How a B.C. business scion flipped to hawking supplements and conspiracy theories
CBC
In the spring of 2018, Foster Coulson appeared on the cover of BC Business Magazine wearing a red velvet jacket.
He stood, arms folded, with a group of young entrepreneurs who the magazine declared were "ready to rewrite the rules of business."
At 28, Coulson was about to join his older brother as co-president of his family's multi-million dollar aerial firefighting business. Within a year, he was jet-setting everywhere from Australia to Bolivia, meeting with government leaders and helping secure big contracts.
But Coulson began to reconsider his priorities after meeting in April 2021 an obscure doctor, Vladimir Zelenko, who had become internet famous for claiming an untested mix of antimalarial drugs and vitamin supplements could help defeat COVID.
That meeting "changed the trajectory of my life," Coulson would later write.
Coulson gradually stepped away from his family's business, eventually starting a vitamin supplement company, investing in a dating site for unvaccinated singles and launching a coffee line for "anti-woke" consumers.
He has since become an important, if little known, player in the movement to bring together the worlds of wellness and far-right politics.
His constantly evolving portfolio of businesses, within a parent company headquartered in the Vancouver area, funds many of the leading online purveyors of medical disinformation, xenophobia and misogyny.
Coulson, though, denies responsibility for the content pumped out by the extremist influencers who advertise his products.
"I don't endorse any viewpoints of others that isolate a specific group of individuals or spread hate," he said repeatedly in an emailed response to a series of questions from CBC News.
In Coulson's eyes, he is creating "a parallel economy" for consumers who believe their freedom is under threat by censorious elites and corrupt scientists.
"I feel proud that I have been able to create many new Canadian jobs during a time when many Canadians lost their jobs and income streams due to standing up for their own personal beliefs," Coulson said in an email to CBC News.
He did not respond to a follow-up question asking him how many jobs he has created in Canada.
In 2021, when Coulson began investing in vitamin supplements, the wellness industry was deeply divided in its response to the pandemic.
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