News

Leadnow launching "Stop the Threats" campaign

This week, we learned that the Harper Government is using closed-door intimidation tactics against Canadian charities. They’re trying to silence groups that question our government’s plans to push the Enbridge western pipeline and supertankers project through overwhelming local opposition, and recklessly expand the tar sands at all costs. [...]

A prominent environmentalist has been fired from an organization that has staunchly protested the Northern Gateway pipeline after he accused the Prime Minister’s Office of resorting to intimidation tactics against the project’s critics.
The dismissal of Andrew Frank, spokesman for anti-oil-sands group ForestEthics, comes amid an increasingly tense atmosphere [...].

The Prime Minister's Office tried to cut funding of a registered intervenor in the Enbridge Pipeline Review, calling ForestEthics Canada an, "Enemy of the Government of Canada" and an, "Enemy of the People of Canada", according to allegations detailed in a sworn affidavit, dated January 23, 2012.

Sworn by Andrew Frank, former Senior Communications Manager with ForestEthics Canada, and an instructor in the Environmental Protection Technology program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, the affidavit cites three senior managers with Tides Canada and ForestEthics, as well as personal email correspondence. […]

"My name is Andrew Frank. I grew up in a small town in the Okanagan valley of British Columbia. My granddad taught me how to fish. My father was a well‐respected lawyer known for his unwavering integrity, and my mother was a favourite kindergarten teacher. Both have always impressed upon me the importance of telling the truth. Today, I am taking the extraordinary step of risking my career, my reputation and my personal friendships, to act as a whistleblower and expose the undemocratic and potentially illegal pressure the Harper government has apparently applied to silence critics of the Enbridge Northern Gateway oil tanker/pipeline plan." [...]

Last year, Kathryn O’Hara, then president of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association, wrote an extraordinary letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the leaders of the other national parties.
In that document – remarkable because it was written in a leading democracy not a paranoid dictatorship – she pleaded with government to unshackle its scientists by allowing them to speak freely with the media.

Building a storyline that sticks helped the Conservatives sink two successive Liberal leaders and they are using the same strategy early in 2012 on a pair of major policy debates facing Canadians. […]

Jim Armour, a vice-president at Ottawa public relations firm Summa and a former communications director for Mr. Harper says […] “If it was a bar fight, it was all over before anyone got their coat off.” […]

Something is rotten at the Canadian International Development Agency. Many things, in fact, according to increasingly vocal critics who say Canada's international development organization is becoming more politicized, less effective, and less transparent under the Conservative government, despite persistent claims to the contrary. […]

Aid agencies are frustrated and demoralized by delays and lack of transparency in their dealings with CIDA. Some have cut programs and laid off staff as a result. […]