The REAL Green Shift

The real Green Shift

Jennifer Wright, National Post
Published: Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Put yourself in my sandals for a moment.

Having put the past 10 years of my life into growing a successful mission-based environmental company called Green Shift, I was furious when an official from Liberal leader Stephane Dion's office called me one evening a month ago to tell me that the following morning, the Liberal Party of Canada would release its proposed new environmental tax program under my trademark. She said we would benefit from the confusion they were about to foment.

I was beyond livid when I realized that, despite my very vocal objections, during the coming general election, 308 Liberal candidates would be promoting an election platform whose environmental tax program would carry the hijacked name of our company.

Green Shift

A project, funded by a fair trade business structure, to help Shift the economy to a dark shade of green. We work with various industries and help the genuine to be strong leaders, in order to help set a precedent that others will follow.

You can join the Official Green Shift group on Facebook. Company founder Jennifer Wright pulls no punches in her fight to claim back Green Shift from the Liberals:

The REAL Green Shift needs your help!

The Liberal Party of Canada has hi-jacked our name and we want it back.

Brief synapse: On June 23rd the Liberal Party of Canada proposed a National “environmental” tax program called the Green Shift.

We, the real Green Shift have stated on its website for over 5 years that Green Shift is as much a concept as it is a company. In essence - an environmental program, developed almost 10 years ago and expected to continue well into the future.

Companies and institutions who are a part of the real Green Shift earn the right to use this name to represent that they are a part of the environmental leaders, and thus naturally we cannot risk people instead thinking that their participation in Green Shift is somehow affiliated with a political party.

As an organization we have gone to great lengths to see that environmental protection supercedes any and all barriers and thus we do not nor cannot have our name associated with any political agenda.

Although we are going to fight this in the legal system - they are a big machine and this is thought to have been well thought out - inc. calculating how much we could afford to fight. Well, we are pretty determined to see justice prevail, and we believe where there is a will there is a way. That being said, we really could use your help as the court of public opinion is what we care most about.

If you are interested/able to help us to fight the machine, please write to Stephan Dion (at DionS@parl.gc.ca).and ask that he please stop using our name for his environmental TAX program.

Thank-you in advance,

Sincerely,

Green Shift

Jennifer and Green Shift also got a boost for their lawsuit recently from Montreal Communications firm Influence Communications. Their research shows that Stephane Dion isn't being very truthful when he claims that "Green Shift" is a common term and the Liberal's use won't affect GreenShift.ca

Influence Communications completed an exhaustive 12-month scan of all newspapers (14 000+) in 159 countries to discover that ‘green shift’ as a term has been encountered in only 62 occasions; this from over 15 million articles/editorials directly or indirectly related to the environment/climate change...etc. This contradicts recent affirmations expressed by certain political leaders.

Best wishes to Jennifer Wright and GreenShift.ca. My wife's parents are small business owners so I can understand the frustration she is feeling at having her business' identity stolen by Stephane Dion and the Liberal Party of Canada.