Thank you David Climenhaga! (I’ll be laughing for days!)
2019 12 17: Downstream of [Alberta’s] oilsands, death by cancer comes too often [Excellent comments by Geoffrey Pounder and Nielle Hawkwood]
REBRANDED ‘WAR ROOM’ AIMS FOR ‘MEASURED TONE’ IN RIPOSTE TO ACERBIC MEDICINE HAT NEWS COLUMN, DOESN’T QUITE SUCCEED by DAVID CLIMENHAGA, Dec 19, 2019, Alberta Politics
All the Alberta Government’s rebranded Energy War Room is trying to do, pleaded Managing Director Tom Olsen yesterday in his much anticipated riposte [ha, ha! roaring laughter!] to an acerbic column last week in the Medicine Hat News, is to bring a little civility to the debate about whether or not foreign-funded enviro-propagandists are an actual thing.
The War Room decided to “reach out” on Sunday as soon as someone there read reporter Jeremy Appel’s sharply worded column, which concluded that the best thing you can say about the so-called Canadian Energy Centre Ltd. is that it’s “an expensive joke.”
Mr. Olsen, a former Calgary Herald assistant city editor, tried for a tone more of sadness [HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!] than of anger when taking issue with Mr. Appel’s tart conclusions. What he came up with, though, was more akin to a boring press release, as Hat News staffers were soon gleefully tweeting. [GIGGLE GIGGLE!]
In his column, published on Dec. 14, Mr. Appel also warned of the War Room that, “at worst, it’s a grave threat to our right to dissent.”
No, no, Mr. Olsen protested, “our approach is to be informative, positive and educational about the Canadian energy industry.”
“We invite everyone to join us in public discourse,” he insisted, describing Canadian Energy Centre Ltd.’s mission as “the sharing of knowledge, facts and ideas that will help us reach our potential with energy that is produced in the most responsible and sustainable manner possible.”
All the War Room wants to do is “bring a more measured tone to a conversation we think is vitally important,” he insisted.
Readers, I’m sure you’re all just as relieved as I am by Mr. Olsen’s assurances.
The trouble with this line of argument, though, is that it’s a little hard to sustain in light of the stream of belligerent statements made about the War Room and its mission by Premier Jason Kenney and other senior leaders of his government. The premier, after all, is the boss of the unsuccessful UCP candidate at the top of the War Room org chart, whether or not the Crown-owned corporation of which Mr. Olsen is titular head has been legally structured as a private company to dodge Freedom of Information requests.
Making that task even harder is the need to defend the conspiracy theory on which the entire project is based. Mr. Olsen tried, although not particularly successfully. “Creation of the CEC is a direct response to the domestic and foreign-funded campaigns against Canada’s oil and gas industry that have divided Canadians and devastated the Alberta economy,” he wrote.
Well, that’s tendentious, but to give Mr. Olsen his due, at least it’s not rude. He did sort of manage to maintain a civil tone while pretending the government’s favourite (and intentionally divisive) conspiracy theory is fact. Anyway, the Kenney Government has different operatives for the offensive stuff, like the premier’s “executive director of issues management” — c’mon down, Matt Wolf!
And you can’t blame Mr. Olsen for trying — after all he’s paid almost $200,000 a year to do so, and I imagine he understands that he’d better make a success of it or the premier may throw him to the Wolf.
Alas for the War Room, as Mr. Appel put it in his column, its “entire premise is based on the notion that anyone who opposes oilsands expansion is a liar with ulterior motives.”
In response to the corporate structure dodge, Mr. Olsen gamely trotted out the government’s unpersuasive standard talking point — that it’s being done only to keep those foreign-funded environmental plotters from knowing the War Room’s secret strategic plans. [roaring laughter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! too funny!]
This might be more credible if Mr. Kenney and his minions hadn’t spent months telegraphing what the War Room was going to do. [!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] It doesn’t exactly require Mata Hari to puzzle that stuff out!
As an aside, it’s interesting that Mr. Olsen included a line in his effort to claim one of the impacts of the purported conspiracy to “landlock” Alberta’s fossil fuels is to lower the value of shares held by “many of the country’s biggest pension plans and investment funds.” Hmm… Well, the government of Alberta certainly seems to have that topic on its mind these days, doesn’t it?
Mr. Olsen’s approach doesn’t seem likely to be very successful. The government’s supporters want blood. Its opponents are predisposed to disbelieve anything the War Room has to say. And it’s doubtful the undecided — and there are many of them — are going to bother to read anything as dull as yesterday’s contribution to the Medicine Hat News. [I think the dullness of Olsen’s piece shows that war room occupants are worried they’ve already lost the battles and the war – even though they’ve barely started.]
Oh, and that Inquiry? It poses a threat to free expression rights too
Meanwhile, over at the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Law, two contributors to its Ablawg.ca legal issues blog have taken a look at the United Conservative Party’s Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns, a phrase that begs for multiple sets of scare quotes, from the perspective of its potential impact on the right to free expression.
The news is not any better than that from Ablawg’s earlier forays into other legal problems posed by the Inquiry — with the rule of law and procedural fairness.
The conclusion of Jennifer Koshan, a U of C law professor, and Linda McKay-Panos, Executive Director of the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, is that as currently structured “there are strong arguments that the Alberta Inquiry unjustifiably violates the freedom of expression of the Canadian organizations it is aimed at as well as those associated with such organizations, including their members and supporters.”
“The Inquiry’s harmful effects on expression have already begun to occur,” they noted. “Combined with the adverse impact the Inquiry is likely to have on women and Indigenous human rights defenders and environmental activists, the Inquiry’s harmful effects arguably outweigh any beneficial impact.” [And that is of course, industry’s intent with Steve Allen’s witch hunt]
If it is to avoid embarrassing defeats in the courts [Defeat? With our dirty judges protecting industry and its law-violating enablers like AER? Kenney, Allen, CAPP et al have nothing to worry about], the government is going to have mute the findings of the Inquiry to the point they turn out to be as unsatisfactory to the UCP base as Mr. Olsen’s lame press release is bound to be.
Canadian Energy Centre seeks to bring measured tone by Kenney’s Propaganda War Room’s Tom Olsen, Dec 18, 2019, Medicine Hat News
Re: “Energy war room an expensive joke at best,” Dec. 14
Since the Canadian Energy Centre’s (CEC) public launch last week, it has been gratifying to see the breadth and depth of interest in our mandate to create a new, pragmatic, fact-based narrative about Canadian energy.
Like many new ideas, our website and social media accounts have prompted a lively discussion about defending the energy industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of people across Canada, and continues to be the economic engine for the country.
Our work is particularly important for communities like Medicine Hat, the “Gas City,” that has been hit hard by the industry downturn in recent years and has even had to shut down much of its own gas production. [Hit harder by life- threatening leaking wells not being cleaned up?]
Creation of the CEC is a direct response to the domestic and foreign-funded campaigns against Canada’s oil and gas industry that have divided Canadians and devastated the Alberta economy as energy production in the United States and elsewhere has ramped up. [What?! Production is dropping faster than dead flies after a RAID spray. Investors, banks, pension funds, and investment firms that invested in the oil and gas industry have lost tens of billions of dollars and see the writing on the liability walls. Investors stopped feeding the bleed, starting the death of the industry. Search “billion” and “bankruptcy” on this site for moutains of details. It’s just Kopy Kat Kenney, stealing pensions of hard working Albertans, and AIMCo, feeding the raging bleed, fools that they are. Alberta’s oil industry ponzi scheme was made and exposed years ago. Citizens courageously raising concerns about the endless pollution, law violations, health harms and lies by this industry, and saying no more, are not to blame for its greed-induced fall from investor grace]
Our approach is to be informative, positive and educational about the Canadian energy industry.
There will be an increasing global demand for oil and gas over the decades to come. With our focus on ever-improving environmental standards and our commitment to labour and human rights, Canada should be the world’s supplier of choice. There is no question about that.
Two-thirds of the CEC’s $30 million budget comes from Alberta’s energy industry through the Technology, Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) program that collects the greenhouse gas emissions levy on the province’s largest emitters. The remaining one-third of our budget is repurposed from the previous government’s advertising fund.
The CEC has a strict budgeting process that involves the corporate directors, a business plan, and expenditure reports in line with the Fiscal Planning and Transparency Act.
We are subject to the Whistle Blowers Act and will be audited by the Auditor General’s office. [But, if the AG Office finds anything, Kopy Kat Kenney will promptly fire all the workers doing the digging.]
Oversight is rigorous.
Our work is necessary.
It has been shown [by a fraud, no less!] that the campaigns to shut down new pipeline projects and damage the reputation of our oil and gas industry have received tens of millions of dollars from U.S. environmental foundations.
The landlocking of Alberta energy has cost tens of billions of dollars in lost capital, meaning fewer jobs and markedly less money for public services. [Landlocking or industry’s greed and shoddy polluting harmful operations?]
On top of that, lack of market access for our oil and gas has had a devastating impact on the prosperity of energy companies operating in Canada – resulting in lost jobs and lower value for their shareholders that include many of the country’s biggest pension plans and investment funds. [So, the war room is watching the death of the oil and gas industry via investors fleeing the sordid industry! Besides, it’s not lack of market, it’s industry’s greed, 1) automating everything that’s killing jobs and 2) refusing to clean up, killing more jobs.]
We take our responsibility to tell Canada’s energy story very seriously. [Yes,we take it so seriously, we lie, lie, lie, and lie some more, and always abandon our own after they’ve been frac’d or tarred.]
Shawn Campbell playing with Magic, Rosebud, Alberta
We invite everyone to join us in public discourse – the sharing of knowledge, facts and ideas that will help us reach our potential with energy that is produced in the most responsible and sustainable manner possible. [Like this? Comments below to an Andrew Nikiforuk article at The Tyee sum up how Alberta does it best.]
We aim to bring a more measured tone to a conversation we think is vitally important.
(Tom Olsen is CEO and managing director, Canadian Energy Centre.)
Some of the comments:
ingamarie says:
Wonderful news: “2/3 of the 30 million comes from the energy industry through the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) program that collects the greenhouse gas emissions levy on the province’s largest emitters”
I wondered how long it would take the Cons to recreate the revolving door they used under Redford…its such an elegant system. Tax the polluters up front,then give it back to them through some back door, for work they do to lower emissions. This program kkk kenny has dreamed up is even better…
Tax them for CO2 up front…….than give it back to them to fund war rooms fighting bogus foreign environmentalists………….when the real threat rising against all of us is climate disruption…caused…seal your ears all true denialists….by GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS….emissions produced by the very industry telling us how unjustly attacked they are.
It’s brilliant, as far as it goes……..but there is no tone, measured enough, to disguise the lies and financial fudging at the heart of it.
ReynoldReimer says:
“Creation of the CEC is a direct response to the domestic and foreign-funded campaigns against Canada’s oil and gas industry that have divided Canadians and devastated the Alberta economy as energy production in the United States and elsewhere ramped up.”
Could it be that our tar is just more expensive to produce than the oil from the United States and elsewhere? More expensive from a monetary perspective. but more importantly, from an environmental perspective.
“It has been shown that the campaigns to shut down new pipeline projects and damage the reputation of our oil and gas industry have received tens of millions of dollars from U.S. environmental foundations.”
Where is the evidence? Anything said by Vivian Krause is inadmissable due to her obvious bias.
See also,
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/03/analysis/data-based-dismantling-jason-kenneys-foreign-funding-conspiracy-theory
Most importantly, we ought to be diversifying instead of trying to revive a zombie industry. The climate crisis is already upon us. We don’t have time to waste. We should not build any more fossil infrastructure. We need to phase out the industry with just treatment for the workers. [Better yet, enforce the polluter pay “Rule of Law” and make companies cough up the billions on cash they are hoarding and clean up their hundreds of billions of dollars in liablities. Would be plenty of work for all, for years.]
Refer also to: