Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 16 - Evidence - March 8, 2012
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 8, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 8:02 a.m. for the consideration of a draft budget; and to study the current state and future of Canada's energy sector (including alternative energy).
Senator W. David Angus (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, you have before you a draft budget for the period starting on April 1, 2012. You have all had a chance to review it and understand it. Is it agreed that in keeping with the decision of the Internal Economy Committee about consultants hired by committees that we revise this draft in front of you today to include the names of the two known contractors that we will be dealing with in the preparation of our report: Mr. Peter Tertzakian and Mr. Sebastian Gault? It is subject to that revision and subject to having approval ultimately that we have the flexibility to make minor revisions from time to time, if it seems appropriate or necessary.
With those two caveats, may I have a motion to adopt the draft budget before you? It is signed by the Chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration and by Nicole Proulx and Heather Lank. It is moved by Senator Peterson, seconded by Senator Brown. All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: May I assume that I am authorized to submit this application to the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration on your behalf?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Unanimously agreed. Thank you.
Good morning invited guests and all of our listeners on the CPAC network, the worldwide web, and all other electronic venues where people are sharing our deliberations with us. This is a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. This morning, we have two special guests from Tides Canada, Ms. Merran Smith and Ms. Sarah Goodman.
Welcome, ladies. Please accept our apologies. For the last 20 minutes, we had a housekeeping matter we had to deal with administratively in camera, but here we are now. We have ample time, so we are delighted that you could be with us.
As you know, we continue our committee study into Canada's energy sector, which we have been working on since mid-2009. We are winding our study down. It has come to our attention that the organization that you two ladies represent has produced an interesting study on the very same subject matter that we are considering, namely the need for a coordinated, collaborative approach to an energy framework policy — or strategic framework — for something much more cohesive than we have in Canada today, to provide for all Canadians, going forward, a more efficient, sustainable, and long lasting green energy system, in a country that is blessed with a plethora of energy-producing resources. We, as Canadians, sit in what some people colloquially call the catbird seat. We are so blessed, and it behoves us all, on this committee, to make the very best of it and to ensure that, for our children, grandchildren, and future generations, the best is made of it.
Members of the committee have been sensitized to the debate in the country today about the role of a lot of American foundations that have been sending money to other charitable, centralizing organizations, if you will, in Canada. As I say, there is a debate or a discussion about how that is happening, what the real facts are, and what the role of the money is, in terms of the energy sector or the development of new energy, things like pipelines and other infrastructure and projects in Canada. Folks from your organization came to see me, as chair of this committee, and suggested — and I say this quite openly — that they felt that a wrong message was getting out in the country, particularly as regards Tides Canada, which, fortunately or otherwise, has the same name as a big foundation in the western part of the United States. Inasmuch as you obviously are very focused in the sector of the environment and energy, it seems quite appropriate that you come before us today. We are very interested in meeting you and hearing about your organization, and I have told your chair and your CEO that this is an opportunity. We are a very public and transparent committee. Someone suggested that your organization is being shown in a negative light. Feel free to tell us about yourselves. At the same time, the deal I have with your chair and your CEO is that my colleagues on this committee, including the chair, will ask you such questions as we consider relevant in the circumstances.
Without further ado, I would like to introduce our guests a little more fulsomely, if I can. Let me start with Sarah Goodman, Vice President, Business Development and Services, for Tides Canada. She provides strategic and business development leadership for Tides Canada, with specific accountability for strategic planning and programs, project development, and oversight and communications. She joined Tides Canada in April 2009 from Teck Resources, where she led the company's corporate affairs activities.
Before joining Teck, she spent eight years with Weyerhauser, where she was Vice-President of Government and Public Affairs and then Vice-President of Transactions in the company's acquisitions and divestitures group. Sara is currently on the board of TransLink, the transportation authority for the Vancouver region. She is also a trustee of the Jack Webster Foundation, and previously served on the board of the Coast Mental Health Foundation. She is also a past board member of Iisaak Forest Resources, a First Nations-led forest services company based in Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia.
Merran Smith, Director of Tides Canada, is on the energy side and, I believe, the editor and/or the one responsible for the report. Do you have further documents? I think you mentioned that you were having copies made of the list of directors and the charter.
Merran Smith, Director, Tides Canada Energy Initiative, Tides Canada: Yes. We will get the list of directors and officers to you.
The Chair: Maybe you can tell us your biography.
Ms. Smith: I am not sure why it did not get to you. I am Merran Smith. I am the Director of the Energy Initiative at Tides Canada. We are working to help Canada transition to a low carbon economy.
I will tell you a bit more about our work in our presentation. Formerly, I worked with a number of environmental groups — the Sierra Club, Forest Ethics — and I focused on the Great Bear Rainforest, which was an internationally recognized conservation agreement, given a number of awards by the World Wildlife Fund and recognized by the Nature Conservancy as the most comprehensive environmental agreement in North America. Prior to that, I worked in communications, ran a small video production company, and had various jobs working with the federal and provincial governments.
The Chair: Excellent. Now that we know who you are, let me say that I am Senator David Angus from Montreal, Quebec. I am the chair. To my right is Senator Grant Mitchell from Edmonton, Alberta, our deputy chair. Our analysts from the Parliamentary Library are Marc LeBlanc and Sam Banks. You may know Senator Richard Neufeld, former member of the government in British Columbia, especially in the energy and resource area. To his right: Senator Bert Brown, of Alberta, the Honourable John Wallace from, I believe, Saint John, New Brunswick, and Senator Judith Seidman, from Montreal, Quebec. Representing one our absent senators today is the Honourable Senator Nancy Greene Raine from Kamloops, British Columbia. She is sometimes known to Canadians for other endeavours. She is my hero, a great Canadian athlete and iconic figure, and we are proud to have her in our Senate. To my left is our clerk, who have you met, Lynn Gordon. To her left, from the Yukon Territory, Senator Daniel Lang. To his left, from Saskatchewan, is Senator Rob Peterson. Last, but not least, also from Quebec, via Manitoba, is Senator Paul Massicotte. That is who we are. Let us have a great session. Who will go first?
Sarah Goodman, Vice President, Business Development and Services, Tides Canada: Good morning, senators, and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I will make a few introductory comments about Tides Canada and our broader mandate and role, and then Merran Smith will speak to you why we feel it is so vital for Canada to position itself to proceeding perfect in the transition to a low carbon economy.
By way of background, Tides Canada was formed in 1999. We have since grown to become Canada's largest public foundation dedicated specifically to the environment and social justice. Non-partisan and national in scope, we are privileged to be led by a strong and diverse board, chaired by Jodi White, who many of you will know from her time heading up the public policy forum and in Conservative politics.
The Chair: This is the third time I have said it, but you will give us a list of that board and the backgrounds of the folks?
Ms. Goodman: Yes. Our management team, with backgrounds in philanthropy, business, government, environmental organizations and academia, reflects our belief that diversity of thought leads to better and more durable solutions. This is especially true when working on the more challenging issues with social, environmental and economic dimensions.
As the chair mentioned, I personally came to Tides Canada from a long history working in the forest industry and once served on an organization, the Forest Alliance — Senator Raine was on the board of as well — and I worked for Teck Resources, Canada's largest diversified mining company. Every year Tides Canada supports, convenes or funds hundreds of initiatives that seek to strengthen our nation's ecosystems and communities, and give voice to often underrepresented or marginalised members of Canadian society. These initiatives range from neighbourhood scale social programs to national conservation efforts.
We are not an endowed foundation. Rather, we operate much like a national community foundation with a donor- advised fund model. What this means is we enable others to do their philanthropy efficiently through us rather than setting up their own foundations. This is a model used by 180 different community foundations across the country with about $3 billion in assets in those organizations.
Separate from our work of the foundation, our operating charity is home to 40 leading social change initiatives. We provide a shared governance and administrative platform for these projects that are working to advance our broader mission.
In practical terms, this means we take care of the financial transaction actions, contracts and human resource needs allowing the leaders of our projects to focus more on mission and less on managing things like payroll and benefits.
To give you a sense of the breadth of our work, I will highlight two of our largest products in the operating charity by expenditure for 2011. The largest project is East Scarborough Storefront, with a budget of about $2 million for 2011. The East Scarborough Storefront is a hub for 40 different social situations, providing a safe, welcoming and accessible one stop for, everything from job placements to counselling and youth services, in a community with the highest concentration of social housing in Ontario and a large new Canadian population.
Our second largest project is the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Secretariat, with a budget of about $1.5 million last year. This project is supporting leading environmental organizations and the Forest Products Association of Canada, representing 21 of the country's largest forest companies in working to implement the historic conservation agreement reached in 2010. When fully implemented, the agreement will conserve significant areas of Canada's vast boreal forest, protect threatened woodland caribou and sustain a healthy forest industry for the communities that rely on it. These are good examples of our work, as they fall into the two largest categories of grant making and project activity, being social inclusion and forests. Each of these categories represents about 18 per cent of our total grant and project spending in 2011.
Other areas of very include oceans and freshwater and environmental conservation more broadly. We also make grants in the areas of food security, international development, health and arts and culture. Most relevant to this committee, however, is our work in energy. In 2010, recognizing the central role of energy in any discussion of social, ecological and economic concern, we launched the Tides Canada Energy Initiative. Last year, climate change and energy solutions work including the initiative led by Ms. Smith, represented about 5 per cent of our total expenditures.
We are quite proud of the constructive and positive contribution this initiative has made to ongoing conversations about Canada's energy future. It is working to bring a broad spectrum of voices from Canada's business, faith, labour, health, environment and Aboriginal communities into the discussion about how Canada can remain prosperous and competitive through the ongoing global transition to clean energy.
I would like to turn it over to Ms. Smith now to tell you more about this important initiative.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Goodman.
Ms. Smith: Thank you, chair, and good morning, senators. Thank you for inviting me to speak with you here today. I am the Director of the Energy Initiative at Tides Canada. I would like to tell you about the program I lead, which is working to ensure that Canada remains prosperous and competitive through the ongoing global transition to clean energy.
I appreciate that there is a lot wrapped up in that statement and I would like to take a moment to unpack it for you. As a global society, we are at the start of a transformation in the way we produce, use and think about energy. At Tides Canada, we call this shift the new energy transition.
In the current commodity-based model, we dig, drill and ship physical resources such as coal, oil and gas, and then we burn them, here in Canada or abroad. They provide us with energy services such as mobility, heat and hot water for buildings, and manufacturing. This system has dominated the economy for the last century. Today the model employs hundreds of thousands of Canadians and provides the government with billions in public revenues that, in turn, help fund critical services from coast to coast.
However, this model is changing. It is being replaced by a new model in which leading economies such as China and the United States will provide their citizens with those same energy services — again, mobility, heat and hot water, and manufacturing, via energy sources that are clean, safe, renewable, abundant, generally locally available and ultimately cheaper than commodity fuels.
This shift will not happen overnight. Look out onto the streets of any Canadian community and you will not see much evidence of this energy transition being under way right now. However, if you follow the investment money and you take note of the targets that large economies are setting for themselves, you start to see that the writing is on the wall and that there is an energy transition that is coming.
Take China as one example. We often speak about the importance of China as an energy market. It is true that the country has a fast-growing and urbanizing population, but I would suggest that it does not actually have a growing thirst for oil. In truth, China has a growing demand for the services that oil provides chiefly the service of mobility. If China, or any other economy, can deliver that service as mobility in a way that is easier, cheaper, safer, and does not depend on the whims of the global oil market, make no mistake, China will take that other path. They are working to do that right now. According to one recent government estimate, the nation will spend $313 billion in the coming five years to grow a low-carbon economy.
The Chinese are not the only ones. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, global investment in renewable energy projects is expected to reach $395 billion by 2020 and $460 billion by 2030. This shift will mobilize nearly $7 trillion of new capital within the next 20 years.
All this investment money is spurring innovation and that, in turn, is helping to accelerate this new energy transition. Every month there are announcements about improvements in these low-carbon technologies. We are not seeing them out on the street yet, but we are seeing the costs coming down and the performance increase. For example, last week, Envia Systems, a California-based lithium ion battery maker, announced a major breakthrough that will not only significantly slash the cost of electric vehicles but will also allow them to go much farther on a single charge. It is these kinds of breakthrough technologies that are going to spur the clean energy transition.
The Chair: Before you leave that page, and the references to China which are fascinating, you seem to have some pretty hard numbers there.
We hear there is a very large investment in nuclear in China. Do you consider that part of the clean transition in low carbon or not? If so, do you have a number of how much of those billions in China are on nuclear?
Ms. Smith: I do not believe this number includes nuclear. I can get back to you with the graph showing those investments. It is from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, so it is quite easy to find. In some areas nuclear is considered clean and in some areas it is not.
The Chair: What do you think?
Ms. Smith: I think it is low carbon. I think the environmental impacts of it are serious and that we need to determine whether we can use it in a way that is safe. At this point I am not sure we have figured that question out.
The Chair: Thank you and I am sorry to interrupt.
Ms. Smith: There are many good, practical reasons for this transition to be occurring, including a desire for greater energy security, a desire to address climate change and threats to ecosystems, and to reduce the public health risks associated with smog, mercury and other pollutants.
I want to take a moment to note that oil has an important role to play in this transition. Petroleum will remain a part of our energy mix for many years to come and will in fact power the transition. However, our nation's focus on this resource at the expense of clean alternatives is placing our nation at a profound risk.
I would like to quote David Emerson, the former federal Minister of International Trade. In a report he prepared last year for the Government of Alberta's Premier Stelmach, Mr. Emerson said:
We must plan for the eventuality that oilsands production will almost certainly be displaced at some point in the future by lower-cost and/or lower-emission alternatives. We may have heavy oil to sell, but few or no profitable markets wishing to buy.
Senators, our nation is positioned well to prosper and remain competitive through this energy transition and into the future. We have excellent universities, a history of innovation, a wealth of renewable resources and a stable financial system. We have a number of established clean tech clusters of companies and renewable energy manufacturing capacity in several provinces, enabled by supportive policy environments, but there is no coordinated strategy. There is no policy certainty to draw a portion of the billions of clean tech investment capital to our shores and no clarity on how we will meet our climate change commitments. Instead, Canada is for the most part betting its future on the energy system of the last century.
Last year Tides Canada energy initiative consulted with more than 100 leaders in a wide variety of sectors to create A New Energy Vision for Canada. I brought some copies. I do not know if you have all seen it. It is an aspirational vision of a healthy and prosperous nation that has fully captured the opportunities of this energy transformation. Ultimately, more than 150 organizations, companies and local governments endorsed the document, together representing the interests of over 1.2 million Canadians.
This year, we are heading out on the road again and developing a set of policy priorities that will put Canada on the path to this clean energy transition and will position Canada to prosper and remain competitive through and beyond the energy transformation. We will identify the first steps we need to take and the framework that we need to have in an energy strategy; one that ensures we are prepared to provide and be exporters of the energy services that Canadians and others need: mobility, heat and hot water for buildings and manufacturing.
To recap, the global new energy transition is not wishful thinking on the part of environmentalists and dreamers. It is very real. It represents a multi-trillion dollar opportunity for those who embrace it, and disruption and uncertainty for those who deny it. Canada needs a coordinated plan to ensure our nation will prosper and remain competitive into this new energy future.
If we keep telling one another that business as usual will carry us forward, it will for the next decade or two but then we will find ourselves in for a rude awakening. We will wake up one day and find ourselves, as David Emerson said, sitting on the sidelines watching the world economy go by.
We believe that Canada can lead in the transition to a low carbon energy future, and we are willing to work across civil society and with all levels of government to put the policies in place that will position us to do so.
I would be pleased to answer any of your questions and I thank you very much for your attention.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you very much. That was a very enlightening presentation and actually quite inspirational. I would just like to address you first, Ms. Smith.
Your presentation hits right at the heart of this debate, that somehow there are those who believe that if you are for the environment you are against the economy. There are many of us who argue that if you want to keep doing what we are doing, which is nothing on climate change, you will wreck economies. If you want to wreck economies, just keep doing what we are doing. You have a very powerful and interesting insight into that. You are saying that the funding you are looking at for "environmental groups" could be in one sense just a new form of economic funding, saying we have to look at a new economy and we have to be prepared for the future or, as Mr. Emerson says, the world economy will pass us by.
It is interesting that the Premier of Alberta is saying it is not just a question of maintaining credibility in our markets for oil, that is to say we need to be good at climate change and the environment but actually to maintain those markets. I want to emphasize that point and also maybe you could give us an idea of what some of the groups you fund are doing in a way that is not threatening to an economy but in fact is quite enlightened in its look at a new economy.
Ms. Smith: There are a couple of things. You are right as far as the costs of climate change. The National Round Table on the Environment and Economy put out a report in the last six months that really highlighted the potential impact to Canada's GDP.
Senator Mitchell: That whole board was appointed by this government.
Ms. Smith: Correct. In the worst case scenario, or by 2050, we are looking at a significant percentage of our GDP would be used to deal with the impacts of climate change. The International Energy Agency has said we have five years to turn this thing around. The International Energy Agency is a very conservative body, not a group that makes wild claims like that.
We are working with the clean tech sector, clean energy sector and others who are developing jobs and working on putting in place the right policies, and environmental groups like the Pembina Institute and others, who are working to help put in place the policies.
Bloomberg Finance and others will tell you where you have strong policies — British Columbia and Ontario have put in place some good policies in their clean energy acts — that will create certainty for those kind of business sectors and therefore attract capital to their provinces. Those are some examples of the types of groups, and it is really the business sector that will be able to attract that kind of capital.
Senator Mitchell: That is Bloomberg who says that, one of the largest investment houses in the world?
Ms. Smith: Yes.
Senator Mitchell: Ms. Goodman, I am interested in the other side of Tides Canada as well, because it does more than simply energy, the environment and the economy, in which it has some very interesting insights.
I notice, for example, that you fund the Kamloops Haldane Elementary School, which would be interesting to Senator Nancy Greene Raine because she is from Kamloops, and you fund the Aldergrove Elementary School in Edmonton, which is about two kilometres from my house. You fund the Killarney Vancouver B.C. School and the Campbell River School and the Israel Cancer Research Foundation and the Vancouver Talmud Torah Association. These are all interesting groups. I could go on with the B.C. School of Business, UBC and so on.
What sort of work do those groups do?
Ms. Goodman: I cannot speak to the specifics of those groups. Obviously they are involved in schools and working to support a more just and sustainable society, and I think it really speaks to the model that we have. Hundreds of donors, primarily Canadians, set up funds with us and work with us to direct their philanthropy. Much of our grant making reflects the views of our donors that make recommendations to us, in terms of where those funds are directed. A significant portion of our funding goes to things like East Scarborough Storefront, social inclusion and other environmental initiatives.
Senator Mitchell: One of the initiatives in this debate from those who would want to limit international foundation charitable money coming to "environmental" — although you are saying "economic" — initiatives, is it needs to be transparent. I look at the Pembina Institute and it is right there. They list every single charity or foundation or person who gives them money. I look at yours and I see list after list. I see Tides Foundation in here. You are not afraid to say that. I look at the Fraser Institute. They do not say anything about who is giving them money or where it is coming from. They said 9 per cent of their contributors come from the U.S. They do not say what percentage of their contributions come from international and U.S. You are very open about that. You do not have any trouble telling the world who is giving you money at all, do you?
Ms. Goodman: One of the misnomers in this debate is massive amounts of U.S. funding are coming in to fight the oil sands. The truth is most of the funding we have received from U.S. foundations is for projects we have done in collaboration with other governments. The best example is the Great Bear Rainforest. Our organization received about $25 million from U.S. foundations. That was matched by the Harper government and the Campbell government as well. There was another $30 million that did not go through Tides Canada into the same initiative. That was one of the initiatives for why I wanted to come to Tides Canada. Having been in the forest sector, I have lived through the wars and had people protesting outside of my office. I saw Tides as the group that was coming together, pooling resources, and working with industry to find solutions to find a path forward.
Another great example of a current project we are doing right now, with U.S. funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, is on salmon aquaculture that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has co-funded with us. We are looking at closed containment on land aquaculture. Instead of saying, "We do not want salmon farming," we are saying it is a very important industry and we have to find a way to do it sustainably. We are working with government and industry to find different models and solutions that work for the economy, the environment, and our communities.
Senator Mitchell: You have been a partner with this Conservative government in the Great Bear Rainforest and other environmental protection projects, for example?
Ms. Goodman: Yes, absolutely.
Ms. Smith: Perhaps I can speak to that. Tides Canada stood on the stage with Minister Baird when he brought that $30 million to match the $60 million of philanthropy. That created $120 million pot that is for economic development and conservation management. It is being used for community economic development projects, tourism projects, shellfish aquaculture projects, and value-added forestry projects. That is just a few. I am on the board of that organization. It is creating jobs in local communities and looking at long-term sustainable initiatives in a region which is relatively impoverished and has a high unemployment rate. Those American foundation dollars are being used to attract capital to create jobs in Canadian communities.
Senator Mitchell: I have one last comment and perhaps I will come back in the second round. The chair has been very patient with me, but I notice you are actually partners, or in some way associated with CIDA, the National Research Council and with various departments of various governments; the Yukon government in fact. You are a partner with the Yukon government, are you not?
Ms. Goodman: Yes. I do not know the specifics of those. We fund over 400 initiatives a year, so I do not know all the specific details, but we partner with the City of Toronto. We partner with all levels of government across the country. We take a collaborative approach working with government, industry and all sectors.
Senator Mitchell: Groups like yours could become very concerned that if a government does not like one thing that a subgroup is doing, maybe they would not like another thing. For example, something a hospital you are funding was doing. All of a sudden you start to parse charitable and redefine what charitable has been, which has been working so effectively with you. Thank you very much. It is great work.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Mitchell. We are happy you are so happy this morning.
Senator Lang: I would like to welcome the two witnesses here today. I hope we can clarify a number of issues that are obviously outstanding. I want to preface my remarks. I think anybody that is part of the debate is that the charitable side of the work that any organization does, not unlike your own, the public appreciates it and appreciates the work that goes into it, but there is very much of a concern. I know you have read about it. It has been going on for about a year: allegations of millions of dollars coming into the country to finance a very well-organized obstruction to the development of the oil sands and perhaps the development of the gateway pipeline. That is common knowledge.
The concern is that a lot of this is seen as interference through American money coming through foundations — and in part coming through an organization such like yours — to be brought in for that purpose. Yet at the same time, Canadians are not fully informed that this is American money and it is coming in for the purposes of obstructing that type of development, whether your organization agrees with it or not.
I want to point out a couple things. To put this in perspective, I did not realize there were so many foundations in the United States of America concerned about my welfare and everybody else's welfare. The Bullitt Foundation has put in hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, one of their grants was given to them to mobilize urban voters for a federal ban on coastal tankers which obviously reflects on the oil sands.
The Brainerd Foundation put in substantial amounts of dollars, and their purpose was to grow public opposition to counter the Enbridge pipeline construction.
You also have the Oak Foundation who has put in significant amounts of money, primarily to disavow tar sands fuel and to finance, for example, Greenpeace Canada to phase out tar sands campaigns. The list goes on. There is the Wilburforce Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation. There is significant interest in this part of Canada, and specifically British Columbia and Alberta. What is causing concern is this type of money coming in, being utilized for this purpose, and Canadians not knowing that it is necessarily being used for that purpose.
I want to ask you a question. You stated very clearly in a letter to my colleague, Senator Angus — you made it from your president and CEO — that Tides Canada is not against the oil sands, pipelines or other resource development projects. Yet, I have listed all those organizations that have brought money in through your organization, or in conjunction with your organization, who are actively campaigning against a public policy that Canadians should be deciding. It is the question of the oil sands, the future of the oil sands, and the future of the gateway pipeline, if it were to come to pass. Perhaps you could explain why you do that.
Ms. Smith: First off, issues like climate change and air and water pollution do not stop at borders. Clearly there is an international interest in those issues, and that is why we attract international money. What happens in Canada does not only impact Canada.
Second, Canadian ecosystems are globally significant. That is one of the reasons why we attract international capital. Things like the Great Bear Rainforest are considered on par with things like the Great Barrier Reef or the Amazon forest. That is another reason why we are attracting international interest: the things that we pride ourselves in — the ecosystems — that we have here. Others around the world believe that they are important as well.
Third, at Tides Canada we feel our role is to ensure that all voices are at the table and all voices are being heard. In these kinds of public policy debates, if we want to have a durable outcome and make a decision that will last over time, we cannot silence some voices and only hear others. We need to have all voices there. Tides Canada ensures that all those voices representing the environmental issues and concerns are there, and also local community issues. This includes the local community economy and people who, in that region, are standing up to say, "We have a wild salmon economy here." PricewaterhouseCoopers did a report a number of years ago up in that region to say that the wild salmon economy is worth $120 million a year to the local communities. They have a right to defend having their economy remain whole, as well. We feel like those types of voices need to have the resources and support to participate in the discussion.
Senator Lang: I want to follow-up on this a little more so I can understand it. You as an organization are not for or against the Gateway pipeline or the oil sands; is that correct? You act as a conduit for American money coming in, and give it to these organizations if they want to obstruct, but you do not take a position either way; is that correct?
Ms. Smith: We are for having clean water. We are for protecting the environment in Canada. We are for protecting our marine resources. We are for creating a sustainable economy.
Senator Lang: I want it said for the record, because we do have a letter here. I am not trying to be difficult, but the letter clearly states "Tides Canada is not against the oil sands and pipelines or other resource development." Further in that letter, if I have not mistaken, it makes the point that you basically are the conduit for this money and you really cannot determine how this money is being spent; that is not up to you.
Is that my understanding of your organization, or do you take a position against the oil sands and the pipeline?
Ms. Smith: Our organization has not taken a position. As I said here today, we believe that oil will actually be a critical part of powering the energy transition. I am not clear about the part of the question about how the funding flows.
Ms. Goodman: The important thing is that Tides Canada is about ensuring there is a good public policy discussion. We totally agree with the government that this is a matter of national interest, and there are multiple interests at stake — not just one set of economic interests. That is what we are for.
We do accept funding and I think I can say that we spent 3 per cent of our budget, or $600,000, last year on issues related to oil sands and pipeline development. The other 97 per cent was spent on other issues.
This myth of huge amounts of American funding coming through Tides Canada to oppose the oil sands is exactly that: It is a myth.
Senator Lang: These organizations that I cited — Bullitt, Brainerd, Wilburforce, Hewlett — do not exist and are not involved?
Ms. Goodman: I am totally acknowledging that we receive some funding, but the point is that it is $600,000 a year coming through Tides Canada, representing a very small percentage of our work. We think it is an important piece of work and it is important for Canadians to have a robust discussion on that particular development project. However, it is not our role to say whether that project should proceed, just as we do not tell East Scarborough Storefront the best way to address youth issues.
Senator Lang: I am trying to find out exactly what your position is. There is something I would like you to explain to us. You know of an organization called Forest Ethics, which is very much involved in opposing the pipeline and oil sands. On their website they made it clear that they were responsible for getting over 600 interveners to come in and slow up the regulatory process that is public policy that Canada set us up in conjunction with the province to look at these projects.
However, at the same time, this organization does not have a charitable status. My understanding is that they raise money by directing donations to Tides Canada, who then pays ForestEthics.
Can you explain to me why, if you have not taken a position on the pipeline, you would have organizations using your charitable status to pay for issues such as this?
Ms. Goodman: ForestEthics Canada is a project of Tides Canada, and we have had a long relationship with them. They played a constructive role in both the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements and the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreements. They are taking a strong position on the pipeline, clearly. We are in discussions with them about the future of our relationship going forward.
Senator Lang: I just want to get it clear for the table. We are here to find out how this American money moves and how we are using charitable institutions and the definition of charity for various public reviews of policy. For the record, your organization then does utilize your charity status to raise money for ForestEthics at the present time; is that correct?
Ms. Goodman: ForestEthics is a project of Tides Canada, yes.
Ms. Smith: I could add something to that, as well. Some of the money we have received from ForestEthics is from the Government of Canada. The Government of Canada provides funding for people to participate in the joint review process, which is the panel. ForestEthics has received their money from the Government of Canada, and that has gone through Tides Canada.
The Chair: Senator Lang, would you accept a supplementary from Senator Seidman?
Senator Lang: Sure.
Senator Seidman: I would like to clarify further what you are saying. You said in response to Senator Lang and the letter that you do not take a position on the pipeline, so I would like to know how many pro-Gateway projects you have funded, for example.
Ms. Smith: We do not believe we are funding any of them at this time. We do not believe that they are lacking funding. As we know, there are $100 million that Enbridge has received to get itself through the regulatory process. None of them have approached us.
Our funding goes to support environmental and social justice issues. We are supporting those voices to put the environmental perspectives forward, just as Enbridge is, I assume, supporting other voices, or how CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, will be supporting other voices to participate in the project.
Senator Seidman: Therefore, you are taking a position, because you are funding a particular advocacy segment on a particular side of the coin, so to speak.
Ms. Smith: We are absolutely funding the environmental perspectives — the voices to put the environmental perspective forward in all kinds of regulatory hearings, whether it is mining, forestry, or energy. That is the work that we do.
Senator Seidman: Thank you. You have answered the question, because you are funding one side of the debate.
Senator Massicotte: I would like to speak on this same point. I have read your website and your financial statements. From my understanding, Tides Canada basically channels its sources. You have one — you ask people give money and set up their foundation with you, and you designate where the money goes. They have total liberty, I understand — they decide where the money goes. It has to be socially responsible, based on your criteria; it cannot be contrary to your values. However, about 6 per cent of your total funding is on programs you somewhat deep necessary. Am I correct in saying that?
Ms. Goodman: Yes, there is the foundation side, which you have aptly described as the donor-advised fund model, so the donors make recommendations to us in terms of where those grants are made. That part is correct. Then we have an operating charity, which is a unique platform for a shared governance and administrative platform for 40 projects. The idea there is really around a new innovative model for delivering charitable work. Instead of having people doing whale research, social services or environmental work focused on back-office administration and benefits, we do that work for them. We also do all the contracts, human resources, and oversee the broader work.
Senator Massicotte: You said earlier something about specific endowments. They recommend. Do you decide how that money is spent or is it not them who sets condition on how the money is used?
Ms. Goodman: On the foundation side? The donor will make recommendations to us.
Senator Massicotte: Yet you decide how to spend their money?
Ms. Goodman: We take the donor's recommendations. That is the same model as the Vancouver Foundation, the Toronto Community Foundation —
Senator Massicotte: What percentage is specific to endowment funds and what percentage is general to your discretion? How much money are we talking about per year?
Ms. Goodman: For example, the East Scarborough Storefront would raise funds to support that initiative. Donors are directly providing funds to those initiatives, and we do not necessarily determine exactly where every penny is spent. I cannot do a split off the top of my head.
Senator Massicotte: In one year, how much money goes to specific funds and how much to the general fund for your discretion?
Ms. Goodman: We do not have any discretionary funds.
Senator Massicotte: Yet you do have funds for which you say, "Please put your money in this stuff." Even with your staff, you have some who sell your company as a manager of these funds, but you also have staff who are specialists on environmental issues. Obviously, you have significant discretion.
Ms. Goodman: For example, we would work to raise funds for marine, which is one of our 40 projects. However, we are not an endowed foundation, so we do not have any money that we can send here or there; it must be donor recommended or raised by the projects.
Senator Massicotte: How much money per year do you collect?
Ms. Goodman: Last year we collected about $22 or 23 million.
Senator Massicotte: How much are for specific foundations?
Ms. Goodman: From the foundations? From U.S. foundations?
Senator Massicotte: Canadian or U.S.
Ms. Goodman: I cannot give a breakdown. In the last three years, 33 per cent of our funding has come from the U.S. foundations.
Senator Massicotte: Of your $22 million?
Ms. Goodman: Yes.
Senator Massicotte: So $6 million to $7 million is U.S.
Ms. Goodman: Yes, and the rest is Canadian.
Senator Lang: We are only trying to get information here, and I hope you take it that way. I just want to make the point that when donors or foundations from the United States give money and say it is donor directed, that is confidential information, is it not?
Ms. Goodman: No. If we have individual Canadian donors, we do not disclose that.
Senator Lang: I am talking about Americans.
Ms. Goodman: As far as I know, every U.S. foundation from which we receive funding puts the grants that they have made to us their website.
Senator Lang: However, an individual donor can give money and direct it but ask to be anonymous, is that correct?
Ms. Goodman: An individual donor can do that, but I can tell you that we have not received anonymous donations from the U.S. Our total amount of anonymous donations is less than $250,000 a year, and it is from individual Canadians.
The Chair: To help clarify, the question was whether the purposes for donations from American foundations are spelled out or confidential. Ms. Goodman said that if the Hewlett Packard Foundation, for example, gives $1 million, it is declared on their own website, but I think you want to know whether what they want that money spent on is also declared.
Ms. Goodman: They put grant purposes on their website. For a long time we have gone above and beyond CRA requirements around transparency, but we think that the more Canadians know about our grant making the more they will want to support our work, so we will be moving to put all our grants and project activity up on our website as well.
Senator Massicotte: The website lists a bunch of donors, but not the amount of money any donors have contributed.
Ms. Goodman: Right.
Senator Lang: I would like to move into another area. I will come back to that in a second, and I appreciate your frankness.
Mr. Pike and Mr. Solomon were the founders of Tides Canada and Tides U.S.A. Your organization has grown quite a bit over the last ten years and is obviously turning into a fairly major political financial force, at least on the West Coast.
In 2003 or 2004 your founder Mr. Solomon was in San Francisco where he laid out a strategy to launch a systematic social change focused in one region. He talked about how he was going to change things in British Columbia, and that is fine. Do you have a copy of that strategy? Is there any document available to the public that lists your objectives for that strategy?
Ms. Goodman: No. Individual board members have their own views and strategies that are quite separate from the organization.
Senator Lang: There is no strategy in writing about the long-term objectives of the board vis-à-vis this strategy to change the social culture of British Columbia?
Ms. Goodman: Not that I am aware are of.
Senator Lang: I would like to go to two other areas if I could.
In 2004 there was a $70,000 grant given by an American foundation to Tides Canada to develop a gas and oil strategy for British Columbia. Are you familiar with that? Is it a public document? If so, could we have a copy of it?
Ms. Goodman: That was a grant from seven years ago, and I have only been with the organization for three years, but I would be happy to see if we could dig into our archives to find out what that was about.
Senator Lang: It would be interesting to see how that relates to what we were talking about earlier, Gateway and the oil sands and its future.
I would also like to talk about public disclosure. It is very confusing for Canadians to understand what a charity is. I always thought a charity was for giving money to a food bank or for education or religion. However, it is obviously much broader than that, because you people have charitable status and obviously are doing some charity work.
You said that you want more public disclosure and transparency. I take it, then, that you would support any steps the government took legislatively or by regulation to ensure that organizations in Canada, especially those receiving monies from outside our borders, specifically the United States, that that information be made public and transparent so that Canadians can tell, if an organization is being funded by the Americans and they are standing up in a public forum, they know who is paying them. Would you support that?
Ms. Goodman: Absolutely. Currently we do report a number on our tax returns.
Senator Wallace: My first question is probably the easiest one you will get today. I just want to ensure this gets on the record. Your organization is a Canadian registered charitable organization?
Ms. Smith: Correct.
Senator Wallace: I ask that because, when I listened to you talk about the work you do, some of it would clearly fit with my understanding of "charitable." However, with much of what you do you have made me rethink my understanding of what activities truly are charitable. I refer in particular to the energy field and the work you are doing through your Tides Canada Energy Initiative. I read the material you provided on the background of your organization and its work and the opinions that you have been advocating for alternative energy sources, be it the use of hydrogen fuel cells for automobiles, electricity, electrical cells for cars, wind power or solar panels.
When I think of that, you are saying exactly what we have heard from the private sector interests who support all of those initiatives. I am having trouble distinguishing the work that you are doing in those fields, which are private sector, corporate-driven businesses, each with their own desire to get a piece of the market and driven by bottom line, obviously. They have consultants and lobbyists who advocate for them to ensure their business interests are protected. I do not mean this in a discourteous way, but when I listened what you are doing in that regard I had a hard time distinguishing what you do from what the private sector is doing.
As I say, it takes me full circle. I have had a lot of experience in working with charities. It is great and I am glad to do it. I donate personally. We are all for that. However, there seems to me to be a rather hazy line between what is furthering business interests and work that belongs to lobbyists and private sector consultants and some of what you are doing. Will you comment on that?
Ms. Smith: That is a good question. Our goal is to help Canada move to a low-carbon economy, that is, to take the carbon out of the system because of the impacts of carbon pollution on our air systems driving climate change. It is a public policy goal and environmental goal. However, as you have pointed out, there are huge opportunities for jobs, for the economy and for Canada to prosper if we go down the path of shifting our energy systems to low-carbon ones. We focus on talking about those. Our goals, our interests, are to clean up Canada's air by taking the carbon out of it and also by cleaning up other air contaminants that impact people's health.
How will we achieve those goals? How will we address these things? If you talk to academics, Environment Canada or many different sectors, you will find that the ways to do it are to put forward public policies that will be good for one sector of the economy, and that will be good for Canada. It would actually increase and grow our clean tech and clean energy sectors.
I think we are very different from industry lobby groups in our communications, the way we talk to people, the way we talk to the public. There is a strong recognition that, frankly, Canadians are relatively illiterate when it comes to energy, and that is actually part of the problem. We are huge consumers of energy per capita, and the price of energy is very cheap in Canada relative to other developed countries. That gives us very little incentive to understand energy more.
Some of the work we have done and some of the communications we are doing are designed to reach out and speak to Canadians in a way that they can hear it.
Senator Wallace: A lot of that makes sense. There is no question. We are all concerned about environment with our generation and the generations that follow. Absolutely no problem with that whatsoever, and I would encourage you to do that. It is when your work, however, results in advocating for particular business interests and the alternative energy sources that they represent. I question that. To me, that seems to be getting out of the realm of charitable work and into the private sector consulting field.
Along the same lines, charitable organizations, as you know, are able to be involved in political activities if they relate to the registered charitable purpose. As I understand it, those political purposes that are permitted, according to the charitable status here in Canada, would not extend to advocating for changes in the laws of the country, a reversal of government policy and a reversal of particular decisions of governmental authorities. I understand those are political activities that would not be considered charitable. Again, it seems when I am listening to you, you are running up against that. What comments might you have about that?
Ms. Smith: Our initiative operates very much within the realm of charitable law. Charitable law allows 10 per cent advocacy, and we are well below that 10 per cent advocacy requirement. In fact, all of the Tides Canada initiatives that operate there operate within charitable laws. What we are doing is within the laws of Canada.
If you look at Canada, we are a very clean and safe place to live. We have a quality of life that people aspire to in other countries, and it is because of some of the strong laws we have here in Canada that help to regulate things like there being no lead in paint on children's toys, or we have taken toxins out of our water systems. That is what makes Canada a healthy place. We have stopped acid rain. There are other things like anti-smoking laws and laws against drinking and driving. Those came about because charities worked with government and industry to advocate for best public policy to protect our air, our water and our communities. That is the work of the charitable sector, as designed by the laws of Canada, which has created a much better community and society here in Canada.
Senator Wallace: I would agree with you. That describes the charitable function and the charitable sector. I am having difficulty because what you are doing seems to be in the private sector. When are you doing economic analysis of the business consequences, the bottom line consequences of the use and development of certain alternative energy sources, such as an analysis of the oil sands and the economic impact on Canada, to me, those are things the private sector does. That does not feel to me to be charitable work.
Senator Mitchell: Would that not be exactly what the Fraser Institute does, and it has charitable status? Does the Fraser Institute not do exactly those things? They involve themselves all the time in this economic debate and do research that is good for business. Why would that be different than what they are doing?
Senator Wallace: I am not talking about the Fraser Institute today, senator.
Senator Mitchell: No, but maybe we should.
Senator Wallace: I fully respect the charitable work that Tides Canada is doing. I am just raising the issue. Maybe it is my lack of understanding of the distinction between private sector and charitable, and I was interested to hear your responses.
Ms. Smith: Actually, it is a good question because we have in the past compartmentalized environment over here and economy over there. I think what we are doing is saying that our economy depends on a strong environment. You have probably heard that from various different places. The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, as appointed by this government, is putting forward that same message.
Some of the work we are trying to do is to bridge those two worlds to say it is not either/or; you are not for or against the environment or for or against the economy. We need to be for both of them, which means we need to integrate our thinking about both of them. We are trying to put forward the vision, the story. How do we have a strong economy, create jobs, create a prosperous Canada that we all want with a strong environment and healthy water systems and do our bit to contributing towards reducing climate change in this world, which is a part of our responsibility? How can we bridge those two worlds?
I think it is possible and it is a challenge, you are right. It challenges us to think of those two things together, but that is where the answer lies.
Senator Wallace: I agree with you, it does. Just what you have described is I would say exactly what we have heard from the private sector as well. That is how they would describe their initiatives that relate to the development of energy in this country, exactly the same objectives. If we are all on the same page, maybe we will get the right results.
Senator Neufeld: Thank you for being here today. I want to ask one question about donors, and if you do not have the answer, you can provide an answer to our clerk later.
As I understand, the Dogwood Initiative, which I am familiar with, and Tides Canada partner on certain things, along with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation on initiatives to fight the oil sands. I would like to know how much money those two U.S. foundations have contributed since the year 2000 to Tides Canada. If you do not have that answer, I appreciate that, and you can get back to me at a later time.
The Chair: Maybe they do have the answer.
Ms. Goodman: Not since 2000, certainly not, no.
The Chair: What about 2001?
Ms. Goodman: We will have to get back to you.
Senator Neufeld: I am told it is actually a substantial amount of money. I would like to know.
Ms. Smith: It is probably helpful to say that significant money has come from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. As far as I know, not one cent of it has gone to fight the oil sands.
I can give you a sense of what it has gone to. There was a sizable contribution to the Great Bear Rainforest Coast Opportunity Fund, which is economic development on the B.C. coast with First Nations communities. $4.5 million went to the Taku River Tlingit conservation trust fund, which they are using for jobs around land stewardship related to their land use agreement. I think there was around $4 million dollars towards the Salmon Aquaculture Demonstration Project, as Ms. Goodman referred to, which is partnering with the Government of Canada, the industry partner there and the Namgis First Nation to pilot closed containment salmon aquaculture, which will hopefully be successful and therefore create more job opportunities in B.C.
Ms. Goodman: With respect to the Taku Land Use Plan, following Premier Clark's announcement of the land use plan last year, we have established an endowment fund to support the implementation of that land use plan and a shared governance model.
Senator Neufeld: All fully influenced by American foundations. We should not go into Taku River because I have been there and listened to that. If you could get back to me with the other information, I would appreciate it.
The Dogwood Initiative actually has — and you are part of it, you have given money to them, as well as those other two foundations — registered a strong opposition to tankers on the West Coast of British Columbia. That actually says they do not want the oil because the only thing in the form of oil that would come from Canada would be from the oil sands to the coast, if that ever happens. There is a strong connection there. We can try to say we are not against the oil sands, but that is a pretty good stretch for me.
We have one to three very large crude tankers up and down the west coast of British Columbia almost on a daily basis, and have for many years, from Alaska. However, this Dogwood Initiative is fully against any tankers in along the coast of British Columbia.
If you could get that number for me, I would appreciate it.
I want to go on to another issue and ask you why Canada, why British Columbia, why Alberta? Why are you so opposed to what is going on?
In Canada I am told that we consume more green energy per capita than any other nation. We are the sixth largest producer of oil in the whole world. When I look at the larger producers like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia — Venezuela is less than us — some of the records there are absolutely dismal compared to what is done in Canada. I am not saying that there is not CO2 emitted from the use of carbon fuels.
I am a firm believer that we will transition, at some point in time, to less carbon fuels and into cleaner forms of energy, but there is lots of discussion around that. That is not going to happen in the next five years; it is not going to happen in the next ten years. It is going to take an awful lot of time before that transition is done, so why are you picking on Canada?
We were one of the cleanest places. You just said it. You said people want to come to Canada because we were so good, we were so clean. We have cheap energy. Are you advocating really expensive energy so we put the consumption down? That is what happens in all the European countries when I go and look at their costs of electricity.
We often hear about how great Denmark is, yet 45 per cent of their electricity is generated with coal and their electricity costs are about 36 cents a kilowatt hour compared to an average of 9 in Canada. Why are you so intent, out there saying Canada is bad? I get tired of that, to be perfectly frank. I think we are a pretty good country. I think we do a pretty good job. Are we perfect? We are a long ways from it, but I think actually Canadians do not get up in the morning and say. "I am going to put my hat on and see if I can ruin the environment."
The expression about how a strong economy and a strong environment go together has been around for a long time. I believe that, and I think most Canadians do.
When you say Canadians are illiterate about energy, to a degree I think they are, and I think it is the responsibility of our group, and that is what we started to do, to actually try to get some more information out to Canadians. Just to say we can build ten more windmills and four solar farms and we have gotten rid of oil is false, it is misleading.
I want to know why Canada? Why are you so intent on going after, especially western Canada but Canada as a whole, when we are one of the cleanest countries in the world when it comes to energy?
Ms. Goodman: Why Canada? We are a Canadian organization, focused on Canadian issues, and that is what our charitable status is here to do. We are based in Vancouver with an office in Toronto.
One thing we sometimes forget as Canadians is we are blessed with tremendous natural resources, and with that comes a responsibility to develop those resources in a responsible way. I agree with you, Canada actually does a very good job of that.
Coming from the resource sector, I have been through the Great Bear Rainforest and whatnot and have seen those issues from both sides. I think, as Ms. Smith said, the Great Bear Rainforest is the last intact, temperate rainforest on the planet. It is globally significant.
I think part of your question is really why American foundations are supporting Canadian charitable activity here, and it is in part because these areas have such global significance. As Canadians we can take great pride in that. As we have seen over time in the forest sector, it is not about anti-development, it is about finding the most sustainable path forward.
If you were to ask my colleagues in industry, yes, there is frustration with environmental groups. We do not always like what they say, but at the end of the day we have actually come up with solutions that have led to better results, better public policy for both the environment and the economy. That is what we are trying to do.
Senator Neufeld: I will take you then to Ms. Smith's comment about China and how much money they are spending on clean energy, and I appreciate that, and that is good.
You do not fault them at all. You do not speak about how much money they are spending on coal-fired generation when you talk about it, and you talk about electric vehicles.
Tell me, from your viewpoint, do you think electric vehicles are the replacement for what we power our vehicles with now? How do you propose to generate that amount of electricity, which would be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of megawatts of electricity, knowing that some places have no options today other than coal? People can tell me you can have wind farms. I know wind farms are part of it, but you cannot build enough wind farms to generate that much electricity, or solar panels.
Tell me, what is your vision for the future? What will drive our transportation? It is not just the cars we drive, it is all the transportation that we have. It is different in a highly populated country like China than a sparsely populated country like Canada. It is pretty tough to run a fast train from Winnipeg to Vancouver. It would not make sense just because of the cost, unless someone is advocating that the cost should be huge and should increase.
Ms. Smith: I agree with you that there are challenges to transportation in Canada, different challenges from China.
I am not a technology expert, so do I think electric vehicles are going to be the answer? What I am giving you are indicators of what is happening right now in the technology world and what kind of leaps forward there are taking place, because we do not see electric vehicles out on our streets right now, very few. However, I believe that the breakthroughs will shift our systems. Electric vehicles will clearly be part of the solution. Mass transit will be another part of the solution. Electric vehicles will need electricity.
First, let me be clear: I do not think China's commitment has anything to do with reducing their carbon footprint. Their commitment is to provide the service of mobility to their people the cheapest way possible, and one which will not hold them hostage to world markets and world supply issues. If they can produce their own energy, they will. They are, right now, the biggest investors in both wind and solar. In the last two years, I believe it is, they have surpassed all other countries in terms of their investment there. You are right in that right now they are producing a huge amount of electricity through coal. Will it shift? The indicators are they are investing enormously in wind and solar. There are wind energy billionaires coming out of China now, so they are manufacturing, and that will be a key piece of the future.
Senator Neufeld: Certainly, and maybe just a little bit further to that.
I appreciate what you are saying, but you are agreeing with me that China is actually, and as I understand, building — the usual term is a large coal plant every week or two weeks — and spewing huge amounts of CO2 in the air, which affects everyone. It has no borders.
Canada is on the list; Canada is not spending very much money on clean energy, but look at how much China is spending. That sends a wrong message to me. You know what? China should be spending an awful lot of money on clean energy. They absolutely should be, because of the amount of pollution that China actually creates through their coal generation.
When you talk about wind energy and those kinds of things replacing some of the energy that we have now, 75 per cent of Canada's energy comes from clean sources, if you believe in nuclear. You say that you really do not, but if you include nuclear generation in Canada, we are 75 per cent clean.
Why would you not go after a country like Denmark that is generating 45 per cent by coal and about another 20 per cent by oil? Why do we not clean up those areas and get them to the same standard as Canada? Our standards are high, and they will only get better.
The other thing is, to build wind farms and solar panels you need energy. You need coal for making the steel.
The Chair: Let us try to get to a point.
Senator Neufeld: You need thousands of cubic yards of concrete for every tower. That all consumes a lot of coal. Do you agree with me? Tell me if you have something that you envision would take the place of that so that you can continue to build solar farms and wind farms with no impact on the environment.
Ms. Smith: We are saying that the investments in clean energy are growing. Last year, the investments in clean tech surpassed oil and gas for the first time in history. We are saying the trends are that this is where it is going, and Canada needs to take heed of this when it comes to electric vehicles in China. The oil that we are proposing to sell to China is for cars. That is what that oil will be used for. We need to actually take note that they are making huge investments in electric vehicles, and they do produce their own electricity. Our idea is putting all our eggs in one basket and our energy future and our energy economy is going to be based on selling oil to the world for transportation, but we need to know what is going on around the world. That is what we are bringing to the table today. We are not saying China is good, China is bad, China is better or China is worse. We are saying these are trends in the global economy around energy that Canada needs to take note of.
I hear what you are saying. Why are we working in Canada? We are Canadians. We want Canada to be a better place. We know that Canada can be a better place. We do have great things that are happening here, and we support those things. We named them, and we can make improvements. We are one of the most energy inefficient countries in the world. Our per capita consumption of energy is top of the charts. We are either number one or number two. There is huge room for improvement in Canada. That actually is not even a conversation about pipelines or oil sands. That is just a conversation about getting ourselves to be a more efficient society. It is not because we are in the north and it is a big country. Other countries that have similar characteristics to us in the northern hemisphere do not consume energy the way we do. That is a simple one for us to reduce our energy, reduce our carbon and actually create jobs here in Canada.
We are focusing on Canada because Canada can do better and because we actually are educated and wealthy. We are not at war. There is no civil war going on. We have a responsibility to do better. I do not hold my head up high saying we are the biggest energy consumers in the world per capita. That is not something to be proud of, so let us do better. That is what we are saying. We know we can do better. Let us take action.
Senator Neufeld: We are the largest consumers of green energy of any jurisdiction in the world on a per capita basis, so per capita can do all kinds of things. I do not disagree with you that we can do better. I said that, and we are doing better. I think Canada is doing very well instead of what is portrayed that we are not doing very well. We do great things in Canada already.
The Chair: I will go to Senator Massicotte. We are now starting to move up the clock. We will have a second list. Senator Neufeld had 16 minutes and 17 seconds, and they were very well used.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you for being with us today. I guess we are having an interesting debate. Maybe I will put my cards on the table. I have no objection with your vision or your objectives. I read your pamphlet as to how you see the environment. I totally agree with where you want to go. However, I have very serious reservations on the practicality of how we get there. You make it sound so easy. Living in the real world, I have difficulty with the ease with which you get to the solutions. I agree with where you want to go, being an environmentally country and so on with a much lower carbon footprint. Having said that, that is good for debate. I have no objection with your being in the arena for this debate. I think all views should be heard. Your view has all the reason to be heard as many other views, and I have no difficulty with the debate or your expressions. People can disagree without being disagreeable. We have to learn, and best solutions are made when all views are heard. I have no debate there.
I want to know more about your organization. I understand, just from your business sense, that you offer individuals, corporations and foundations to put their money with you. They have a choice. They can put conditions to it, and you call it recommendations. They can tell deposit their funds with you and tell you how to use it, which I gather is maybe 30 or 40 per cent of your total funds. You also have a general fund where they can put their money with you and you will use your discretion, given your track record, and you actually identify specific funds that they can actually allocate, but then you decide how to use the funds. Am I correct in saying that?
Ms. Goodman: No. All the funds are donor directed. They can choose to put their funds into certain projects, and those projects determine how to use those funds on the operating charity side. Donors are coming specifically to fund a specific project, or they are setting up a donor-advised fund that they will then make recommendations to us to direct out to charities. We do not have, unfortunately, any money for people who call me up and say, "Can you send $2500 to the food bank?" I can only say, "If we have a donor that is willing to do that, we can do that." We do not have discretionary funds.
Senator Massicotte: When you describe your funding, on your website you have ten specific funding interests, if you wish. They are very general. You have significant discretion on how to use those funds. They say, "I put it in this fund," but you decide largely how those funds will be used. Am I correct in saying that?
Ms. Goodman: No, the donors decide how the funds will be used.
Senator Massicotte: When I read your definition of the funds, there is still significant discretion how you use those funds within that category.
Ms. Goodman: I think what you are referring to on the site is we have environment, forest, foods.
Senator Massicotte: No, you actually name certain funds on your website. You say this is for the rainforest or whatever. You designate it for that fund. Within that is immense discretion. Your definition on the website is very broad.
Ms. Goodman: The funds are either directed by the donors or directed by the project leaders. East Scarborough Storefront determines how to do that.
Senator Massicotte: Are the project leaders your employees?
Ms. Goodman: They are our employees.
Senator Massicotte: When I say "you," that includes all of your employees. You say $22 million a year is basically the amount of funds going to your organization. How much is specifically designated funds for specific purposes other than the generic ones? How much is that?
Ms. Goodman: You are talking about our project?
Senator Massicotte: Where the donor decides, "I want to create a special fund, a foundation for a specific purpose, and I will determine the conditions or recommendations applicable to it." How much of your $22 million is those specific funding projects?
Ms. Goodman: Let me try it again here. On the project side, we have 40 projects. East Scarborough Storefront was the example I used. East Scarborough Storefront would write an application to the City of Toronto to do X, and then, based on that grant agreement, they would carry out X. There really is no discretion within our project side for those grants. There may be individual donors that just give to a project and say, "You can do what you want with it," and the project leader decides what to do with that, but that is a very small percentage. Most of it is grants that come in with specific riders that vary between different projects. On the foundation side, it really is all donor directed.
Senator Massicotte: I understand from what you offer that someone can come in and say, "I have a couple million dollars, and I want to create a foundation under your management, but I want that money to be used for X, X and X." That can happen, right? That is insignificant relative to the $22 million of funding?
Ms. Smith: You are saying, "I have $2 million, but I want it to go to my local youth environment camp," and that is not one of the Tides projects.
Senator Massicotte: Agreed.
Ms. Smith: Yes, absolutely you can do that, and about 4 million of the 20 million goes to projects outside.
Senator Massicotte: Specifically designated projects?
Ms. Smith: It goes to projects outside of TCI.
Ms. Goodman: Outside of our operating charity.
Senator Massicotte: Four of the twenty-two are donor defined, not existing Tides projects.
Ms. Goodman: It would vary year to year. I would have to check the numbers, but that sounds like it is in the ballpark.
Senator Massicotte: Of the 22 million, around 6 million comes from U.S. foundations?
Ms. Goodman: On average over the last three years, yes.
Senator Massicotte: I notice you offer a form of donation by Canadian residents to use their U.S. money to bring it back to Canada for specific funds. Is that called U.S. funding also?
Ms. Goodman: We have a matching program, yes, but we are not counting that in our $20 million.
Senator Massicotte: Am I not correct that, under existing Revenue Canada requirements, any donation of $10,000 or more coming from a non-resident Canadian must be listed in your annual filing?
Ms. Goodman: Yes, it is.
Senator Massicotte: The government is very much aware of any non-Canadian funding.
Ms. Goodman: Yes. They are aware of the total. I do not think there is a requirement to do a list.
Senator Massicotte: I believe there is. I read your CRA filing. That information is confidential, but they specifically ask you to name each individual donor in excess of $10,000. I gather that does not include Canadian donors, only non- resident.
Senator Lang: That is correct.
The Chair: It is what they do with it.
Senator Massicotte: Canada Revenue has the information.
The Chair: Following on Senator Massicotte on a specific donation, the Oak Foundation is an American body, is it not?
Ms. Goodman: It is European, actually.
The Chair: The Oak Foundation paid Tides Canada U.S. $200,000 to develop a new energy vision for Canada with a plan and a pathway to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. They also paid Tides Canada another U.S. $50,000 for an energy initiative including a five-year strategic plan to begin to convince Canada to accept the long-term goal of dramatically lowering the country's GHG emissions. That was specific. Ms. Smith, you told us about the report, A New Energy Vision for Canada, which was funded by the Oak Foundation. We got to that.
That would be a project. You might go to Oak and say, by the way, we would like to do a report on energy. Could you give us some dough to do it? Is that how it works? Why would Europeans be interested in funding A New Energy Vision for Canada as opposed to a new vision for Liechtenstein, Denmark or wherever?
Ms. Smith: They will be funding that as well. Something like the Oak Foundation, which is a very large foundation, will be funding that in China, in India and in the U.S., et cetera.
Senator Brown: I mentioned that Ms. Smith, I guess, was the first one to say that we are working on a global society in terms of the environment. Why are we focusing on Canada? Much of what Senator Neufeld said rings very true. We produce 2 per cent of the world's GHGs, and the oil sands produce 0.05 per cent of those, which is a fraction of a per cent. Most of our problem with GHGs in Canada is transportation. If you really want to do something in Canada to reduce any kind of emissions, I think you need to focus on the transportation part.
We have already seen General Motors shut down their electric car, Volt, because there are some real problems with it. There is a solution out there that is working now: Liquefied natural gas, LNG. They are using it for motors for big trucks, but only a small number of them. They could use tremendous amounts of support for those things because it is probably going to take over 50 per cent of our emissions away just by putting LNG in motors instead of diesel fuel or gasoline. I would suggest that if you really want to do something in Canada that is specific and actually works, work on LNG.
Ms. Smith: Maybe just in comment to the senator, Tides Canada Energy Initiative has been working with some of the other NGOs and some of the oil companies to put forward concrete solutions around the transportation issue, including electric vehicles, compressed gas for commercial fleets and a series of recommendations that we have been talking with the government about to try to move forward and expand those kinds of transportation initiatives in some of the major cities in order to make them part of the solution.
Senator Brown: I remind you that the biggest part of the transportation problem is the large trucks that travel the whole country, city to city and back again, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. That is the biggest problem. It is not the toy cars that we drive around but the huge engines that are burning the fuels for transporting everything we make — agriculture products, food, steel, cement or whatever — in big trucks. You do not do that with electric motors.
Senator Raine: I am finding this very interesting. I just had a follow-up question about how Tides Canada is seen from the CRA's point of view. I see you as a charitable organization that takes donations and issues charitable receipts for those donations, and then flows the money through with no discretion directly to the donors' choice of end use. Is that correct?
Ms. Goodman: Like community foundations, we take the recommendations of our donors on grant making. That is generally correct, yeah.
Senator Raine: I have been involved for many years in raising money for sports, and it is absolutely forbidden to take a donation for a specific athlete and get a tax receipt for it by the sports organization and direct it to that athlete. You are not allowed to do that. If the end user of the money is not a charity, how is it that the CRA allows you to give a charitable donation tax receipt for that purpose?
Ms. Goodman: The end recipient is a charity.
Senator Raine: All the recipients of your granting are registered charities.
Ms. Goodman: They are registered charities or, in very few cases, we can contract with not-for-profits to undertake specific charitable activity on our behalf, which is well within CRA guidelines. We receive funds from foundations, individuals, companies and governments and grant to qualified donees under the CRA guidelines.
Senator Raine: I have a question on wind turbines. I have been reading lately that wind turbines are coming under great analysis as to whether they are really the way to go. I wonder if your research is showing any concerns around the world with wind turbines and the cost of them. They are very expensive to build. Obviously, China is making a lot of money selling wind turbines but I do not believe they are actually installing wind turbine farms. Without government subsidy, I am not sure this is a good way for us to go. Has your research on the new vision for Canada looked at wind turbines as the answer for sustainable energy?
Ms. Smith: We actually do not believe there is one answer. Part of the challenge of this energy transition is that we have used a few energy sources, and we need to transition to multiple energy sources; and wind turbines are part of that. They are good in some areas and obviously not good in other areas, where other sources of energy need to be put in place. However, we need to remind ourselves that huge government subsidies went into Canada's oil sands to get that project off the ground. People have been working for decades to make the oil sands a viably economic proposition. We will need to do the same type of government investment in new energy forms as well, just as we have done and continue to do with oil and gas.
We need to understand that as we move forward, many of these projects, as we go through a massive transition of society, are investments in transportation infrastructure. The redesign of our cities, which is another big piece of this solution, is making more efficient buildings and densifying places and shifting the way we do things, like work, so that everybody is not commuting to an office five days a week, et cetera.
These are massive infrastructure projects that will require capital from various sources and will take time. That is the way we need to approach this transition we are going through.
The Chair: We have 15 minutes maximum left. We have the Banking Committee moving in here. I have four senators in this second round. I would ask everyone to please be crisp with the questions and responses.
Senator Mitchell: Just to emphasize your point on the oil sands, it was the Canadian government that bought a huge chunk of equity in the oil sands in the 1970s, and it would not have occurred if it had not been for that. We start now, and it builds. In the early 1990s, oil was selling for $10 a barrel, and it was costing $25 a barrel to make it in the oil sands. Somebody had the vision to see that economies of scale, new technologies and increasing prices would, one day, make it central to our economy. That is really what you are saying about this kind of possibility, that the world is moving this way and that maybe we should be anticipating that and making sure we look at where the puck is going to be and not where it is, as they said so often about Wayne Gretzky.
The Chair: You are supposed to give a question, not the answer.
Senator Mitchell: My point is, I want to follow up also on your point about energy efficiency. In one sense, you are saying that there is a lot of low-hanging fruit there. We could just turn off lights in towers at night. You emphasized economic benefits, and there is the whole question of productivity in Canada. As soon as we lower our energy costs by conservation, we automatically increase our productivity, do we not?
Ms. Smith: Yes.
Senator Mitchell: Senator Angus raised a question about the Oak Foundation and what they were doing about an 80 per cent reduction. These are significant targets in climate change reduction, but clearly the Government of Canada — this Conservative government — says that it has significant targets for climate change reductions. When you take money from the Oak Foundation to figure out ways to get to those targets, you are really supporting an initiative of the Canadian government.
Ms. Smith: That is correct. Every goal in here, like the 80 per cent reduction by 2050 or the 17 per cent reduction by 2020, is something that the Government of Canada has committed to. We did not put anything in here that is not what the Government of Canada committed to.
Senator Mitchell: You are absolutely consistent, and we are getting money from abroad to help the government get to its objectives. That is great. Not only that, but also you are actually in partnership, in places like the Great Bear Rainforest, with the Government of Canada, who is in direct partnership with Forest Ethics. Is that not right? You are not running counter to that at all. You are not fighting their objectives, or ergo Canadians' objectives, at all.
Ms. Smith: In the Great Bear Rainforest, the federal government, the provincial government, and the foundations are in partnership. It was not ForestEthics; it was the foundations. Tides Canada brought money from the U.S. foundations.
Senator Mitchell: I think the point one senator was trying to make was that, because you do not fund an infinitely well-funded side of the debate, somehow you are picking a side. The side you are picking is the side of balance and public policy debate and all voices being heard. We would be hard pressed to say that a voice concerned about the fisheries or the environment of B.C. is any less Canadian than the voice concerned about creating the jobs that could, in some senses, create some risks for those other jobs and those other important values. They are both Canadian; they should be heard. That is what you are saying?
Ms. Smith: Yes. We are picking the side of the environment, and we are helping that side to be heard. It obviously is much less resourced than the corporate interests.
Senator Mitchell: Infinitely less.
Ms. Smith: There is no question about that. It is not like that is a surprise to anyone.
Senator Mitchell: What was the percentage of your funding that comes from the U.S.? Three per cent?
Ms. Goodman: Thirty-three per cent in the last three years.
Senator Mitchell: That is still good. Thank you.
Senator Lang: I would like to go back to the question of public disclosure, transparency, and the fact that there is this great influx of American interest involved in our public debate here. We have to go back to what is a charity and what is not a charity. I do not know who wants to answer this, but you specifically said that Tides Canada is not against the oil sands, pipelines, or other resource development projects. Yet, Senator Neufeld raised an issue about the coastal tanker campaign initiated by Dogwood Initiative, which I believe you are familiar with. My understanding is that, as an organization, Tides Canada is a partner with two American foundations opposing tanker traffic on the coast of British Columbia, which basically says that the oil sands would not be able to build a pipeline because you cannot transport the fuel from there.
I want to ask you again because I think you want it both ways. It is important for the record. If you are opposed to the oil sands and the Gateway, then I think you should say so because you have all this American money coming through your organization, and you are also working in partnership with them on various issues that either directly or indirectly affect that particular project. Just to conclude, there is apparently a federal report that just came out in the last number of weeks that recommends, with certain provisions, that the transportation of oil off the coast is safe if they take certain steps to ensure that the waterways are respected.
Now that you have that policy, are you still involved with Dogwood Initiative and prepared to review that policy to see if it maybe is viable, or are you forever against any oil tanker traffic on the coast? If you are, what about the 1,500 tankers that are on the coast right now?
Ms. Goodman: Our mandate is to promote a healthy environment and a just Canadian society. We support and fund groups that are bringing forward environmental perspectives. Sometimes they bring forward those perspectives in opposition as a way to balance the heavy weight that is put, in the public policy debates, on economic dimensions. We think that is a perfectly legitimate activity that represents the views of many Canadians. As I have said before, a very small percentage of what we do is related to oil sands and pipeline activities. Ninety-seven per cent of what we do has nothing to do with that, but we feel this is a very important public policy debate that requires balance, given how many government and industry resources are going into promoting a specific economic interest.
Ms. Smith: May I just add something? I think there is confusion. We talk about U.S. foundation dollars, and then we talk about money going to environmental groups around the oil sands and the pipeline. I want to remind you that the focus of the majority of the U.S. foundation dollars going through Tides Canada is not around the pipeline or the oil sands. As Ms. Goodman said, only 3 per cent of our money, in total, is going to that. Thirty-three per cent of our money comes from the U.S. The majority of it is going to other issues.
I think there keeps being a confusion of numbers thrown out and then talk of the energy issues. That money is mostly going to economic development initiatives, jointly funded with governments and industry, to promote sustainable communities and sustainable economic development.
Senator Lang: I want to pursue this a little further. It depends on what you define as supporting that type of industry versus other aspects of the economy, in this case British Columbia. Firstly, would you say, then, that the six or $7 million dollars that has been put forward this year, I believe, by the Betty Moore foundation, to plan for the marine park from Vancouver to the Alaskan coast, is related to the oil and gas industry or would affect it? Secondly, how can they be objective if they are spending all that money and have come out very clearly as being against any oil tanker traffic on the coast?
Ms. Smith: I was very involved in the forestry and land use issues in coastal B.C. I was at the central coast land and marine use planning table from 1996 to 2001. The government, at that time, recognized that it could not do land-use planning and marine-use planning together. This is in the late 1990s, so they wrapped up in around — I do not remember exactly the year — 1998 or something. They wrapped up a very high-level marine plan and committed to the communities that they would do marine planning for the central and north coast of B.C. That was long before there was any Enbridge pipeline proposal into that region. The government has not been able to do that because of a lack of resources.
It was a commitment they made back in the 1990s. Through a series of a number of things that happened, including the land use agreements which brought some of these foundations to the table, there became an opportunity to bring some money to the marine planning. That was the commitment of the federal government from quite a while ago; I do not know exactly, but 1998 or 1999.
Senator Lang: You did not answer my question because I wanted to know how you designate how much money you have for oil and gas studies, versus other aspects of what you do. I pointed out the $6 million that is coming from an American foundation that is funding the PNCIMA marine park and is basically opposed to coastal tankers going up the coast. Is that taken into account? Any decisions made there will affect whether or not you build a pipeline.
Ms. Goodman: The funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is for the PNCIMA process. It is not about a park. It is about marine planning, determining areas of use and balancing environment with other issues. That is a good example of Tides Canada and a sophisticated U.S. foundation trying to work in partnership with the government. The way that was to work was that the funding would come in and it would be directed by the federal government, the provincial government, and the First Nations.
Moore and Tides Canada were not going to say where that funding was going. This was about an innovative solution in difficult financial conditions. We think it is the kind of innovation government should be pursuing around different funding models. You look to the National Energy Board, and 90 per cent of their funding comes from the companies they regulate. There is nothing wrong with that as long as they the right processes are in place to ensure transparency that there is no undue influence. The same goes for the PNCIMA process. For us, this was an opportunity to work in collaboration with First Nations, the federal government, the B.C. government and to ensure a robust planning process with good science and effective stakeholder participation that would lead to good public policy. I do not think it is credible to suggest that funding from the Moore foundation was going to influence the Harper government into doing something that was against the interests of oil. I do not think that is a credible position at all.
Senator Wallace: I have a brief comment. You might find this useful as you go forward: Senator Lang and Senator Neufeld's comments about the Northern Gateway project and the issue of whether oil tankers should be accessing the area along the West Coast.
I am from New Brunswick, that little province attached to Quebec on the other side of the country. I live outside of Saint John. Saint John, as you may or may not know, has the largest oil refinery in the country — 300,000 barrels a day. It has been in existence for 50 years. Crude oil comes to that refinery in 2 million-barrel cargoes, double-hulled vessels. There is a long, and I would say successful, history of the movement of crude oil on the East Coast. You might find that useful when you are considering the West Coast situation.
Roughly 70 per cent of the refined product produced in refinery goes to the U.S. East Coast. There is continuous movement; 300,000-barrel cargoes of refined product from Saint John to Boston and so on along the Atlantic coast. There is a long history and you may find that useful when are drawing your conclusions about the West Coast.
Senator Neufeld: I would like know what Tides Canada considers clean energy? You must have a list of what it is or maybe you have it. Can you tell me what it is right now?
Ms. Smith: I can get you a more robust list following up, but in the new energy vision we outline a whole variety. It includes energy efficiency as part of the clean energy, clean tech package.
Senator Neufeld: Energy efficiency: I know that, but I would like to know what your determination is for clean energy as it relates to fuels for vehicles, electricity and all that.
I would like to clarify one thing. When it is said that there are no subsidies given to the alternative energy sector, it is wrong. I know that is wrong. We should not be saying that it is only the oil and gas industry or the oil industry that gets some kind of subsidy, a long time ago in the oil sands. I know in British Columbia we give huge subsidies for all alternative energy generation. We invest a lot of money in alternative sources, bio-energy and all of those things; huge amounts of money. I am on the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, and if I remember correctly I was just going through NRCan's list of expenditures. It is $27 million for one commitment the feds made quite a while ago to clean energy at one cent a kilowatt. There is a huge amount of money that goes into alternative energies, even to try to bring them down close to what it costs for other generation or production of energy.
Those things are already there. We should not forget that. That is why I always say Canada is a pretty good place. I love it, and I think we do really well and we should keep that motion going forward. I do not disagree with you that we can do better. We can always do better, but we should be careful we do not kill the goose with the golden egg in trying to do better. I would like know what you call clean energy. You do not accept nuclear, I got that.
The Chair: She did not say that. She said maybe.
Senator Neufeld: Maybe she does, or maybe she does not. It is hard to stand on the fence on nuclear. Do you agree with large hydro generation and those things? I did not read if in the document. I read your document.
Ms. Smith: In the document we say nuclear needs to be discussed. It is about—
Senator Neufeld: I can tell you something about standing on the fence, but I will not.
The Chair: Let the witness finish, please.
Ms. Smith: The document outlines low carbon energy sources. Our approach at Tides Canada is to bring people together to develop solutions collaboratively. That is why we are less positional on nuclear. I believe the document almost says this is a hot topic and has to be addressed in a conversation about an energy strategy for Canada. You cannot avoid it.
With respect to subsidies, I agree with you. I think the question I was asked is what we think about subsidies for wind, and I was saying we are going to need subsidies. I was not saying there are not any. I agree there are in places like B.C. and Ontario in particular, and other places. We need to enhance that. We need to build it. It will take more support, and part of it may be other types of policy that will level the playing field in other things. I agree with you. There are some good things happening in Canada, and we need to recognize and celebrate those.
The Chair: Honourable senators, Ms. Smith and Ms. Goodman, we have had a terrific session. I hope you two guests have enjoyed it. You have been tremendous. You are two very knowledgeable articulate and clearly committed women on a subject matter of great interest to all Canadians, and to this committee in particular. I hope you feel you have had a fair opportunity to describe the activities of Tides Canada.
In departing, my comment would simply be to the extent that you feel it is bad for you to be tied in with Tides USA, I do not think you have made the case today that you are separate from it. They give you a lot of money, you have a model, and name is the same. If you want to dissociate in the minds of the great Canadian populace, you might want to dissociate the name. Those are my little ex cathedra comments. I want to thank members of the committee as well. The questions have been focused and we are off and running with a good understanding of what you people do. Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)