The week’s social media roundup
... plus other Twitterverse missives and claims in provincial political scene
As Alberta rolled into the new year awash with sunshine and comparative warmth, the Journal resolved to shine more light on the social media messages shot into cyberspace by elected representatives, parties and the political action committees that support them.
Each week, we’ll give you a roundup of the outrage, the posturing and the downright weird unfolding on social media.
SO, WHERE’S THE BEEF? RIGHT HERE
Environment Minister Shannon Phillips caused a kerfuffle on Twitter this week when she suggested Albertans eat less meat for a month. Phillips, MLA for Lethbridge-West, was promoting a green challenge run by Environment Lethbridge. It’s a community group in her riding comprised of Lethbridge citizens, organizations, businesses and the city council.
Three days later, United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney’s camp picked up Phillips’ Jan. 2 tweet and ran with it. Within minutes, UCP MLAs were decrying it as an attack on Alberta’s beef industry, and caucus whip Ric McIver, MLA for Calgary-Hayes, demanded Premier Rachel Notley make Phillips remove the tweet.
Then Kenney weighed in. How dare Phillips suggest Albertans eat less meat, he said. People can eat what they want.
CLAIMING IT = NOT MENTIONING IT: UCP
Speaking of Kenney, a Facebook video he posted on New Year’s Eve included an interesting take on 2015 election promises.
Filling his blue pickup with gas to protest the 50-per-cent carbon tax hike on Jan. 1, Kenney says, “This is the carbon tax (the NDP) claimed they had no intention of imposing in the last provincial election.”
Problem is, the NDP never made any such claim — it never mentioned a carbon tax at all. That, says the UCP, is exactly the point. In an email, party press secretary Annie Dormuth said, “It is a lie by omission of historical proportions.”
MLA VERSUS ECONOMIST
As most Albertans were eating leftover shortbread during the week between Christmas and the New Year, UCP MLA Richard Gotfried instead waged a public battle against an academic.
His target was University of Alberta economist Andrew Leach, who in 2015-16 was enlisted by the NDP government to chair its climate change leadership panel.
In a series of tweets, Gotfried demanded to know Leach’s income, insinuating the associate professor gets money from Greenpeace and environmental groups.
The public disclosure section of Leach’s website wasn’t enough for the MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek, who threatened to sic his caucus FOIP team on the academic.
Gotfried later deleted many of the tweets, adding he wished he’d never opened Twitter that day.