Tides Canada rebrands as MakeWay, but anti-pipeline agenda remains in place
The “environmental charity” Tides Canada is rebranding after two decades of attacking and stigmatizing Alberta oil and gas.
The people behind the Tarsands Campaign to landlock Alberta’s oil and gas, Tides Canada, is now called MakeWay.org. As in, “make way” for Saudi Arabia to persecute women and gays, “make way” for Venzuelan human rights abuses, “make way” for Gazprom to line Putin’s pockets, and “make way” for a large Western Canadian Select price differential.
Tides Canada admits the rebrand is happening because too many people have figured out what they are all about after all these years.
National charitable platform Tides Canada changes name to MakeWay, defining itself anew after years of misinformation
Smear campaigns about Tides Canada have repeatedly misconstrued the purpose of Tides Canada’s international philanthropic funding and have also conflated it with the US-based Tides Foundation. Tides Canada was singled out by the Premier of Alberta during the launch of a 2019 public inquiry to scrutinize international funding for the Canadian environmental movement as being “anti-Alberta”.
“This very expensive un-public government inquiry has yet to say anything. Probably because there is no bogeyman. Only 1% of Tides Canada’s funding has gone towards pipeline-related activities since 2005. Instead, we have been proudly partnering with international and Canadian funders to protect vital marine and terrestrial environments and support Indigenous stewardship,” said Kerr.
However, an article by Gwyn Morgan that relies heavily on Vivian Krause’s research traces the spider web of grants and funds from Tides for the last few years:
The Victoria-based Dogwood Initiative received millions of dollars from Tides Canada to run get-out-the-vote campaigns in the 2017 B.C. provincial election, including deploying a throng of campaign workers in the riding of Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver. After his election, the B.C. government wound up in the hands of an NDP/Green alliance bent on fighting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Money was also funneled to campaign activists working to help the Liberals win the 2015 federal election. Vancouver-based Leadnow received directly and through the B.C.-based Sisu Institute more than $1 million from Tides Canada to actively work for the defeat of then-prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, which supported expanding the oil and gas industry.
And now, with Trudeau in power, the pressure mobs are gone, but not because oil is suddenly cool but because the anti-oil campaign of Tides is more sophisticated. These activists have colonized the Liberal government at the highest levels:
Former Tides Canada vice president Sarah Goodman is a climate policy advisor for Justin Trudeau. Tides and Tides Canada linked Marlo Reynolds, formerly of the Pembina Institute, ended up as McKenna’s chief of staff. Gerald Butts of the Tides linked WWF became the Chief advisor to Justin Trudeau. Another WWF alumnus Zoe Caron became the chief of staff to former natural resources minister Amarjit Sohi.
Tides wants us to forget who they are and what they've done to Canada's oil and gas industry. They want a fresh slate and a new start while Canada's oil and gas workers deal with the economic carnage caused in their lives by Tides Canada and their successful Tarsands Campaign.
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