Earlier, Public Eye exclusively reported the federal Green's election fairness committee had been asked to look into party leadership candidate Elizabeth May's campaign operations. That review followed revelations Ms. May's cross-country tour discussing the impact of tar sands development - which she says isn't connected with that campaign - was being advertised as part of the "future campaign events" on her website. But there seems to be some confusion about who's funding that tour.

The candidate initially said the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation - a California charity founded by the printer andcomputer manufacturing giant - was bankrolling the talks. But after a Foundation representative contradicted Ms. May, the candidate referred further inquiries to "John Bennett at Climate Action Network" who is negotiating the tour funding on his own time.

"I have had no direct involvement in any discussions or budgeting, after agreeing to try to fit the tour in," the former Sierra Club of Canada executive director responded in an e-mail.

It turns out, though, that Ms. May's "AmEx card" is involved with financing those talks - this according to Mr. Bennett, the network's executive director and a senior policy advisor with the Sierra Club of Canada. He explained his former colleague is jetting across the country "on her own dime." And environmental groups are covering the cost of hosting the tar sands talks, forwarding the receipts to Mr. Bennett - who noted he isn't involved with the Ms. May leadership campaign - for future reimbursement.

And who will they be reimbursed by? Mr. Bennett said Ms. May was "confused" about the tour's funding source because the idea for the tar sands talks came from an unnamed energy expert "who advises a number of foundations in the States about what would be a wise place to spend their money" - including the Hewlett Foundation. Although, Ms. May said in a later interview "it wasn't any one person" who came up with the idea. "It was part of a gathering of climate activists"

Regardless, Mr. Bennett said he has written a grant proposal to the unnamed expert to cover the cost of the tour. And "I believe [the proposal] is going to go to the Tides Foundation" - a San Francisco-based group with a sister organization in Canada. "So we actually haven't closed the deal yet. We went ahead with the tour because we know him and we trust him" to deliver the required funding - which is expected to be somewhere in the "$30,000 range."

But if they don't receive that funding, Mr. Bennett said, "there will be a lot of fence mending to do" with the local organizations who hosted the tour. He added the expert contacted Ms. May about doing the tar sands tour in late April - "well before the announcement" that she was running to be leader of the Greens. And, for her part, Ms. May says she initially wanted to do the tour in the fall rather than now. The Canadian Press' Dennis Bueckert reported on April 15 that the prominent environmentalist was "seriously considering a run" for the Green leadership. A version of this article was originally published in today's edition of 24 hours.