in-box and in in it they disclose the province was projecting a deficit of $6.5 billion for the year. In a quick look at the financial information it was interesting to note that $6.6 billion in expenses for the Energy base ($327.6 million) plus $6.274 billion allocated for “Electricity Cost Relief Programs” brought the total to the $6.6 billion of expenses in the press release.  Imagine, without the latter the province would be forecasting a small surplus of $100 million and that would have been something to brag about!

As many Ontarians may not know the Electricity Cost Relief Programs were established by the Ford led government to absorb the above market costs of the pricy wind and solar contracts signed by the McGuinty/Wynne governments. Those governments; in the push to “green” the electricity sector; was what they bought into when eco-warriors were demanding the world must stop using fossil fuels due to the “global warming” (now referenced as “climate change”) scare.

The IWT generation for all of Tuesday and part of today (Wednesday) makes it obvious why the almost $6.3 billion of costs for the “Relief Programs” exists!

February 14, 2023  

IESO’s wind generation forecast for the full 24 hours was 44,037 MWh but they cut the output to 41,251 MWh suggesting about 2,700 MWh were curtailed.  That resulted in a total cost for the IWT generation and curtailment of $6.279 million for the day ($135/MWh for accepted generation and $120/MWh for curtailed). Total exports to our neighbours throughout the day were 46,938 MWh so one could easily suggest all of it was either IWT generation or caused by it!  The average market price (HOEP) over those 24 hours was $10.74/MWh meaning it earned a miserly $504K reducing the cost of IWT generation to $5.775 million.

February 15, 2023

IESO DATA for the first 18 hours disclosed they forecast generation of 75,648 MWh but the output recorded was 54,881 MWh meaning 20,767 MWh were curtailed. That suggests the first 18 hours of the day cost $9.901 million and as the average HOEP over those 18 hours was a tiny $2.22/MWh the exports of 49,095 MW returned only $109K of those costs paid to the owners of the IWT. 

Results

The taxpayers/ratepayers of Ontario were forced to absorb $15.567 million to provide our neighbours in NY, Michigan and Quebec with those 93,255 MWh over those 42 hours. Those MW we basically gave away is about what 3,2 million average Ontario households would consume in one day!

Conclusion:

Hopefully the foregoing brings to light why the Ford government allocates the $6.274 billion for “Electricity Cost Relief Programs”.  It also suggests we should all wonder why they haven’t cancelled those IWT contracts instead of now indicating they will extend their contracts. They recently extended the Transalta Melancthon 200 MW IWT development near Shelbourne, Ontario which stands out for having a long and controversial history.

We should wonder as taxpayers if that $6.274 billion cost will only get larger in the future as the past 42 hours suggests it won’t diminish!

The Ford led government had a chance to balance the budget but instead seems content with burdening Ontario taxpayers in supporting our neighbour’s electricity costs!  Not sure how that will attract jobs to the province?

Five ENGO Demand More Government Bureaucracies to Execute the Just Transition

Five ENGO* (BLUEGREEN, Ecojustice, Environmental Defence, Equiterre and IISD) recently issued a 28 page proclamation labelled: “Proposals for the Canadian Just Transition Act”.  Needless to say they push the Justin Trudeau led Federal Government and all the provincial governments to jump on board the “Just Transition”.  They want the Federal Government to establish a “Just Transition Ministry” and equip it with bureaucrats ensuring the utopia of a “carbon-free” Canada with lots of low carbon, sustainable “green jobs” as the outcome!

If one does a word search in the 28 pages using the symbol “$” or the word “dollars” you come up with a big “0” but if you plug in “Net-Zero” you get 3 hits and if you try “emissions” it will generate 28 hits.  As one would expect searching the words “transition” and “just transition” respectively generated 391 and  293 hits. The proclamation is sprinkled with examples the authors feel exemplify what should be done in Canada.  They cite Spain, Scotland, New Zealand and Germany as examples of countries moving in the “Just Transition” direction but don’t bother to mention those countries are all suffering from high energy prices coupled with climbing energy poverty. You certainly won’t find any concerns expressed about the costs of the Just Transition on families or households in the 28 pages. 

The word “objective(s)” can be found 32 times and aligns with the word “Tables” found 27 times as the proclamation insists the Federal and Provincial governments establish objectives via those tables that must be adhered to under legislation set by the federal and provincial governments.  Naturally these objectives  require “monitoring” by more bureaucrats.

We should all be troubled by the fact that four of the five ENGO (more on BLUEGREEN below) are registered charities and all of them seem somewhat dependent on handouts (grants) and contracts from all three levels of government.  A quick review of the four and their CRA charity filings indicates over the five years of CRA records they have reported receiving over $27 million tax dollars, mainly as grants. IISD is one example with grants committed of almost $40 million.  Equiterre is another example reporting having received almost $7.7 million in grants/donations in their CRA filings over the past five years from Federal and Provincial governments.  Equiterre was reputedly co-founded by Steven Guilbeault, current Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Additionally two of them (Environmental Defence, IISD) have been contracted by government Ministries or subsets. It is also worth noting IISD also gets millions of dollars from UN Agencies, International Governments and their agencies as well as Foundations as noted in their Consolidated Financial Statement of March 31, 2022.

Now, let’s take a look at BLUEGREEN a not-for-profit whose membership consists of four charities (Pembina Institute, Environmental Defence, Columbia Institute and Clean Energy Canada), one not-for-profit (Broadbent Institute) and two unions (United Steelworkers and Unifor)!

BLUEGREEN

BLUEGREEN”s homepage states: “We can create good jobs across the country by making renewable energy, using energy more efficiently, decarbonizing manufacturing, and building more public transit.“

The above statement seems incongruous with what most would imagine, the two biggest private sector unions in Canada, would buy into, should their leaders reflect on how accomplishing the foregoing would impact their members. Interestingly no one from either of the unions were cited as “Contributors” to the “proclamation” paper but two of them from Unifor were named as “reviewers”!

If one looks at their respective websites for their views on “climate change” they appear somewhat less committed, then the proclamation in the “Proposal”. One senior individual within the United Steelworkers Union (USU) at an event last year stated:  “In the past, we knew that investments in our plants would provide long-term benefits. Today, the same logic must apply to the environmental question.“ Identifying those investments is not an easy task as a major ingredient attracting investments is cheap energy but that is what the “Transition” will affect the most so, “long-term benefits” appear elusive.  That should send a not-so-subtle message to PM Trudeau and his Ministers! 

USU sent two observers to COP 27 in Egypt and one of the issues they noted was the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and their synopsis stated: “This measure involves the introduction of a price (tax) on high-carbon products entering Canada. Other countries are preparing for the implementation of such a measure.“ Obviously this has implications for Canada’s trade relationship with other countries, but it appears the USU recognizes the impact it may have on their members unless we implement it too!

In respect to Unifor an article on their website emphasized: “Revenue from carbon pricing be invested in ensuring that transitions for workers and communities are appropriately managed through training and matching displaced workers with new opportunities.“ That statement suggests the Federal Government abandon the current carbon tax rebate program and instead “invest” it to create those “transitions” the Proposal recommends.

The Broadbent Institute is of course named after Ed Broadbent the former leader of the Federal NDP and as one would expect they are gung ho on the Just Transition and push Canada to spend lots more!  Rick Smith who has become an icon of the “climate change” push wrote an article for the Broadbent Institute saying “we should be spending in the hundreds of billions, not just billions in the single digits.“ 

The four charities include Environmental Defence where Rick Smith was the head honcho for 9 years but now he is the President of CICC, a taxpayer funded ENGO pushing the “net-zero” initiative on behalf of the Trudeau government.  Needless to say ED has received grants and contracts over the years from us taxpayers.

The Columbia Institute in its CRA filings does not claim any contributions from any of the three levels of government seemingly obtaining most of its revenue from other “charities”. 

Clean Energy Canada is a “climate and clean energy program” within the confines of Simon Fraser University so doesn’t report on an individual basis to the CRA charities. As one would suspect SFU on the other hand in it’s March 31, 2022 filing with the CRA reportedly received over $358 million (38.3%) of its gross revenue from the three levels of government. A search of Federal contracts disclosed many to SFU from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change which we should assume went to Clean Energy Canada.

Now examining the Pembina Institute’s CRA filings one sees they claimed to have received $5,576K in grants from three levels of governments.  A search of the Federal Governments “Grants and Contribution” site however indicates they handed out $10,450K to Pembina! That is almost double the information filed with the CRA but with the CRA Union suggesting they will go on strike in early April they are unlikely to investigate.  The Pembina Institute also were handed $963K in contracts by the Federal Government over the same five years.

Conclusion 

The objective of ENGO employees, numbering in the tens of thousands, receiving huge support from taxpayers both via donations they receive (providing tax benefits to contributors) and via the various handouts from Federal, Provincial and Municipal Governments is self evident!

Those ENGO employees are concerned events happening around the developed world countries with costs of energy rising to historical levels are creating pushbacks on their views the “net-zero” target may be abandoned. The result is their jobs are in jeopardy so for that reason they continue to push the narrative about climate change and the “Just Transition” objectives. The bulk of those employed by ENGO fail to do proper research but have been hugely successful at manipulating elected politicians in Canada and those appointed to organizations, such as the United Nations, convincing them mankind are in full control of the weather. 

We, here in Canada and elsewhere around the world need to continue the pushback or we and our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences!  Spending “the hundreds of billions“ proposed by Rick Smith in the Broadbent Institute article is beyond belief with energy poverty spiralling around the world.

The time has come to put an end to the Just Transition!

*ENGO are Environmental Non-Government Organizations