SourceWatch Key to Inquiries Launched into Canadian Climate Skeptics' Election Activities

A Canadian global warming skeptics group, Friends of Science (FoS), is facing several investigations into a radio advertising blitz it ran in the 2006 election campaign, which criticized the then-Liberal government's support for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Funding for FoS came in part from a University of Calgary trust account. Canwest reported that "facing embarrassing questions raised by the online SourceWatch.org encyclopedia, the university conducted an internal audit over the past year which concluded that its trust account had been used to 'support a partisan viewpoint on climate change.'" While the university closed the trust account, it has refused to make its full audit report public. However, further inquiries are underway. "We are contacting Elections Canada to advise it of the review and why it is under way, and we will follow up with Elections Canada once it is complete," Roman Cooney, the university's vice-president of external relations, wrote in an email to Canwest. Federal Liberal member of Parliament Mark Holland said that he wants parliamentary hearings into the FoS election campaign.