Gruending On The CRA Audits

From his latest:

The government, however, has sent unmistakable signals that it wants a crackdown. Recent federal budgets have provided the CRA with an additional $13 million in special funding to undertake such audits at a time when the government was slashing the CRA’s budget by $250 million over three years, forcing the layoff of hundreds of auditors. Jim Flaherty, the former finance minister, issued a warning to charities in 2013. “If I were an environmental charity using federal money, tax-receipted money for political purposes, I would be cautious.” Others went considerably farther in their criticism and warnings. Joe Oliver, the natural resources minister, warned about the “radical agenda” of environmental groups, and former minister Peter Kent said the groups were “laundering” offshore funds to promote foreign interests.

As a side-note, a number folks including me got on Matt Guerney of The National Post for an error in one of his recent columns.  Matt claimed that several environmental groups had already been found guilty of abusing their charitable status but, if you note the last line, he was later driven to admit that this is not the case.  Of course, even when shown that he make a bugger-up on the facts, Matt's opinion of the issue (which might best be summarized as: Go CRA!  Kick them hippies!) remained unchanged.  As I noted below:

@Bigcitylib2 Life's funny sometimes.
— Matt Gurney (@mattgurney) August 13, 2014

Its Usefulness At An End?

A brief note on an otherwise uneventful Saturday.  There has been no new material added to the Ethical Oil website since September 10th.  The same thing applies to their twitter feed. Furthermore, most of the people that took over from creators Ezra Levant and Alykhan Velshi seem to have left the project. Kathryn Marshall hasn't had much to say since her demotion.   And (something I had missed previously) Jordan Graham quit after a mere two months, deciding that he didn't want to live in Ottawa. Before September 10th posts were coming at a rate of one or two per week.  Worth noting that, as these posts accumulated, opposition to the Northern Gateway Project  rose inexorably.

Has the money behind the AstroTurf asked these folks to kindly STFU?  Wouldn't surprise me.

Velshi Out At Toronto Atmospheric Fund

He flew briefly with the Angels,  decided that evil paid better.

Some background here on Velshi's brief stint at TAF.

Does Alykhan Velshi Work For TAF

 ...or does TAF work for him?  After several hundred words of the same old, same old, ex Tar Sands shill Alykhan Velshi slaps this at the end of his Huff Post piece:

Alykhan Velshi is on the Board of Directors of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, a City of Toronto agency. The views expressed are his own.

The fox proudly announcing that he's been given keys to the hen house.

You know, Velshi might prove a useful addition at TAF.  I'm sure he's got an idea of what goes on behind the curtains at some of these right-wing astroturf groups.  But so far it looks like the TAF appointment does nothing but give him enviro creds he has no right to.

Velshi Bails

...on Ethical Oil, is replaced by Tory Blogger.  Not to suggest causality, but I would note that the Harper government, after huffing and puffing a bit over the Canadian Value of Free Speech, seems to have decided against taking public action over the Saudi government's threat to sue anyone running EO's adds:

When QMI Agency reported that Riyadh had hired a high-powered law firm to tell Canadian media not to air Ethicaloil.org ads that are critical of Saudi oppression of women, several Tory ministers denounced the move as a violation of free speech rights.

The Commons foreign affairs committee has been asked to look into the matter, but Conservative MP and committee chairman Dean Allison just lumps it in with a host of issues the committee might look into.

[...]

Allison refused to say whether he’d try to convince the Conservative majority on the committee to take up Ethicaloil.org’s concerns, but he didn't close the door completely.

“We are going to have a steering meeting this Thursday,” said Allison. “I think that when we meet Thursday, I think what we’ll end up doing is trying to nail down a bit more of an agenda as we move forward.”

...which would be the right decision even if the Saudi action is a SLAPP suit (which it almost certainly is).  After all, you can't tell a Canadian law firm (Norton Rose) that they can`t pursue a case through the Canadian legal system.

Which leaves Ethical Oil (getting its funding from God Knows) and the cash-strapped Sun TV, who are still running the ads in question, on their own.

Good time to take a long vacation, Alykhan?

Update: Now here's a mind-blower.  Velshi has been appointed to the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, a City of T.O. committee that was founded by...Jack Layton!

Ethical Oil?

There have been a number a number of media pieces on the Ethical Oil Institute.  They all ref this detailed post at Deep Climate, so that's probably the best place to start.  DC's unsurprising bottom line is that the EOI is almost certainly an industry astroturf group, sharing an office with McLennan Ross, an Edmonton law firm that works with players in the Alberta tar Sands.  I find the most interesting revelation to be that:

...the registration date of March 9, 2011 shows plans for the Ethicaloil.org were well underway long before Velshi’s initial blog posts in June, and indeed before the Canadian election campaign (which was called in late March).

...because Mr. Velshi originally treated the whole project as something he had started up on a personal whim.

Also worth noting is that the McLennan Ross contact at Ethical Oil is Thomas Ross, who served as Ezra Levant's lawyer during his run ins with the CHRC.  Ezra also serves on the board of Ethical Oil, and in fact is the fellow who coined the phrase.

One Fact In A Field of Speculation

As of Wednesday morning, I am made to understand that no related complaint had been filed with Ontario's Ministry of Labour.

But Ruby's nannies have had time to do a round of media interviews.

Actually, Mraz' whole piece is pretty good, and re-states the obvious: if any of this stuff gets proven, then Ms. Dhallia should step down as MP, but not before.

Be interesting to see where and when the Tory machine got involved with this. Alykhan Velshi is an interesting creature, and has begun to turn up in all sorts of odd places.