[AB] So many self-inflicted wounds, so few allies. Alberta's energy war room was long doomed
[AB] So many self-inflicted wounds, so few allies. Alberta's energy war room was long doomed
Kenney, at a 2018 gathering of his United Conservative Party, pledged a "fully staffed rapid-response war room in government to quickly and effectively rebut every lie told by the green left about our world-class energy industry."
That line worked well in a room full of pro-oil partisans who felt their province's main industry under siege. And it surely felt familiar to Kenney himself, who'd spend so many federal elections in the Conservative Party war room, pumping out attack after counter-attack against the Liberals, NDP or any other would-be threat to his own faction.
It tried to take down Big Green. It instead picked fights with Bigfoot Family.
it instead became notorious for an abortive social-media tirade against the New York Times and going after a Netflix cartoon film for its anti-development themes.
Not that you really needed to see further evidence of not-the-onion conservative idiocy, but anyway.
Have a great Friday and weekend, folks.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
And this week Premier Danielle Smith abandoned the idea, dissolving the organization into her own government, making it a lesser tool in her own fight on behalf of the oil and gas sector.
Kenney, at a 2018 gathering of his United Conservative Party, pledged a "fully staffed rapid-response war room in government to quickly and effectively rebut every lie told by the green left about our world-class energy industry."
And it surely felt familiar to Kenney himself, who'd spend so many federal elections in the Conservative Party war room, pumping out attack after counter-attack against the Liberals, NDP or any other would-be threat to his own faction.
And while Kenney pitched it as a $30-million-a-year operation that would outduel the climate-activist PR machine, it instead became notorious for an abortive social-media tirade against the New York Times and going after a Netflix cartoon film for its anti-development themes.
Kenney and even some allies within the energy sector believed this provincially run — albeit arms' length — organization could succeed where the industry's own advocacy groups had struggled to spread a good-news gospel about Alberta oil.
Smith quietly made the change this week, pulling a few staff from the stand-alone Energy Centre into the provincial government's intergovernmental relations division, which falls directly under the premier's own supervision.
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The CBC is failing badly here, in accepting the claimed purpose of the war room at face value.
The war room was always primarily created to funnel taxpayer money to UCP friends. The energy argument was just a veneer.