Who does the mayor work for?
The answer to that question should be: the citizens of Vancouver.
But mounting scrutiny of Mayor Gregor Robertson and the Tides Foundation, a global activist organization funded by American millionaires, once again raises questions about Robertson's loyalty to Vancouver and his respect for democracy.
Formed in 1976, the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation has spent more than three decades dolling out roughly $1.5 billion to leftist groups. Cash recipients include radical elements of the international green movement such as the Ruckus Society, an infamous Oakland-based activist training camp that played a key role in the 1999 WTO riot in Seattle.
Mayor Robertson is a Tides man.
From 2002 to 2005, he was a director of Tides Canada, the organization's Canadian wing. Before joining Team Robertson, Mike Magee, the mayor's chief of staff, was Tides Canada's senior policy advisor. Joel Solomon, the most influential man in Robertson's life, helped found Tides Canada.
(Solomon made the mayor. In 1995, he invested heavily in Robertson's fledgling Happy Planet juice company, and helped bankroll Robertson's successful 2005 MLA bid and his '08 run for mayor. Solomon, the progeny of wealthy mall developers from Tennessee, continues to funnel Robertson campaign donations through his private equity firm).
Recently, thanks largely to local researcher Vivian Krause, the National Post detailed Tides influence on Robertson and his party, Vision Vancouver. According to campaign finance records, in 2008 Vision received more than $230,000 in donations from Tides Canada affiliates.
In a clumsy attempt at damage control, last week Robertson granted a rare interview to the Georgia Straight where he attacked the "well-organized campaign to besmirch... the work we're doing at city hall and organizations like Tides."
So, who does the mayor work for?
The answer may lie in his "known associates" file. During their trip to New York City last April, Robertson and Magee met with a who's who list of green financiers including Michael Northrop, director of a green-grant program for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund--a major Tides Foundation supporter--and representatives from the National Resource Defense Fund, a huge eco-activist organization.
The centralized and secretive nature of the international green movement, where Robertson claims poster boy status, allows unaccountable think tanks to craft public policy for democratic nations. The green movement sails alongside folks like Tides sugardaddy and billionaire politico George Soros who, in his own words, envisions a "new world order" without borders or national sovereignty.
Meanwhile, back in Vancouver.
After winning election in 2008, Robertson formed the Greenest City Action Team (GCAT), which has quietly "greened" city hall's bureaucracy. GCAT, led by deputy city manager Sadhu Johnston, former green guru to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, has one overarching goal. Namely, to eliminate Vancouver's dependence on fossil fuels. Not reduce, eliminate.
How many bike lanes would that require?
According to Johnston, a fresh-faced and bespectacled technocrat, city hall must first "reduce motor vehicle kilometres travelled per resident." Traffic tolls "haven't been discussed extensively," but Johnston refused to rule them out in the future.
"That is definitely a strategy. It's not one we are advocating at this point but it's certainly something that's been discussed across North America," he said. "It's about sending price signals to promote the type of activity you want to promote and discourage the type of activity you want to discourage."
Johnston denies the existence of a secret green agenda at city hall, noting GCAT courts public input online. But Robertson, like his Tides benefactors, routinely dismisses the masses and rarely grants media interviews. In July, an open microphone caught Robertson deriding--with four-letter words--citizen speakers at a public meeting. During his late summer trip to China, a country steeped in brutality and oppression, Robertson lauded Beijing for its "radical dramatic action" on the environment and voiced his frustration to a reporter from the CBC.
"You can question how worthwhile democracy is in a lot of countries right now, which are, frankly, ignoring the biggest crisis in the history of our species, which is climate change."
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