Earth Council alive and well in Toronto
by Judi McLeod


It’s the luck of the Irish of a more fortuitous kind than what Irish rocker Bono provides Canada’s Prime Minister Paul Martin. Martin’s key advisor, UN Poster Boy Maurice Strong, who, along with his Earth Council, was kicked out of sunny Costa Rica last December, high-tailed it to Toronto.

As University of Peace President, Strong would certainly have a say on a United Nations-sponsored UP campus for Toronto’s waterfront.

Anxious to prop up flagging Liberals like MPs Dennis Mills and Tony Ianno facing a federal election under the black cloud of the current sponsorship scandal, Martin used the $3.3 million UP campus in today’s announcement of a $125 million boost for the Toronto waterfront.

Canadian Conservative leader Stephen Harper and New Democrat Party leader Jack Layton, Mills’ election opponent, must be gritting their teeth.

There was no fanfare when the ubiquitous Strong and his Earth Council landed in Toronto after he and his Earth Council had to flee Costa Rican soil last December. There was absolutely no word in the mainline media that Strong’s return to Toronto coincided with Martin’s arrival in Ottawa, where he replaced Jean Chretien as Prime Minister.

The National Post’s Peter Foster did write about Strong and the Costa Rican debacle on May 12.

Losing out on sunny climes by having to relocate in the north, is the least of Strong’s worries.

Gunning for the celebrated international mover and shaker is the Office of the Comptroller of the Republic of Costa Rica. The Comptroller is trying to collect the $1,650,000.00 in U.S. funds from the Earth Council for what is alleged was its "wrongful sale" of a Santa Ana property, which had only been donated-with-restrictions to the Council.

Despite global fanfare, the much-vaunted green Earth Council was plunged into the red and bankrupted in its Costa Rica operations.

At issue with the Costa Rican aggrieved is the broken promise of the Earth Council to share in the expected proceeds of the government’s expressed policy "to promote the sale of CO2 certificates in the international carbon-dioxide market."

The Earth Council Foundation was counting on the failed CO2 certificates to finance the construction of a new Earth Centre on Costa Rican soil, part of meeting the imposed restrictions in having the land donated.

Instead, the Earth Council is now bunking up at Maurice F. Strong’s not so glamourous offices at Consumer’s Drive, Toronto, Ont.

It was back in 1996 when the Jose Maria Figueres Administration, which had placed Sustainable Development high on its national and international agenda, enacted a law, courtesy Costa Rican Parliament, through which a valuable tract of land was donated to the Earth Council.

The intention, shared by all parties was that the Earth Council would build new headquarter facilities there, together with the "Earth Centre", designed to be a source of continuing revenue for the Earth Council.

The Santa Ana land was never intended to be an outright gift. In fact, the law required that should the Earth Council decide to leave Costa Rica or dissolve itself, the land or its proceeds would be returned to the State of Costa Rica, or to organizations with a similar purpose.

The Earth Council Foundation, which hightailed it to Toronto, has not dissolved itself, or officially, its Costa Rican operations.

Certain costs were racked up in the false hopes that CO2 certificate sales would top up funds.

Based on the expected proceeds from the CO2 sales, the Earth Council initiated the necessary feasibility studies, architectural designs and site preparation for construction of the Earth Centre. To expedite the prepatory process, the rush was on, with the EC using its own project funds, in high expectation that the proceeds of the CO2 certificates would soon reimburse them.

The red tape started tying itself into knots when the Rodriquez Administration assumed the presidency in 1998. As quick as you could say "sustainability", the new administration chose to abandon the CO2 certificate marketing policy.

In discussions with the Earth Council, on the line for the US$1.1 million it had already spent in anticipation, it was recognized that the previous Figueres-Earth Council agreement had to be abandoned.

The incoming Rodriquez government did, however, propose that the Earth Council establish its new headquarters at the campus at the University of Peace.

As UP Council President Strong had clout there, but unknown then was the coming Battle Royale between Strong and Radio for Peace International, which he unceremoniously turfed off campus.

Trouble, capital T arrived when one of the prospective buyers of the Santa Ana land tract initiated 2001 legal proceedings against the Earth Council through the office of the Comptroller of the Public.

The Earth Council, which says funds resulting from the sale of the land were all used and accounted for entirely in Costa Rica in accordance with the letter and the spirit of the law, engaged in legal proceedings and thus incurred expensive fees.

The Earth Council subsequently forced to suspend its activities in Costa Rica, made the move to Toronto.

Just as Costa Rican officials predicted the University of Peace was soon to follow. We now know why backbencher Liberal MP Dennis Mills announced last August that he would be moving the UN--kit and caboodle--to beautiful downtown Toronto.

The election-bound Mills, waiting for Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin to drop the election writ this Sunday, is the backbencher, who brought the Rolling Stones to Downsview Park, July 30 during last summer’s SARS scare.

Why would anyone want to dump the world’s largest bureaucracy on Toronto’s business-challenged Waterfront?

"Not for the revenues generated from parking by 10,000-plus, tax-free UN employees," CanadaFreePress.com wrote last August. "Mayor Michael Bloomberg is still fuming about UN deadbeat diplomats who owe the Big Apple more than $22 million in unpaid parking fines since 1997."

"Making sustainable development happen" is the mantra of the Earth Council, a non-governmental organization established in Geneva. It is affiliated with the Earth Council Foundation in Canada, until recently the Earth Council Institute in Costa Rica and the Earth Council Foundation in the U.S.

It is not to be confused with the Earth Charter, a document co-authored by Strong and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev as a global replacement for the Ten Commandments.

Meanwhile, regarding the aggrieved Costa Rican Comptroller and Strong, as Ricky Ricardo would say, "You have a lot of splainin’ to do, Mo."

Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 25 years experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard and the former Brampton Daily Times.