CarbonZero has Strong Ties to Liberals

I was joking around at work with friends, basically I threw an off-the-cuff remark that CarbonZero was a Liberal front organization.

When I got home from work I decided to research the CarbonZero's leadership team. Guess what? They have strong ties to the Liberals and the Greens. Surprise surprise.

First thing I noticed was that Kate Holloway has worked for the Liberal government of Ontario:
...a past delegate to the United Nations Environment Programme Sustainable Energy Finance Roundtable; served as an observer to the 2005 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal; and in 2007 chaired the Ontario Liberal government's policy development team for climate change mitigation and adoption;

Not a that interesting, she wouldn't be the first activist to work with a government on policy issues. It get's more interesting though:
...is a Canadian political activist, journalist, and entrepreneur, best known for her work in the Canadian Green and Ontario Liberal parties, and for her private and public-sector work on climate change, participatory democracy, and free speech.

She is President and CEO of voluntary carbon offset firm CarbonZero and founder and Executive Director of the Toronto-based non-governmental organization Element Village. She was the candidate for the Liberal Party of Ontario in the Ontario general election, 2007 in the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina[1], [2]. She was also the spokesperson for Liberals for MMP, a group supporting voting yes to a referendum concerning proportional representation in the Ontario electoral reform referendum, 2007.

Wow! She sure has done a lot of work with the Liberals in the past. I wonder why no one mentioned this before? Perhaps we should take a step back in time here and look at her history a little closer?

Seems she has strong ties to with the Green Party of Canada as well. The Liberal and the Green parties are seeming more and more like two peas in a pod. Ms Holloway's involvement with the Green Party is extensive:

1. Holloway was a staff organizer for the Green Party of Canada
2. ran as a parachute candidate against incumbent Liberal Party Member of Parliament Derek Lee
3. Holloway was elected to the [Green] party's national executive (Federal Council) as Fundraising Chair with 91% of the vote, and subsequently sat on three financial Committees of Council
4. co-founded the Green Party Women's Caucus and the Green High Riding School

Ms Holloway has also had her run ins with the Green Party:
In January 2005, Green Party of Canada leader Jim Harris called for an in camera session of Federal Council and moved a motion to remove Kathryn Holloway from the GPC council, resulting in Holloway's suspension.

This happened during the time when the Green Party was engaged in a lot of infighting, but she eventually made it back into the green fold:
Holloway returned to active participation in the GPC in May 2006 as a key supporter of leadership candidate Elizabeth May, hosting a Toronto meet-and-greet for May's campaign.^[11] On August 27, 2006, despite a very active campaign against her by Harris and Crookes, Holloway was elected again to GPC Council, this time as Chief Agent, with 69% of the vote.

An Elizabeth May supporter? Interesting. Despite being a strong Ms May supporter, Ms Holloway decided to move on politically, at this time she joined the Liberals. Perhaps she realized she would have a better chance at getting elected.

Holloway had meanwhile moved on politically. On December 8, 2006, she resigned from the Green Party to join the Liberal Party. Her resignation letter stated that core values between the two parties were not dissimilar, and that she intended to support Toronto Liberals in the wake of Stephane Dion's election as Liberal Party of Canada Leader. ^[13].

She seems to be a strong supporter of Dion, dumping the party she was an executive on, and ditching her party leader that she helped win the leadership of the Green Party for.

It seems that Ms Holloway has strong ties to both the Liberals and the Green parties. She was an active support of Ms May, and jumped ship to join Dion and his Liberals.

This seems to add some credence to Stephen Harper's claim that the Green and Liberal parties have essentially the same platform. It also casts doubt onto the partiality of the choice as CarbonZero as the recipient of the Liberal party's payments for so called carbon credits. Could this be a case of Peter helping Paul?

It certainly doesn't seem quite so noble now eh?

We're better off with Harper.