Vivian Krause has spent years scrutinizing how Canadian environmental groups are funded, claiming she's just asking "fair questions."

But as the blogger-turned-newspaper-columnist has run rampant with her conspiracy theory that American charitable foundations' support of Canadian environmental groups is nefarious, she has continually avoided seeking a fair answer.

If Krause were seeking a fair answer, she'd quickly learn that both investment dollars and philanthropic dollars cross borders all the time. There isn’t anything special or surprising about environmental groups receiving funding from U.S. foundations that share their goals — especially when the increasingly global nature of environmental challenges, particularly climate change, is taken into consideration.

Despite this common-sense answer, Krause’s strategy has effectively diverted attention away from genuine debate of environmental issues, while simultaneously undermining the important role environmental groups play in Canadian society.

Creating Diversions a Trademark of Oil Industry Strategy

This diversion strategy is a well-known tactic of the oil industry. A strategy document leaked yesterday details how one of the world’s most powerful PR firms, Edelman, advised TransCanada to undermine opponents to the Energy East pipeline.

Edelman recommended TransCanada apply pressure to opponents by “distracting them from their mission and causing them to redirect their resources.” To achieve that, Edelman advises TransCanada to work with “supportive third parties who can in turn put the pressure on, particularly when TransCanada can’t.”

Sound familiar?

In Vivian Krause's resume, she proudly takes credit for spawning a Senate inquiry and Canada Revenue Agency audit — distractions that forced environmental groups to spend time defending themselves, rather than doing their important work as watchdogs and advocates for environmental protection.

While Krause has been busy maligning the funding of Canadian environmental groups, very little attention has been paid to where Krause gets her bread buttered.

Krause Receives 90% of Income From Resource Industries

Krause frequently claims her research is independent (PDF) and that her work is unaffiliated with any industry — yet she has admitted that since 2012, more than 90 per cent of her income has come from oil, gas and mining interests through honorariums and speaking fees.

Krause has been paid as much as $10,000 to speak to energy executives. While she may not be directly employed by the fossil fuel industry, her work certainly aligns with that industry’s interests.

Groups paying Krause speaker’s fees included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Association for Mineral Exploration and the Vancouver Board of Trade.

Large speaking fees are increasingly being used as a handy way to support the work of industry allies without directly employing them.

To see just how contentious speaking fees can be, take a gander at the recent Rex Murphy or Peter Mansbridge controversies. CBC ended up adjusting its policy, requiring hosts to disclose their speaking fees.

What Was Vivian Krause’s Argument Again?

So let’s get this straight: Krause, who has relied on speaking fees from the multinational resource sector for 90 per cent of her income for the past three years, argues that Canada’s environmental organizations are fronts for U.S. interests because they receive a portion of their funding from across the border?

Despite the spurious logic, Krause is still given a platform to spread her misleading information in the Postmedia chain of newspapers, including the Financial Post and The Province, as well as on Global News shows where she's a regular panelist on Unfiltered with Jill Krop.

While Krause may spin a mysterious tale, the answer is simple: philanthropic dollars crossing borders to support work on global issues is the norm. And Canadian charities are required to disclose all significant donations from foreign sources annually.

The Real Debate Canada Needs

The continued debate over the funding sources of the environmental community is simply a diversion tactic that favours the fossil fuel industry's desire to avoid having the real debate about Canada’s energy future.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges nations to phase out fossil fuels immediately to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

The report puts responsibility squarely on the shoulders of our elected leaders, saying they can “either put policies in place to achieve this essential shift, or they can spend the rest of their careers dealing with climate disaster after climate disaster.”

But Canada won’t meet its 2020 international climate target, according to Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand.

“The federal government does not have an overall plan that maps out how Canada will achieve this target. Canadians have not been given the details about which regulations will be developed, when, nor what greenhouse gas reductions will be expected,” Gelfand wrote in a report last month.

Now that China and the U.S. have signed a deal agreeing to cut emissions, Canada is left with even fewer excuses not to act.

Meantime, the federal government’s mandate to advance an energy superpower agenda marches forth, resulting in controversy across the country — from the Kinder Morgan fiasco on Burnaby Mountain, to the First Nations legal battle against Enbridge Northern Gateway, to the Athabasca Chipewyan and Beaver Lake Cree First Nations’ fight to prevent oilsands expansion on their territory, to efforts to ban fracking in Nova Scotia.

These efforts are not the outcome of foreign conspiracy — they’re the outcome of a lack of any sensible national conversation about how to develop our natural resources while meeting our international climate change commitments.

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Under new rules announced by Canada’s public broadcaster on April 24, freelance hosts like Rex Murphy will have to disclose their speaking fees to CBC, which will in turn post the information online.

“Starting in May, we'll post regularly online a list of appearances by our reporters and hosts — both paid AND unpaid,” CBC editor-in-chief Jennifer McGuire wrote in a blog post. “This will allow you to judge for yourselves how well we're living up to our commitments.”

Additionally, on-air CBC employees, such as Peter Mansbridge — who came under fire recently for accepting a speaking fee from an oil and gas lobby group — will face stricter rules.

“In the past, when one of our staff reporters or hosts was invited to do a paid speech, we would allow payment as long as the speech was neutral — thoughts about the state of journalism, or about their career,” McGuire wrote. “It was our practice to turn down requests if the event or its sponsor posed a direct conflict to the journalist's everyday work.”

Now, however, on-air CBC employees won’t be able to accept speaking requests from companies, political parties or other groups that lobby or otherwise influence public policy.

Murphy's sponsors included CAPP and Enbridge

Controversy erupted in February after Press Progress analyzed 25 of Murphy’s speaking engagements and found sponsors for his pro-oil public appearances included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Enbridge, TransCanada and Suncor. It was later revealed that Mansbridge also received a speaking fee from CAPP.

Murphy — who hosts Cross Country Checkup on CBC Radio and who appears as a commentator on The National — has been a vocal supporter of the oilsands industry and those who question the science of climate change. (Here's a compilation of some of the articles we have written on Rex Murphy over the years).

When the controversy emerged, CBC initially refused to disclose Murphy’s speaking fees, citing the fact he was a freelancer, not an employee.

“As a freelancer, Rex has the ability to do other work. So yes, he writes opinion pieces for The National Post. And yes, he does speaking engagements,” CBC’s McGuire wrote.

However, under the new rules, freelance hosts’ contracts will be updated so they are compelled to disclose paid events to CBC. Murphy, and other CBC personalities such as David Suzuki and Bob McDonald, will still be able to take payment from anyone they like — but their fees will be made public.

Ombudsman finds "perception of conflict of interest"

The decision followed a review by the CBC Ombudsman Esther Enkin, which concluded: “The practice of having CBC staff getting payment for speaking or working with groups that could very likely be in the news is inconsistent with CBC’s Conflict of Interest policies because it creates a perception of conflict.”

The ombudsman’s office received more than 70 letters after Murphy’s paid presentations were publicized.

In her review, Enkin noted: “When journalists get paid to speak to powerful advocacy groups, it is hard to argue that this does not lead to a perception of conflict of interest … The issues would be the same had Mr. Murphy or Mr. Mansbridge been paid to give a speech to the Sierra Club, for instance, or other environmental groups.”

Of course, it’s highly unlikely the Sierra Club could afford to cough up the speaking fee for someone of Mansbridge’s ilk.

As always, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that those working in the public interest don’t have the same kind of cash at hand to buy access to decision-makers and thought leaders as multi-million dollar corporations do — which is precisely why this issue struck such a chord with Canadians in the first place.

Still, CBC’s new rules go a long way to leveling the playing field — and that’s a win both for the public broadcaster’s transparency and for healthy debate in our country.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

There is a brewing controversy swirling around longtime CBC commentator Rex Murphy and his relationship with Canada's oil industry.

As long time readers of DeSmog know, Murphy has been a vocal supporter of the oilsands industry and a booster of those who attack the scientific realities of climate change. (Here's a compilation of some of the articles we have written on Rex Murphy over the years).

Now questions are going unanswered by the CBC, and avoided altogether by Murphy himself, about a conflict between Murphy potentially being paid to speak at oilsands industry events and his role as a commentator at the CBC.

First to report on the potential conflict was Press Progress, after analysing 25 of Murphy's public speaking engagements.* The outlet found sponsors for Murphy's pro-oil public appearances included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Enbridge, TransCanada and Suncor among others. Longtime investigative journalist Andrew Mitrovica wrote on iPolitics that he was taken on a "disturbing odyssey into the CBC’s Byzantine world of subterfuge, duplicity and plain lunacy," as he tried to unravel Murphy's relationship with the CBC and the oilsands industry in Canada. 

The CBC stated that Murphy is not an employee of the public broadcast and instead has, as CBC's Editor in Chief Jennifer McGuire describes it, "a wonderful freelance relationship" with the public broadcaster.

According to McGuire, "as a freelancer, Rex has the ability to do other work. So yes, he writes opinion pieces for The National Post. And yes, he does speaking engagements." The only thing the CBC asks of Murphy is that his commentary "be rooted in fact and experience, not just opinion or knee jerk ideology. But taking a provocative stand is what we pay him to do."

Regardless of CBC's positioning, if it turns out that after all these years, Murphy has been taking money from the oil industry while at the same time attacking those who oppose oilsands development and boosting the industry in his role as a CBC commentator, it will be a big scandal.

For me it is the definition of "fact" that is at the heart of the matter here.

In the case of public policy debates, rather than something like hard science, facts are a very tricky thing.

One person's set of facts on say, whether the Alberta oilsands are good for the long-term prosperity of our country, are to a great extent driven by where that person sits on the issue. It is no coincidence that many of those in favour of further development of the oilsands are apt to quote positive facts and also just so happen to be those profiting the most — whether that be a worker in Fort McMurray making five times his regular wage, an oil company CEO or a Prime Minister who enjoys the political and election campaign support of the fossil fuel industry.

The same holds true for the environmental community, although there is rarely a financial motivation (trust me, I know first hand!). Depending on your worldview, one set of facts will seem more correct than another.

Knowing where someone sits financially and/or ideologically on an issue of public policy is important context when considering the set of facts that person bases their opinion on. It is for this very reason that we have election financing disclosure laws in Canada. It is also why in many scientific fields, researchers must disclose any funding they receive from industry for their work. 

The CBC expects Murphy's commentary to be "rooted in fact" and in turn the public has the same expectation. If it is the case that Murphy is being paid money by the same industry he publicly comments on, then this must be disclosed to the public, which can then be the judge of whether or not Murphy's set of facts sit right with them. 

When it really comes down to it, if Murphy and the CBC believe Murphy's commentary for all these years has been "rooted in fact and experience, not just opinion or knee jerk ideology" then what has Murphy got to hide?

As it stands now, with Murphy ducking the question and the CBC not demanding disclosure from Murphy, his relationship with the CBC is "wonderful" indeed — at least for him and the oil industry he may or may not be taking money from.

*An earlier version of this article stated iPolitics was the first to report on Murhpy's close ties with the oil industry.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.