Trouble in the Great White North Commentary by Captain Paul Watson I guess I’m to blame for the decline in support for environmental groups in Canada, well at least according to the Carol Goar in her opinion piece for the Toronto Star. She wrote: Environmental groups themselves could be responsible. In their passion to preserve forests, lakes, wildlife and the ecological balance, they may not have paid enough attention to communicating with Canadians. In their desire to stand together, they may have given legitimacy to zealots such as Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conversation Society. I have to say I am amazed at the influence she thinks that I have. I have not lived in Canada since 1989. That was more than two decades ago. Secondly I am a marine wildlife conservationist. I am not even involved in the Climate Change debate. I do admit to being friends with “hardcore eco-radicals” like Dr. David Suzuki, Canadian literary icon and author Farley Mowat and Green Party Member of Parliament Elizabeth May. So I guess by association that makes me a “hardcore extremist radical” like these three real Canadian heroes. The other problem for environmentalists is that it is hard to communicate with the average Canadian in a country where the media is controlled by the government including the Controlled By Canada network (The CBC). Prime Minister Stephen Harper has declared war on the environmental movement because they stand in the way of Canadians becoming the Blue eyed Arabs of the New World Order and he has no hesitation about despoiling the nation’s environment in his greedy quest for black gold. So public trust for environmental groups has fallen from 72% to 67%. That in itself is a miracle that it did not fall further considering the steady stream of propaganda that the Harper government spews out about “eco-terrorists” and “green fascists.” But 67% is still a higher rate of approval that the government enjoys at 45%. The media holds favour with only 53% and corporations with 41%. So the mystery is this: why is Carol Goar complaining about the credibility of environmental groups when the Canadian environmental movement as a whole is more popular than the government, the media and corporate Canada. I left Canada in the Eighties after the Canadian government removed our tax status on the groups that conserving whales, seals, and wolves was not a charitable activity. I saw the writing on the wall back then and my concerns then have been realized. Today all environmental groups are considered enemies of the government. So this drop from 72% to 67% is really quite trivial and it sure as hell is not my fault although I am flattered that Goar appears to think so. Of course I’m considered an extremist. In a world where the Dali Lama is considered a terrorist and leading academics like Suzuki and Mowat are considered extremists based solely on the fact that they express concern for the health and welfare and future of Canadians. In Canada all you need to do is to hold up a protest sign or sign a petition to be an eco-extremist and if you should dare to actually sit in a tree that makes you an eco-terrorist. What it seems to me is that the previous 72%, represent those Canadians who do not have a vested interest in enriching themselves from the destruction of Canada’s wilderness. These are the corporate executives and their families, the politicians and their families and the rest are merely apathetic, or reactionaries who oppose environmentalists because it’s expected of them. A drop to 67% means the loss of a mere 5% and these were those timid souls who tend to sit on the fence. The important thing about this story is that the average Canadian does indeed trust environmentalists over politicians, over the media and over corporate executives. Carol Goar tossed out positive statistics and then attempted to throw a blanket of negative opinion over these statistics. One thing mentioned in the article of note is that people are indeed tired of road blockades that achieve little and protests that business, media and government ignore. She fails to mention that while overall support for environmentalism has been slightly diminished and memberships in mainstream environmental groups may be in decline, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is rapidly growing and gaining more support every year. Why? Because we “zealots” are delivering results, saving the lives of whales and other marine mammals. The best statistic I saw last week is the fact that there is a 70% drop in shark consumption and the shark finners are blaming us “zealots.” Wait a minute! She called me a zealot. Now where did this word come from? Oh yes, way back in the Middle East a couple of thousand years ago there was a man they accused of being a zealot. Apparently he was indeed a zealot. They crucified him and in doing so created one of the most powerful religions on the planet. Environmentalism is not a religion but it is a movement and it is a movement that touches upon the lives of every single person on the planet. When we diminish the environment, we diminish ourselves and if the Earth suffers, we all suffer. The question is; who best represents the needs and the concerns of Canadians, Dr. David Suzuki or Stephen Harper. It appears from the report released by the Muttart Foundation that the people view Suzuki as their hope, and view Harper with suspicion and skepticism. I think more people have watched David Suzuki speak on television than have watched Stephen Harper, David is certainly more articulate and interesting and when it comes to intelligence, the gap between the two certainly involves three figures in the intelligence quotient. The article said: Physicians for Global Survival, did lose its charitable status for excessive political activity last May. Wow, excessive activism, who would expect that kind of behavior from an activist group. The solution as I see it is for all environmental groups in Canada to re-register as religious organizations or as political parties. It would be difficult to censor a group for excessive political activity if they are a tax-exempt political party. Groups can claim to worship Gaia and their objectives can be to undertake activities in honour of the Goddess Gaia. I think a little passion and imagination may find a way to counter the anti-environmentalist extremism of the Harperheads. Carol Goar entitled her article as a Hard Time to be an Environmentalist. She’s wrong. It is an exciting and challenging time to be an Environmentalist and if not for environmentalists it will soon be a hard time for humanity. thestar/opinion/commentary/2013/11/07/hard_time_to_be_an_environmentalist_goar.html Text of the article Hard time to be an environmentalist: Goar A new survey on charities shows decline in public trust for environmental organizations. Frustrated by his failure to make Canada a global energy superpower, Prime Minister Stephen Harper turned on the environmental movement with a ferocity never before seen in Canada. He and his ministers blamed charities that opposed their mass sell-off of unprocessed bitumen for jeopardizing Canada’s economic health. They accused them of laundering foreign money. They warned that eco-terrorists were afoot in the land. The government’s smear tactics did not get Alberta’s heavy oil moving to export markets. But they did damage the credibility of charities working to protect the environment. The first piece of evidence is now in. A report released by the Muttart Foundation this week showed a distinct drop in public trust for environment organizations. Five years ago, 72 per cent of Canadians expressed confidence in charities focused on the environment. Today the number is 67 per cent. It is still a much higher level of public trust than the federal government (45 per cent), the media (53 per cent) or big business (41 per cent) enjoy. But it is below the average for the charitable sector (79 per cent) and well below the levels for hospitals (86 per cent), children’s charities (82 per cent) and organizations focused on health (80 per cent). The Edmonton-based Muttart Foundation, which steers clear of politics and partisanship, did not draw a link between Harper’s attack on the environmental movement and its slippage in public confidence. Its executive director Bob Wyatt merely pointed to the decline as a “warning sign.” He is right to be cautious. Any number of factors could be responsible for the fall-off: weariness over the long fight to get policy-makers to act; doubts about the effectiveness of protests, rallies and blockades; donor fatigue; economic stress; or the conservative tenor of the times. Environmental groups themselves could be responsible. In their passion to preserve forests, lakes, wildlife and the ecological balance, they may not have paid enough attention to communicating with Canadians. In their desire to stand together, they may have given legitimacy to zealots such as Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conversation Society. But none of these factors is enough to account for a five percentage point drop in public trust. The government has not followed through on its threat to strip environmental groups of their charitable status, although Revenue Canada is doing intensive audits of a few foundations. (One organization, Physicians for Global Survival, did lose its charitable status for excessive political activity last May, but that investigation began under the Liberals.) What Harper and his colleagues have accomplished, however, is to send a chill through the environmental movement. David Suzuki, Canada’s most prominent environmentalist, resigned from the board of the charity he founded, fearing he had become a lightning rod for government censure. Ross McMillan, president of the Tides Canada, one of the charities targeted by the Harper government, released a detailed accounting of its donors and environmental projects to combat charges of money laundering. Hilary Pearson, president of the umbrella group for Canada’s charitable foundations, urged the government to cool its rhetoric, pointing out that the law allows charities to speak out on public issues, provided their activities are non-partisan and don’t represent more than 10 per cent of their spending. The real — hard to quantify — harm lies in the philanthropists who have quietly stopped funding environmental causes, the charities that have quietly cancelled projects that might be controversial and the volunteers who have quietly fallen away. Harper’s techniques have been insidiously effective in the past. He has reduced his political adversaries to objects of ridicule (Stéphane Dion) or contempt (Michael Ignatieff). He has portrayed his critics as everything from airheads to enemies of the state. He has silenced federal scientists and starved public laboratories. He has punished conscientious bureaucrats and vilified former allies. And he has walled his government off from public scrutiny. He hasn’t won his latest battle. Environmentalists are a hardy lot. But he has made it riskier to speak out, get involved in public affairs and pass on a clean green Canada to future generations. thestar/opinion/commentary/2013/11/07/hard_time_to_be_an_environmentalist_goar.html
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 17:54:20 +0000
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