Councillors hope pipeline rally will educate Canada
Members of city council are getting behind a pro-pipeline rally set for Monday afternoon at city hall.
The event is being organized by Canada Action, a volunteerled movement that supports the natural-resources sector.
“We’re looking for absolutely every symbolic gesture that we can actually do, that is being wise with city funds, being efficient in our advocacy,” said Coun. Shane Keating.
He said council understands “there is no way the city can actually put any approving authority” toward pipeline expansions, but “we can certainly influence” it.
“It’s not our jurisdiction,” Keating said. “Legally, we can’t do much and economically, we shouldn’t be spending a ton of City of Calgary money on this. But what can we do?”
The rally will start at 12:15 p.m. on Monday. Sonia Kont, a spokeswoman for the organizers of the event, said they’ve heard messages of support from all members of council, including Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who is to speak at it.
“The whole goal of this is just having a unified message and letting Calgarians and Albertans and Canadians know that the City of Calgary, including the mayor and all 14 councillors, support the energy sector,” Kont said.
“We haven’t seen much open support from the city and I think that’s really important … They should have done this months ago but I’m glad we’re finally doing this now.”
Coun. Ward Sutherland said that, although council has supported the energy industry, he felt a need to be more vocal about it.
“There’s a lot of educational aspects of oil that the rest of the country doesn’t know, and it’s really a shame,” said Sutherland, adding that the rally is “directed at everybody in Canada. We can all be very negative and be aggressive against people that are against it, or we can start educating.”
He said Calgary’s elected representatives want to challenge other municipalities across Canada to be
There’s a lot of educational aspects of oil that the rest of the country doesn’t know, and it’s really a shame.
vocal about their support for the energy industry, too, but acknowledged that “at a municipal level, we have very limited impact because it’s really a provincial and federal issue.”
Last week, Coun. Jeromy Farkas introduced a notice of motion calling on council to declare its support for the oil industry and the construction of pipelines.
Kont said the rally is a separate initiative.
“We’re not trying to attack the federal government specifically, but I think it’s pretty clear that Alberta’s been left alone,” she said. “We’re tired of it. We want people to know that Alberta and Calgary run this country, and we want their voices heard.”