Elon Musk > Champion of Truth and Free Speech

 

Elon Musk’s X to pay legal bills for Brampton, Ont.,

doctor chastised over COVID-19 tweets

By Staff  The Canadian Press

Posted March 24, 2024 10:24 am

 Updated March 24, 2024 1:49 pm

 2 min read

Elon Musk’s X said it’s funding legal bills for a Canadian doctor previously chastised by regulators for her tweets about COVID-19.

In a post to the X News account on Sunday morning, the company formerly known as Twitter wrote that it’s “proud to defend” Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill against what it calls “government-supported efforts to cancel her speech.”

In 2021, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario cautioned the Brampton, Ont.-based pediatrics specialist over her tweets, including one saying vaccination for COVID-19 was unnecessary.

The doctor has an ongoing crowdfunding campaign asking for $300,000 to help pay for legal costs, including a cost order related to a lawsuit she launched against what she called a “malicious online smear campaign.”

Gill issued an X post saying Musk committed to paying the remainder of her crowdfunding campaign and helping her appeal the College’s cautions from 2021.

Gill tagged Musk in a post asking him for help earlier this week, saying she owed around $300,000 in costs that were due in four days.

Publicly available legal filings show that Gill previously launched a lawsuit against 23 defendants. The claim was dismissed, awarding costs to the defendants totalling more than $1.1 million.

Gill appealed the dismissal, though only regarding her claim against four of the defendants, and sought leave to appeal the related costs orders. The appeal was dismissed, and she was refused leave to appeal the costs orders.

Last August, Musk posted on X promising to fund the legal bills of anyone who was “unfairly treated” by their employers “due to posting or liking something on this platform.”

“No limit,” he wrote.

It’s been almost a year and a half since Musk bought Twitter for US$44 billion, taking the formerly publicly traded company private.

He has since renamed the platform X and made sweeping changes, including dismantling its verification system, and getting rid of the majority of the workforce including engineers and moderators.

Experts have raised concern about the amount of misinformation being posted and algorithmically promoted on X, including about topics like the Israel-Hamas war.

Experts, of course, consider anything resembling the truth to be misinformation if it counters the prevailing narrative of the far-left, or Deep State. Elon Musk is a hero! A powerful man with a conscience. A rare breed!

— With files from The Associated Press

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Earth Convulsions > EU authorizes Glyphosate for 10 more years; Fed Court bans plastic bans in Canada

 

EU commission to prolong use of controversial

herbicide glyphosate for 10 years

The European Union will extend glyphosate’s authorisation for 10 years, even though its member states failed to agree over the active ingredient in Bayer AG’s Roundup weedkiller.

By:NEWS WIRES

Glyphosate has proved divisive since the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency concluded in 2015 that it was probably carcinogenic to humans. Other agencies around the world, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and EU agencies, have classified it as non-carcinogenic.

The European Commission said on Thursday it would renew glyphosate’s approval based on European Food Agency and European Chemicals Agency safety assessments and subject to new conditions and restrictions, such as maximum application rates.

Bayer welcomed the EU executive’s decision, which was condemned by environmental groups including Greenpeace.

“This reauthorisation allows us to continue to provide important integrated weed management technology to farmers across the European Union,” Bayer said in a statement.

The German company, which acquired Roundup through its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto in 2018, faces thousands of cancer lawsuits from plaintiffs across the United States.

Glyphosate has been widely used for decades by farmers and in other uses such as to clear weeds from railway lines.

The Commission had proposed extending authorisation by 10 years and sought approval from the EU’s 27 member countries.

A more substantial “qualified majority” had been required either to support of block the proposal, but on Thursday and a month ago, the voting did not clear this hurdle.

Under EU rules, the Commission had to take a decision on authorisation which was due to expire on Dec. 15.

French pro-environmental farming group Confederation Paysanne called the decision and the approval process “scandalous”. France was among a number of countries to abstain.

Greenpeace said it was outraged by the decision, which was contrary to numerous opinions of scientists on glyphosate’s probable negative effects on human health and the environment.

Agriculture without glyphosate was possible, it said, and public policies should help farmers to phase it out. Farming group Copa and Cogeca said there was no equivalent alternative.

Individual EU countries will remain responsible for authorising plant protection products containing glyphosate.

(Reuters)

The Federal Court just overturned Ottawa’s

single-use plastic ban

The Federal Court overturned Canada’s ban on single-use plastic on Thursday, deeming the policy “unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

The decision found that the classification of plastics in the cabinet order was too broad to be listed on the List of Toxic Substances in Schedule 1 and the government acted outside of its authority.

“There is no reasonable apprehension that all listed Plastic Manufactured Items are harmful,” the decision read.

The decision has essentially quashed a cabinet order that listed plastic manufactured items, such as plastic bags, straws, and takeout containers, as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in a statement that the federal government is “strongly considering an appeal” of the decision.

“Canadians have been loud and clear that they want action to keep plastic out of our environment,” he said. “We will have more to say on next steps soon.”

The decision has implications for the government’s ban on six single-use plastic items. The government is only able to regulate substances for environmental protection if they are listed as toxic under CEPA.

The decision found that it was not reasonable to say all plastic manufactured items are harmful because the category is too broad.

The regulations banning plastic items are already being phased in, with a ban on manufacturing and importing six different categories already in place, and a full ban on their sale and export planned by the end of 2025.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in a statement that the decision “demonstrates a continued pattern of federal overreach intended to subvert the constitutionally protected role and rights of provinces,” and that the ban has had “wide-ranging consequences for Alberta’s economic interests.” She said the ban has put thousands of jobs and billions of investments at risk.

“Alberta is proudly home to Canada’s largest petrochemical sector, a sector with more than $18 billion in recently announced projects that were needlessly put in jeopardy by a virtue-signalling federal government with no respect for the division of powers outlined in the Canadian Constitution,” she said. She urges the federal government not to appeal the decision.

The case was brought by the Responsible Plastic Use Coalition and several chemical companies that manufacture plastics.

— with files from the Canadian Press.

======================================================================

Truth Never gets in the way of a good story for Palestinian Pseudo-Journalist

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Mohammed Najib,‘Journalist’

MAY 30, 2023 2:00 PM 

BY HUGH FITZGERALD

Jihad Watch

Mohamed Najib is an anti-Israel propagandist and quasi-journalist, whose latest article in the Arab News offers further proof of his animus toward the Jewish state. More on his piece can be found here: 

Arab News parrots Palestinian lies about the Temple Mount.

Lying reporter has written for major news media

Elder of Ziyon, May 25, 2023:

The biography of Mohammed Najib says he “a journalist, war correspondent and defense analyst based in Ramallah, Palestine. He reports and writes on the Middle East region for leading newspapers and journals like The Jerusalem Post, Yomiuri Shimbon, Le Monde, Special Operations Report, the Wall Street Journal and Jane’s Information Group.”

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? But just one of his articles could have been reprinted in all those “leading newspapers,” and Najib may now be using those multiple appearances of the same article to convince us that he’s a real journalist. What he doesn’t say is that almost all of his pieces appear not in the Western press, but almost exclusively — do an Internet search of his name for the evidence — in Arab, especially Palestinian Arab, newspapers, including Arab News, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, and others of that Saudi or Palestinian ilk.

He is a Palestinian based in Ramallah.

Judging from this article in the Saudi-based Arab News, he has no business pretending to be any kind of journalist. The article is filled with absolute lies and Palestinian propaganda.

Palestinians are outraged by the Israeli government’s move to hold a weekly Cabinet meeting on May 21 inside the tunnels it has dug under Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Israel has not dug a single tunnel underneath the Temple Mount or under the mosque. All the tunnels that archaeologists have uncovered and excavated are adjacent to the Mount, or stretch hundreds of meters away from it.

The Israelis have to date excavated approximately 2,000 archeological sites in Jerusalem alone. But they have never dug a. tunnel, despite Najib’s malign claim, under the Temple Mount; the tunnels they have dug in the vicinity have been located either next to the Mount, or extend for hundreds of meters away from the Mount. It’s no secret; the Israeli archeological digs are not hidden from view, and Mohammed Najib surely has visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and knows about the Marwani Mosque built beneath it. He knows perfectly well that there are no Israeli tunnels underneath Al-Aqsa.

Najib claims:

For decades, Israel has been excavating under Al-Aqsa as part of a vague, historically motivated search for “Solomon’s Temple” in an attempt to justify the occupation through archeology.

Israel doesn’t need to excavate under the Mount to find evidence of the First and Second Temples. Israeli archeologists have discovered every sort of Jewish artifact – oil lamps, utensils, knives, plates, coins, pottery, menorahs – from both the First and Second Temple periods, in the hundreds of tons of debris dug up when the Palestinians excavated under the Mount in order to build a new mosque, the Marwani Mosque, under Al-Aqsa. The Palestinians threw out that debris, wanting to get rid of what they surely suspected contained Jewish artifacts from the Temple periods, but Israeli archeologists rushed to collect that debris, and have spent years sifting through it, finding many hundreds of artifacts. Some of these artifacts are now on display in Israeli museums. Mohammad Najib can hardly be unaware of the Palestinian excavations under Al-Aqsa, or of the debris that the Palestinians threw out and Israeli archeologists then salvaged, as much as they could, for study. And he knows perfectly well that the Israelis have not excavated under the Temple Mount.

Najib continues:

However, after years of digging, Israelis, who claim they can trace their heritage to the land of Palestine, have found nothing linking their history to the Al-Aqsa region.

Elder of Ziyon then notes:

The only people who have excavated  underneath the Temple Mount since the 19th century have been the Muslims of the Waqf. 

They dug out hundreds of tons of debris removed to illegally build the huge underground Marwani Mosque at the site of what was (erroneously) called Solomon’s Stables. 

It was the biggest archaeological crime of the century.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project has been going through the truckfuls of debris – and found countless Judean artifacts from the times of the First and Second Temples. 

One example is this bulla inscribed with the name of a well-known priestly family of First Temple-era Jerusalem, the children of Immer.

They also found the distinctive Herodian tiles from the Second Temple period. So we know Herod built something big there – now what structure could it have possibly been and described in detail by Josephus?…

Yes, a very large structure was built on the Temple Mount during the period of the Second Temple, a building described by the Jewish historian Josephus. What, oh what, could that building have been? Yes, you’ve guessed it. But Najib knows the Second Temple, like the First, never existed; they are part of the fictive history the Jews have made up to justify their presence in Palestine.

Najib insists: 

Dozens of far-right Israelis visit the Al-Aqsa compound daily to show defiance and provoke Palestinians.

Elder of Ziyon responds:

No, they (and visitors like me) visit to be at Judaism’s holiest spot – a small fact that Najib doesn’t mention to the readers. 

Believe it or not, Mohammed Najib, Israelis of all political persuasions, and not just those who are “far right,” visit the Temple Mount (which Najib misleadingly describes as the “Al-Aqsa compound”) with no desire to “show defiance and provoke” the Palestinians. They do everything they can to avoid disturbing the Muslims. They do not pray on the Mount, openly or silently. They do not bring prayerbooks, prayer shawls, and tefillin onto the Mount. They limit their walk to the same well-worn route along the perimeter of the Temple Mount. They visit only five days of the week, and only for three hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. They do not visit the Mount on Fridays, in order to avoid possible conflict with the influx of Muslims who stream into Al-Aqsa for Friday prayers. And Jews from all over the world ascend to the Temple Mount for a simple reason that has apparently escaped Mohammed Najib’s notice: they visit the Temple Mount because it is the holiest site in Judaism.

Najib continues:

In July 2017, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee issued a decision affirming that Israel has no sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967. It condemned the excavations carried out by the Israeli Antiquities Department in the city….

That UNESCO resolution of 2017, condemning excavations carried out by Israelis in the city that has been the capital of the Jewish people for more than 3000 years, was an outrage. It completely ignored the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount site, which was referred to only by its Muslim name, Haram al-Sharif. The Western Wall was described as the Al-Buraq Wall. And the resolution said nothing about what the Muslim Waqf was doing, carrying out extensive excavations inside the Mount in order to build, deep underground, the Marwani Mosque. And neither then, nor since, has UNESCO condemned the massive excavations undertaken by the Arabs at the Temple Mount, and the destruction of so many Jewish artifacts that were thrown out with the piles of dirt removed in the Marwani excavations.

There are tens of thousands of archeological sites all over Israel. Two thousand of them are in Jerusalem alone. Archeologists, Israeli and non-Israeli, have unearthed thousands of Jewish artifacts dating as far back as 3000 B.C. And then there is the stunning written evidence on ancient parchment of Jews in their land, dating from between the first and third centuries B.C., found in the caves of Qumran – the Dead Sea Scrolls, now on view at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Yet Najib and Ikrima Sabri, a preacher at al-Aqsa Mosque whom Elder of Ziyon also quotes, claim that the Israelis have found no archeological evidence of an ancient Jewish presence on the land. How do Sabri and Muhammed Najib explain the existence of those scrolls, all of them written in Hebrew, save for two written in Greek? The answer is: they don’t. They simply ignore the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other scrolls found later in other Qumran caves, and don’t mention, either, those Jewish artifacts carbon-dated to the First and Second Temple periods.

It is not the Jews, but the Muslims, who have destroyed Jewish (and Christian) antiquities in Jerusalem and in the rest of Israel. The latest example is the disposal of hundreds of tons of earth, rich with archeological evidence, that the Muslims dug out from under the Temple Mount when building the Marwani Mosque. That disposal was a great crime; thousands of artifacts were destroyed in the process.

The only thing the Israelis have had trouble finding is not ancient Jewish artifacts in the Land of Israel, as Ikrima Sabri claims, but enough museum space to display even the tiniest fraction of those ancient artifacts that their archeologists have so carefully unearthed. And the series of lies Mohammad Najib tells, about Jewish tunnels dug under Al-Aqsa — there are none — and his claim that Israelis have “found nothing linking their history to the Al-Aqsa region,” when the Temple Mount debris dug up by the Muslims themselves and rescued for sifting and study by Israeli archeologists turned out to contain a wealth of Jewish artifacts carbon-dated to the periods of both the First and Second Temple, should disqualify him from appearing in the Western press. Should, but won’t, because that Western press has shown itself all too willing to publish the most absurd charges against Israel.

The Media is the Message > Tucker Carlson coming soon on Twitter

..

Tucker Carlson coming soon on Twitter

How long will Deep State tolerate Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk spreading the truth?

I have a great deal of fear for these two courageous men who dare to speak the truth about the hijacking of democracy in the western world. 

Please pray for their safety.

Climate Change > Australia's Coal Mines Booming; Russia to Supply India With More Coal; EV Fire Risks Not Being Addressed

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Australia is making the most out of the COAL BOOM

16 Oct, 2021 06:49

©  Kelly Lacy / Pexels

Australia continues to back its coal industry as many Western nations have turned their back on the dirtiest fossil fuel, approving a third coal mine extension in a month and bolstering partnerships for long-term coal exports.

We already know the demand is there, with China requiring increasing coal to bridge its fuel demand gap, but Australia is one of the few remaining nations outside of Asia to continue to back coal as a major energy source. 

Earlier this month, Australia approved its third coal mine extension within a month. In September, Environment Minister Sussan Ley approved extensions for the Whitehaven Coal and Wollonggong Coal mines. The latest extension approval was for the Glencore Mangoola thermal coal mine in New South Wales, allowing it to continue production for eight more years, mining approximately 52 million tons of coal.

But it’s not just other countries that are putting pressure on Australia to join them in curbing its coal production. In May, a ruling from Australia’s high court encouraged the country’s environment minister to reconsider coal mine expansions due to the obligation the ministry has to the Australian childrens’ future, as well as the general impact of coal production and use on climate change. 

While environmental activists and international energy organizations are less than happy with Australia’s ongoing support for coal, many Australians back the decision to expand mines because of their contribution to the country’s employment. Around 400 workers are currently employed at Glencore, and the expansion will add 100 construction jobs.

Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal, with strong links to the Asian market. To date, Australia has made no pledge to reduce carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050, unlike many of its Western counterparts. Many countries across Europe and North America have vowed to rapidly reduce carbon emissions, an aim that is expected to be reinforced in the upcoming COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this month, which Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison will attend. 

However, shortly after the announcement of the third expansion project, Australia’s resources minister proposed the establishment of a state-run $180-billion lending option for the coal industry, with the stipulation that borrowers support a net-zero carbon emissions target. This strategy comes as banks and insurers become less willing to lend to the dying coal sector. 

Australia’s dependence on coal is not surprising considering its close proximity to the Asian market, where coal demand remains high. Several Asian countries, most notably China and India with their ever-expanding populations, continue to rely on coal, as well as oil and gas, to meet their national energy demand. 

“While China unambiguously needs as much coal as it can get its hands on to avert a [fourth-quarter] slowdown due to the tyranny of rolling power shortages, geopolitical tensions with Australia have waylaid the most convenient source of high-calorific coal from Down Under,” Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy for Asia and Oceania treasury department at Mizuho, stated of China’s reliance on coal imports.

However, in late 2020, China ended its coal imports from Australia following difficult trade relations, namely Australia’s support for an international inquiry into China’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic. Coal is Australia’s third-largest export to China, a country that accounts for 32.6% of all Australian exports, with Australia exporting more to China than it imports. 

After reportedly telling utilities and steel mills to stop all Australian coal imports, China began to import its coal from regional exporters Indonesia, Mongolia, and Russia. India has apparently been buying discounted coal that was left stranded in Chinese customs following the falling out between China and Australia. In recent months, Indian cement makers and sponge iron plants have sought to boost supplies with this low-cost option. 

The Chinese stockpile of Australian coal, and its willingness to sell the supply at a discount, suggests the dedication it had to cutting trade ties with Australia. However, the energy crisis experienced in recent months has finally proved too much for China to continue holding a grudge. Fuel shortages and high energy costs have led the Chinese government to resume Australian coal imports. This month, China released Australian coal from bonded warehouses in addition to receiving 450,000 tons of Australian coal cargoes at the beginning of the month.

During the time that China refused imports, Australia did not just simply wait for China to come running back, rather it fostered its relationship with India. Australia held its first joint working group meeting on coal and mines with India this September to encourage greater participation in Australia’s ongoing coal production. Australia identifies India as a key market for some of its lower-grade coal, with prices significantly undercutting those of the premium coal products imported by China.

With little commitment to net-zero aims, ongoing support for coal plant expansion projects despite a high court interjection, and ongoing trade links with high-demand countries across Asia, it seems unlikely that Australia will curb its coal production or make it more carbon-friendly any time soon, despite international pressure to do so.  

Russia to boost coal supplies to India amid global power crunch

17 Oct, 2021 13:33

© Sputnik / Aleksandr Kryazhev

Russia’s Energy Ministry signed an agreement this week with India’s Steel Industry Ministry aimed at increasing Russian coking coal supply to India to 40 million tons per year.

The deal was inked at the Russian Energy Week Forum, held from October 13-15 in Moscow.

According to Russian Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov, Russia currently supplies around eight million tons of all types of coal to the South Asian country.

The agreement is also meant to stimulate enterprises in Russia and India in the development of coal deposits, the development of coal logistics and infrastructure, the promotion of R&D in production, as well as education and training for the coal industry.

The world’s third-largest coal importer, India, is currently struggling with coal shortages. Coal accounts for around 70% of the nation’s electricity generation. Most of India’s coal-fired power plants have critically low levels of inventory amid growing electricity demand.

A widening gap between soaring international and domestic coal prices has also seen imports decline sharply in recent months.

==========================================================================================

Moving to a green economy at the pace of some countries is absurdly reckless. 

‘Naive is an understatement’: German safety official tells RT

that risk of electric vehicle fires is ‘completely unaddressed’

24 Oct, 2021 17:33

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire at a bus depot in Stuttgart, Germany, September 30, 2021 © AFP / Andreas Rosar

It's hard to see how this is improving air quality

A series of fires involving electric buses is calling into question Germany’s reliance on these zero-emissions vehicles. “The risk of these fires,” safety regulator Heinrich Duepmann told RT, “is completely unaddressed.”

Europe is experiencing a green transport boom. Sales have quadrupled since 2018, and one in every ten new vehicles sold on the continent is now fully electric, a share that rises to four in ten when hybrid vehicles are taken into account. In Germany, where the Greens are in talks about joining a coalition government, the number of electric buses doubled last year compared to 2019.

The switchover from diesel to electricity has not been entirely smooth. Three bus depots were gutted by fire this year alone, with the most recent in Stuttgart last month destroying 25 buses and sending a column of smoke towering over the city.

The fires prompted the cities of Munich and Stuttgart to suspend use of these battery-powered buses, and Heinrich Duepmann of Germany’s Electricity Consumer Protection Association told RT that he shares their concerns ​​– not just about buses, but electric vehicles in general.

“The risk of these fires, including in other locations such as bicycle basements or large apartment blocks, is completely unaddressed,” he said. “Also, insurance companies are not yet tackling the issue.”

The lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles can catch fire if damaged, or in some cases during charging or spontaneously. Lithium burns ferociously on contact with air, and once ablaze, these fires can be extremely difficult to put out. While burning, lithium-ion batteries have been shown to emit toxic quantities of fluoride gas.

Aside from the fire risk, Deupmann is also concerned that as private electric vehicles become more popular, the country’s electricity infrastructure is “completely undeveloped” to facilitate widespread fast charging.

“People have been too naive about this,” he said, adding that “naive is an understatement.”

Environmentalism - The Land-Locking of Alberta Oil and Gas

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Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Greg Fulmes)

Alberta Inquiry Says it Has Confirmed ‘Significant’ Foreign Funding

of Anti-Energy Campaign

By Noé Chartier 

Updated: October 22, 2021

The key findings of the final report of an Alberta government-commissioned inquiry into campaigns against the province’s energy industry says it confirms the existence of “well-funded foreign interests” spreading “misinformation” to landlock Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

The report, compiled by forensic and restructuring accountant Steve Allan, was submitted to the provincial government in July and was made public on Oct. 21.

Announcing the release of the report, Energy Minister Sonya Savage said Albertans “have the right to be upset” about the campaigns that have helped counter fossil fuel projects and led to negative consequences for the economy.

“People lost their jobs, businesses went under, families were hurt, government revenues from royalties were impacted. We lost billions of dollars in royalties,” she said at a press conference on Oct. 21.

The report says that between 2003 and 2019, Canadian-based environmental initiatives received $1.28 billion in foreign funding, while noting that the estimate is likely understated. Of that, $925 million was used by Canadian charities for “environmental initiatives,” $352 million was used to fund “Canadian-based environmental initiatives” that remained in the United States such as anti-pipeline campaigns, and $54.1 million was used specifically for “anti-Alberta resource development activity.”

It notes that environmental organizations campaigning against Alberta’s oil and gas sector appear to work in concert to advance an agenda, and that they act “like an industry,” attracting sources of funding and employing large numbers of personnel.

“While many ENGOs [environmental non-government organizations] are driven by honest concerns, the commissioner found they are also focused on their own financial sustainability, which is ensured by adapting to emerging markets and trends and jumping from cause to cause,” a document highlighting the inquiry’s findings says.

Savage said the report “shines a blinding light on the broader movement and the vast amount of foreign funding that is crossing the Canadian border, often untraced.”

The inquiry was launched by the United Conservative Party government in 2019.

Reactions

The inquiry encountered a range of criticism and obstacles, from environmentalists trying to shut it down altogether, to questions regarding the expenses incurred and the delay in submitting the final report.

“Did we need a multi-million dollar inquiry to discover that there were ENGOs who were opposed to the oil sands?” wrote Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt in a tweet.

Some of the criticism from environmental organizations filtered through as members of the media asked Savage questions during the press conference.

One reporter asked Savage if “this whole endeavour [was] a mistake,” referring to the inquiry costing $3.5 million and “finding $54 million in foreign funding that was put towards these anti-Alberta energy campaigns.”

Allan writes in his report that he wasn’t able to pinpoint precisely the portion of the $1.28 billion in foreign funding that went toward anti-Alberta energy campaigns. The $54 million was singled out since it was found by the inquiry to be earmarked specifically for “anti-Alberta resource development activity.”

“Frankly, I’m surprised that any grant would blatantly say it’s for an anti-Alberta energy campaign. I’m surprised that any money would cross the border being that blatant,” Savage responded to the reporter.

Another reporter remarked that the inquiry did not find illegal activities and complained that Alberta “spent all this time and money investigating people who are doing legal activities, exercising their rights to free speech.”

A different reporter followed up on that point, asking, “Are you against them doing that [exercising free speech]? Would you like people stop doing that?”

Savage said in a democracy people have the right to express their views, but she said the report is focused on foreign funding that influences Canadian political and regulatory decisions.

“What the report found was a co-ordinated campaign that ultimately targeted influencing political and regulatory change, using foreign funding. It is foreign funding, going after domestic processes and domestic policy and that’s the real concern,” she said, adding that the “multi-billion-dollar foundations in the United States aren’t concerned with the day-to-day life of Albertans.”

Most of the money from the USA comes from ENGOs that are funded by USA's big oil. The idea is to landlock Alberta oil so as to make it harder to get to US and Pacific markets. This increases the demand and the price of American oil as well as increasing their market share.

How America is Strangling the Canadian Oil Industry, and We're Helping Them

Talk About ‘Collusion’: How Foreign-Backed Anti-Oil Activists Infiltrated Canada’s Government

Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds in Climate Change Circles

Millions in Foreign Funds Spent in 2015 Fed Election to Defeat Harper, Report

Allan’s report also addressed concerns about free speech.

“Nothing in this Report should be taken as in any way seeking to limit these important rights and freedoms,” as it relates to opposition to Alberta’s oil and gas sector, the report said.

Allan noted, however, that open public debate has been stifled by activism and media bias.

“The environmental movement can be given credit for raising the issue of climate change on the national agenda. But I am concerned the discussion has become polarized and paralyzed to the extent it is nearly impossible to raise questions or make suggestions that don’t align with the agenda of the ENGOs, which is often supported by the media,” he wrote.

Reacting to the report, Greenpeace Canada said the inquiry found no instance of wrongdoing on the part of the campaigners, and criticized the inquiry.

“Even when it makes powerful interests uncomfortable, we will press on alongside Indigenous leaders and front-line communities, and with the backing of our supporters—no matter what intimidation tactics are thrown our way,” Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for the group, said in a statement.

“The Inquiry’s findings that Greenpeace Canada has engaged in ‘Anti-Alberta’ activities does not follow legal requirements, ignores scientific evidence, and could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and on the meaningful process of debate in a so-called democratic and free society,” added Ali Naraghi, legal counsel for Greenpeace.

The inquiry report in fact does not say any group is involved in “anti-Alberta activities,” but refers to “anti-Alberta resource initiatives.”

“I have also made it clear throughout my Report that I do not find that participation in an anti-Alberta energy campaign is in any way improper or constitutes conduct that should in any way be impugned, nor do I find that it indicates a party is ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ Albertan,” Allan wrote.

Tim McMillan, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the inquiry shed light on the foreign-funded campaigns which have cancelled billions in revenue and thousands of Alberta jobs.

“For years, the energy conversation has been driven by activist organizations who have influenced energy policies that are today contributing to rising energy costs for Canadians, as well as energy shortages for our trading partners around the world,” said McMillan in a statement released to The Epoch Times.

Environmental Threats Remote and Invisible Meant to Create Fear - Patrick Moore

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Environmental Threats Based on Invisible, Remote Subjects to Create Fear:

Greenpeace Co-founder

BY ISAAC TEO

May 22, 2021 Updated: May 23, 2021

The co-founder of Greenpeace says in his new book that alleged environmental catastrophes and threats are based on subjects that are either invisible or extremely remote in order to create fear, forcing people to rely on experts to tell them the truth.

“It dawned on me that the great majority of scare stories about the present and future state of the planet, and humanity as a whole, are based on subjects that are either invisible, like CO2 and radiation, or extremely remote, like polar bears and coral reefs,” wrote Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, in his book titled “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom.”

“Thus, most people have no way of determining the truth of these claims of alleged catastrophes and doomsday threats. Instead, they must rely on the activists, the media, the politicians, and the scientists—all of whom have a very large financial and/or political stake in the subject—to tell them the truth.”

Moore, also a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, said he left Greenpeace after 15 years when he realized the movement had taken “a sharp turn to the political left.”

During a webinar on May 20, he said the main purpose of writing the book was to show that those narratives are “just a big hoax.”

Language is manipulated to invoke negativity, fear, and compliance in order for proponents of environmental catastrophes to push their narratives, Moore said.

“A classic example of propaganda is ‘dirty oil,’” he noted. “That’s how we grow our food—in dirt. So what’s wrong with dirty? But they’re not using it to mean dirt as in soil. They’re using it to mean ‘dirty rotten scoundrel.’ In other words, it’s purely an epithet—a negative epithet.”

Moore said that kind of wording has nothing to do with scientific description or the actual quality of oil. Rather, it’s an example of a propaganda technique where a normal concept is merged with an undesirable idea in order to make something seem bad.

“Much of propaganda is about associating negative words with normal words, and therefore turning them into a negative,” he said.

“This welcomes the opportunity to invent narratives such as the claim that ‘CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels are causing climate emergency,’” he writes in his book.

But Moore said the amount of CO2 has been declining in the global atmosphere for at least half a billion years based on historical records.

In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight in 2014, Moore argued that although there is some correlation, there is little evidence to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia.

“The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming,” he testified at the time.

The book also addresses the issue of coral reefs reported to be dying allegedly due to climate change warming the oceans. Moore explains in the book that the most diverse coral reefs are found in the world’s warmest oceans, in a roughly triangular-shaped region in the western Pacific Ocean known as the Coral Triangle. The region extends from the Philippine Archipelago in the north to the Indonesia Archipelago in the south and extends east to the seas around the Solomon Islands.

The Coral Triangle has the world’s “highest biodiversity of coral, with more than 600 species, which is 76 percent of all coral species,” the book states. It adds that the region also has the “highest biodiversity of reef fish, with 2,000 species, which is 37 percent of all reef-fish species,” and is “home to six of the world’s seven species of marine turtles.”

“In other words, they found no evidence that there is anywhere in the world’s oceans that indicates a decline in species richness due to warmer ocean water,” Moore writes, referring to a research paper on global marine species diversity and the factors that influence higher or lower diversity.

“They found the opposite, that the warmest waters in the world have the highest species diversity for every taxonomic class of marine life.”

His book, “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom,” also seeks to dispel what Moore calls the “unified theory of scare stories.” They include the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific, which has a high concentration of microplastic debris and is said to be twice the size of Texas; polar bears being threatened with extinction due to climate change; and ocean acidification.

The book is published by Ecosense Environmental Inc. and is available on Amazon. (Click on Image).