The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.
Alan Broadbent is past chair of the board and current board member of Tides Canada. He is chairman and CEO of Avana Capital Corp. and founder and chair of Maytree.
Hello. My name is Alan, and I’m a radical environmental extremist.
I don’t know how I ended up being part of a group with a radical environmental agenda. It all happened so gradually.
I do remember being invited to join the board of the Tides Canada Foundation when it was founded over a decade ago. It seemed innocent enough, a registered Canadian charity that offered Canadians a chance to donate to protecting the environment and creating socially just communities. In fact, it seemed so Canadian. Silly me, but hey, this was over a decade ago.
In fact, I used to tell people that Tides Canada was just like a community foundation, say the Vancouver Foundation or the Winnipeg Foundation, except that instead of a geographical community it was a community of interest. A community of people interested in the environment and social justice.
And I must admit I was fooled. Every board meeting we would approve foundation grants for things like developing new models of sustainable forestry, or aquaculture, education for school kids on ecosystems, and the development of low income housing. I was so blinded that I thought these things were good for Canada and its communities.
And then I made a very big mistake: I became chair of the Tides Canada board. What was I thinking? I was involved in recruiting a top-level management team with senior experience in government, business and academia. And Tides Canada became deeply involved in the multi-sectoral effort to create a sustainable future for the mid-coast of British Columbia, the Great Bear Rainforest. It only looked good, I am sure, because it was a collaboration of commercial interests, government, First Nations, and residents unique in the world. There must have been something wrong with it, and I just didn’t see it.
But Ezra Levant does see it. He now says that in 2008 Tides Canada paid two First Nations “$27.3 million specifically to oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline.”
For the rest of this column, please go to the Toronto Star website: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1117174–confessions-of-a-radical-environmentalist