Anti-pipeline activists like SumOfUs kill investment and foment chaos, so they can brag: we win campaigns – by Claudia Cattaneo (Financial Post – May 12, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

It’s Annual General Meeting season, that annual spring ritual when publicly traded companies hold meetings with shareholders that are so staged and so predictable that it’s also known as silly season.

This week, one AGM stood out for its silliness, thanks to the orchestrations of anti-pipeline activists to embarrass Kinder Morgan Inc., proponent of the $7.4 billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, at its meeting in Houston.

SumOfUs, an online advocacy group, has been in Kinder Morgan’s crosshairs for a while. It has put pressure on Wall Street and other investors to block what it calls “one of Canada’s most notorious extreme energy projects.”

It has inundated the internet with scary things about the proposed pipeline expansion to create the impression it’s a disaster waiting to happen. It’s instigated protests.

It has also worked the political angle. Recently, it said it would “double down our campaign targeting vulnerable Liberal MPs in B.C., keep the pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau, and plan a major plash (sic) at the Kinder Morgan AGM.”

For the rest of this column: http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/anti-oil-pipeline-activists-like-sumofus-kill-investment-and-foment-chaos-so-they-can-brag-we-win-campaigns