One of Canada’s loudest fossil fuel advocacy groups, Canada Action, has for years claimed to be a “grassroots” organization funded through donations from ordinary Canadians.
But financial records obtained by DeSmog reveal that individual donations only make up a tiny percentage of the group’s funding, representing just 0.5 percent of Canada Action’s total revenue for 2024.
The vast majority of its funding instead comes from “sponsorships”, which in the past has included contributions from Cenovus, the country’s third-largest oil and gas producer. Canada Action previously received $100,000 from the oil and gas company ARC Resources.
Records show that Canada Action received over $2.9 million from sponsorships in 2024, compared to just $15,604 in donations.
The gap between its donations and sponsorship revenue suggests that the non-profit group is mainly being supported by large businesses as opposed to a movement of working Canadians, according to Shane Gunster, a professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communications.
“It is a classic example of a ‘subsidized public’ PR strategy in which corporations identify individuals and groups who are sympathetic to their aims, and then ‘subsidize’ their participation within social media networks and the public sphere,” said Gunster in a statement to DeSmog. “The industry or corporation thereby appears to have much greater popularity, legitimacy and social license among ‘ordinary Canadians’.”
Canada Action didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Canada Action is a federally-registered non-profit organization that advocates for oil and gas expansion and opposes climate action, largely through social media posts and advertisements. It was founded in 2012 by Cody Battershill, a Calgary-based realtor.
In recent years, Canada Action has engaged in numerous high-profile advertising campaigns across Canada. These have included covering Toronto trams in advertisements reading “As long as the world needs oil and gas, it should be Canadian” and running ads during television broadcasts that said “Oil and Natural Gas Make Canada Stronger.”
In 2024, Canada’s advertising regulator determined that some of Canada Action’s advertisements concerning LNG were inaccurate, misleading, and distorted scientific data. Recent Canada Action social media activity includes posts stating “Canadian LNG Can Help Secure a Strong Economy”, “5 Reasons Why Canada Needs More Nuclear Plants”, and “Asia Paying Top Dollar for Canadian Oil. Pacific Link Will Get More to Market.”
In a section on its website entitled “How is Canada Action Funded?”, the group describes itself as “a grassroots, federally registered, not-for-profit movement built in support of Canada’s vital natural resource sector and the families, communities and programs that depend on it across the country.”
“Our donations come from a host of people and organizations across Canada who value, as we do, the social and economic benefits created by Canada’s resource industry, as well as the sector’s strong commitment to regulatory transparency and social standards,” it explains.
The group’s website and social media pages are filled with images of Canadians wearing Canada Action’s promotional merchandise, including t-shirts that read “I [Heart] Oil & Gas.”
This helps in “cultivating the impression that this industry enjoys widespread public approval,” claimed Gunster. “Many [regular people] may even believe that these sites are themselves largely grassroots organized and funded.”
But financial records show those donations have for years only made up a tiny fraction of the group’s revenue.
In 2018, Canada Action made $24,413 in donations and $49,334 from promotional sales, while it received $836,238 in sponsorship funding. In 2021, the organization received $34,895 from donations and $1,055,381 in sponsorship funding.
Canada Action does not disclose the corporate sponsors that make up a majority of its revenue.
But it has made presentations to Canadian Energy Prosperity (CEP), a funder group that supports organizations which work to manufacture the appearance of widespread public consent in Canada for aggressive fossil fuel development. According to a recent Greenpeace report, CEP was founded by a Calgary-based oil executive.
DeSmog recently reported on a Canada Action slide deck detailing its strategy to get millions of views for industry talking points through social media.
Canada Action’s website states “because we are a non-partisan organization, we do not accept funding from political parties,” and praises the resource sector’s “strong commitment to regulatory transparency and social standards.”
“You can’t claim to be a grassroots organization while receiving 98 percent of your revenue from unnamed corporate sponsors,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada.
“Canada Action should come clean with respect to who exactly is paying for the millions of dollars in advertising, so people can fairly judge their claims.”
