Madam Speaker, last week I rose in the House on several occasions. I provided the Minister of National Revenue with information with respect to a consortium of environmentalists in British Columbia. I provided him with a document and I asked him why these organizations were continuing to receive charitable status, in other words a tax holiday, particularly in light of the document that had come into our hands.
Essentially the document outlines about a dozen environmental groups, many of them Canadian, that are involved in a strategy which amounts to nothing more than an attack on mining in British Columbia, and more specifically mining in my riding of Skeena.
The minister is aware of the participants. Some of them are the Sierra Club, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund and the Suzuki Foundation. There is a list of them. At least some of these organizations are getting charitable tax status.
At the same time, and this is outlined in the document of which I have a copy here, they are accepting huge contributions from wealthy American corporate trusts and family trusts, hundreds of thousands of dollars from American corporate and families trusts in a paid campaign to attack a mine proposal in northwest British Columbia.
Redfern Resources has a proposal called the Tulsequah Chief Mine. It was actually an operating mine many years ago. It has been dormant and the company wants to reopen it. It went through a 3.5 year rigorous environmental review in which the federal and provincial governments and all their various appropriate line ministries participated. The state of Alaska participated in it. Last year, at the end of that process, the Premier of British Columbia publicly stated that the mine was to get approval to go ahead.
The environmentalists have shifted gears. They do not want the project approved. They do not care about the facts. They do not care about the fact that there was an environmental review done. They do not care about the science. They do not care about truth. They do not care about balance. Above all, they do not care about people, particularly the people in my riding who are counting on that mine as an economic development opportunity.
They have joined forces with Alaska Governor Tony Knowles in pressing for this project to be reviewed at the International Joint Commission. Furthermore, the same Alaska Governor Tony Knowles is an environmentalist and wants the project halted.
He is the same governor whose rapacious actions on Pacific salmon have devastated many coastal communities in my riding and have hurt recreational and commercial fishermen. Commercial fisherman on the north coast are devastated as are commercial sport fishing operations. Virtually all commercial sport fishing operations were shut down last year. Aboriginal fishermen, aboriginal people who are fishing for food, ceremonial and commercial purposes, have been dramatically prejudiced by the actions of the same governor whom the environmentalists want to join in lockstep to shut down this mining opportunity in northwest British Columbia.
It is clear these organizations may be getting charitable tax status. I have given the minister the names of all the organizations and asked him to provide me with that information, but I am aware that some of them are getting charitable tax status.