WILD ALLEGATIONS ABOUT INQUIRY ANGER KENNEY
Premier Jason Kenney’s opponents just proved his point.
The day after the public inquiry into anti-oilsands funding went public, Amnesty International sent a personal letter to Kenney blasting the probe as an attack on “human rights defenders — particularly Indigenous, women, and environmental human rights defenders — exposing them to intimidation and threats, including threats of violence.”
Something like this was bound to happen; I’d even warned in a column that a formal inquiry with full court powers would invite allegations of abuse.
But this attack? It’s absurd.
And it proves Kenney’s point that there is no restraint in the opposition to the oil and gas industry.
That being obvious, the UCP theory goes, there’s nothing to be gained by caving or cowering before these people. The only option is to fight back. That’s why he established the inquiry in the first place.
Much as many Albertans prefer compromise and conciliation, it gets harder to disagree with Kenney’s tough strategy in the face of such wild, nonsensical charges.
First, how does the inquiry into foreign funding somehow threaten not just human rights and women, but Indigenous people in particular?
All Kenney has said, repeatedly, is that he’ll fund legal actions by Indigenous advocates of oil and gas projects and pipelines, just as the other side funds Indigenous opponents.
There’s no cause about which Kenney is more passionate than First Nations prosperity. Besides funding for legal action, the government promises a First Nations economic development agency. The premier constantly says it’s time for First Nations to share fully in economic benefits.
The problem for Amnesty International, obviously, is not human rights or Indigenous poverty, but climate change. Human rights are available to those fighting the “energy agenda.” Those who defend responsible energy development are by definition the enemies of human rights.
The secretary general of Amnesty International, Alex Neve, demands that Kenney ensure there is no “harassment, surveillance or criminalization of human rights defenders who opposed or criticize (the government’s) energy agenda and its implications for the rights of Indigenous peoples and the global climate crisis.”
What’s next — the United Nations sends in troops?
It seems there is no justification — this being a human-rights thing, you see — for any serious examination of foreign anti-energy funding or activity. That demand may be the surest sign that investigation of some kind is overdue.
Kenney scorned Amnesty International on Tuesday during a speech in Fort Mcmurray, saying he formed an Amnesty club in high school, when the organization nobly sought freedom for prisoners of conscience in dictatorial regimes. Today, he said, it backs foreign billionaires trying to block Alberta’s industry.
He pointed out that there is remarkably little anti-energy activity from these organizations in places such as Russia or Saudi Arabia, where a person can get in real trouble.
At the same time, they ignore every environmental advance in the Alberta industry, including the latest from Suncor.
By shifting from coke to natural gas to fire two cogeneration units, at a cost of $1.4 billion, the company expects to cut emissions by 25 per cent, equivalent to removing 550,000 cars from the road.
This is a significant reduction in Canadian emissions. There will be no credit whatever from the people who push the anti-oil agenda so hard they’ve succeeded in radicalizing many Albertans.
The critics have had a clear field for years. Canada is the soft target, the land whose new tennis star says “I’m sorry” for winning.
The federal election campaign starts Wednesday. To kick off his supporting role, Kenney announced that the province will launch a constitutional challenge against Bill C-69, the new federal law many believe will prevent the building of any new pipeline.
The Alberta government has complained for years about the demonizing of oil and gas. It always makes a rational case. But never before has the province truly joined the battle.
The blowback from interest groups is ferocious. You have to wonder — does Kenney have them worried?