FOURNIER: Has Pembina become a for-profit public relations firm?

Many Canadians were surprised in the New Year when they learned executives at the top 17 environmental and animal protection charities in Canada earn more than Canadian premiers.This report got my sceptical hackles up and so I focused my analysis on data specific to a famous Albertan ENGO charity called Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development. For a start, they're very well funded. It appears that the top two executives at Pembina earn as much as Premier Smith and its after-expenses, free cash holdings of Pembina increased from $500,000 in 2013 to $3,500,000 in 2022, while its funding levels increased by more than 10 times.How can a charity with an annual revenue of $7,000,000 have more than $3,500,000 in their savings?Well, they have great donors — the federal Liberal government and a group of large endowment funds with CRA charity status. So, this is no grassroots collection of individual citizen donors.Having recently met Dr. Tammy Nemeth, who had worked for the forensic accountant Steven Allan in the Alberta Government funded inquiry into anti-Alberta energy foreign interference by ENGO charities, I reached out for some guidance in this space.When I expressed a desire to start doing my own investigations into the topic of ENGO charities operating in Canada, Dr. Nemeth connected me with the Blumbergs.Blumbergs is a Canadian law-firm that assists non-profits and charities in trying to be transparent, legal, ethical and effective.Figure 1 shows the Blumberg line item called cash, bank accounts and short-term investments (i.e., free cash holdings) and total annual funding from Pembina's CRA T 3010 filings and are plotted from 2013 to 2022.Clearly revenues are outstripping expenditures. .Blumberg's T 3010 CRA data (Table 1) for Pembina's largest contributors in 2022, shows the top five were the federal government, Environment Funders Canada and a collection of wealthy Canadian families who have created their own charities.Pembina received more than $5.6 million from the federal government between 2019 and 2022..The Trottier Family Foundation, North Family Foundation and Ivey Foundation are all registered charities and Environment Funders Canada charity is a conglomerate of other charities including the Trottier Family Foundation and the Ivey Foundation.The sole purpose of these donor charities is to manage and grow their endowment and dole out donations. Case in point, the Trottier Family Foundation's cash reserve in both short- and long-term investments has grown from $32 million in 2013 to $688 million in 2022 and their earnings on said investments are deemed tax-free by the CRA.All five of Pembina's largest donors have a central focus on ending hydrocarbon production and consumption in Canada and are strong advocates for wind, solar and hydrogen.When we examine Pembina's mandate and recent reports, their central theme is the net-zero electrification of Canadian society, where power generation is by wind and solar.Likewise, Blumberg's description of Pembina's ongoing philanthropic activities says that it is focused primarily on energy policy development, climate research and education.As far as I have been able to discover, not a single Pembina's senior analyst has formal training in atmospheric physics or meteorology. Yet they claim to be conducting climate research.Likewise, not a single senior analyst at Pembina has formal training in education.Why should this concern you as a taxpayer and citizen?Here in Alberta, Pembina played a pivotal role in advancing the policy framework that former Premier Notley embraced by calling for the end of coal power and the 30% wind and solar power mandate for Alberta's grid.Now eight years later, Alberta's grid faces blackout conditions every time a major Arctic low-pressure system passes over the province.All because our grid now has insufficient dispatchable reserve thermal power generation assets and generation from wind and solar facilities collapse during periods of extreme power demand created by these intense meteorological events.As a leading proponent for the current state of our provincial grid, I would argue that Pembina lacks the engineering expertise and foresight to be providing public policy guidance on power generation to our elected officials.The proof is in the pudding. At a time when so many Canadians are living from hand-to-mouth, the optics of Pembina's exploding savings account and its compensation of its top two executives between $160,000 to $199,000 per year, which is in line with what an Alberta premier earns, does not convey an organization with a genuine charitable status.In my view, Pembina has lost its not-for-profit status and has become a public relations or marketing firm for wind and solar companies, their large climate-focused donors and the federal Liberal government.

FOURNIER: Has Pembina become a for-profit public relations firm?

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