A huge increase, yes.
The first comment I wanted to make was that the main reason I say that environmental activism isn't what it used to be is because if you look back over the last ten years, in the late 1990s the average grant might have been $50,000. You saw lots of grants for $10,000 or $12,000, or even less than $10,000. By the mid-1990s, you see half-a-million-dollar grants are not at all unusual. Now, it's not at all unusual to see million-dollar or multi-million-dollar grants in a single grant. So we've gone from five-digits to six-digits to seven-digit grants. That's what I see.
For instance, one foundation, the Tides Canada Foundation, in 2001 had assets of $1 million. Now they have assets of $33 million. How do they go from $1 million in assets to $33 million? You can do quite a bit with the earnings off $33 million.
To give you an example from the Hewlett Foundation, in 2004 they paid Tides Canada $70,000 to develop, and I quote, “a strategic plan to address oil and gas development in B.C.”. I'd like to know what was that strategic plan. Since then, in the last four years.... After $70,000 in 2004, then $250,000, then $1.5 million in 2007, the next year it went from $1.5 million to $3 million, and then the last two years $2 million, and this year $2.4 million.
So yes, we have seen a very, very steep increase in the funding.
