Suzuki honour awakens sleeping giant’s fury
The catalyst is David Suzuki.
The spark is the University of Alberta’ s plan to grant the te le environmentalist an honorary degree.
And the fuel? It’s not bitumen. It’s not oil or gas. It’s the palpable rage that Albertans feel over having their main industry constantly demonized by U.S.-funded, non-governmental organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation, Tides Canada, Dogwood, Leadnow, etc. while oil products from oppressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan fill eastern Canadian gas tanks.
It’s the rage fanned by the knowledge that it’s the wealth created by this industry that fills federal coffers and equalization payments of most Canadian provinces. In 2016, the last year in which Statistics Canada figures are available, Albertans contributed a net $21.807 billion to the rest of Canada, or $5,148 for every man, woman and child in this province — almost six times more on a per-capita basis than the next closest “have” province, B.C., whose citizens contributed only a net of $886.
Quebecers, on the other hand, many of whom fought and successfully helped scuttle the Energy East pipeline from Alberta to the east coast, received $1,930 each in 2016 through equalization (even though it is now running a budget surplus) and people in Prince Edward Island each got $7,961. Visit Stats Canada’s CANSIM Table 3840047 and see for yourself.
This fiery rage is also oxygenated by the grotesque hypocrisy of Suzuki — who can be a rude man when the cameras aren’t rolling — who attacks Alberta’s oilpatch at every opportunity but sure uses an awful lot of petroleum products flying around in private jets and commercial planes and crossing the country in rock-star style buses while hectoring and shaming other Canadians to live small lives while he lives large.
Finally, Alberta’s too timid and quiet energy industry is seemingly speaking out in one loud voice and it’s about time.
A petition urges signers to: “Tell University of Alberta Chancellor Douglas Stollery and President and Vice-Chancellor David Turpin that ... it’s an insult not just to a school, but to its alumni, its benefactors, and to the province’s most important industry. It sends an insulting message to the sector’s thousands of beleaguered employees, suppliers, their families, and to the province itself.
“Tell Chancellor Stollery and President Turpin to rescind the decision to honour this divisive man.”
The petition — on CanadaAction.ca, which was just started on Tuesday, already had more than 13,300 signatures by late afternoon on Wednesday.
Jeff Lawson, a principal and director at Peters & Co., is a prominent Albertan who couldn’t remain silent. In an open letter he sent to Turpin last Wednesday, he wrote that he has long supported the university, ever since he obtained his law degree from there in 1993. His letter has gone viral.
“A friend recently sent me a note regarding STARS, the Air Ambulance Service that was so quick to assist with the Humboldt tragedy. The corporate sponsors of that service include Shell, Trans Canada, Enbridge, Canadian Natural, Crescent Point, Exxon and many others. I don’t believe those sponsors include the David Suzuki Foundation,” he writes.
Lawson added that small and large energy companies “are present and supportive at every philanthropic event I attend.” Lawson closed his letter stating: “I do not want to associate with an institution that is facilitating an attack on this community.”
In a letter sent Monday to the U of A, Calgary law firm Moodys Gartner said it was cancelling its five-year, $100,000 funding commitment to the university’s law school to end in 2020.
Bye, bye alumni cheques! On Wednesday, Premier Rachel Notley said she does not agree with the decision to grant an honorary degree to Suzuki. Was she crossing her fingers and winking when she said it? There are numerous videos of her blasting the oilsands, including one where she attended a “zombie duck rally,” admitting that she’s “always looking for votes.”
For decades she protested against the oilpatch, now she’s trying to repair much of the damage she helped create but her onerous carbon tax, implemented during an economic downturn, is a funny way to show it.
Notley added that the university is built on academic freedom and independence, and that must be respected.
Agreed. Freedom of expression is paramount. Where and to whom people donate their money is a form of expression. So is signing petitions. It’s proof that we live in a free and democratic society — something most universities have been shying away from. Now it looks as if U of A is going to learn a lesson about free expression and it’s likely going to be a very costly one. Perhaps George Soros and others with oil interests in the U.S. who have been funding the campaigns against Canadian oil for years will cover the U of A’s losses?
Meanwhile, it looks as if the university is not going to budge and Suzuki will get a very big platform, indeed, to further lambaste Albertans for producing a product he and his family use so very much of in their numerous, large, multimillion-dollar homes. By the way, there are popular videos by Suzuki urging others not to have so many children.
Get it? You shouldn’t have any children for the good of the planet. He gets to have five! You shouldn’t fly, or drive — he “must” do so in order to urge others to save the planet. Don’t do as he does (if everyone did, every resource on the planet would have been depleted by now) do as he says.
Finally, Alberta’s oilpatch has woken up. Here’s hoping it stays that way. Ironically, this honorary degree to Suzuki might just be the catalyst needed to light a righteous fire of rage under our normally quiet energy industry.
Perhaps George Soros and others with oil interests in the U.S . ... will cover the U of A’s losses?