Opinion: Foreign cash is trying to influence projects — for coal mines | Calgary Herald

Author of the article: Kevin Van Tighem Ranchers on a ridge above the Livingstone River where it flows near Cabin Ridge, site of a proposed coal mine north of Coleman, Alberta. Photo by Mike Drew /Postmedia file After repeated delays and the expenditure of $3.5 million in taxpayer money to find evidence of foreign money undermining our oil industry, the non-public inquiry by forensic accountant Steve Allan came up with proof of … well, nothing much at all. Advertisement This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. “I do not find that participation in any anti-Alberta energy campaign constitutes misconduct on the part of any party that should be viewed as impugnable in any way,” wrote Allan. He went on to indicate that he could account for only $54.1 million that went to campaigns targeting Alberta oil projects over a period of 18 years. That’s peanuts; Premier Jason Kenney’s war room spent twice that amount in two years. Anti-oil activists were badly outspent, but to hear Energy Minister Sonya Savage’s spin on the Allan report, they still sowed havoc in the oilpatch. “We have a right to be mad,” she said in the news conference where her…
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