UCP Indigenous legal fund idea a ‘divide and conquer tactic’: Senator
A Manitoba senator says a proposal by Alberta’s United Conservatives to pick up the legal tabs of pro-pipeline First Nations is an example of age-old “divide-andconquer” tactics.
Leader Jason Kenney touted the proposed legal fund in a Calgary speech this month as part of his party’s multi-pronged “fight-back strategy” against anyone wishing to shut down Alberta’s energy sector.
“His approach is nothing new,” Sen. Murray Sinclair, Manitoba’s first Indigenous judge and chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation on residential schools, told The Canadian Press.
“It’s very typical of the way governments have approached the issue of Indigenous people in the past, and that is to foment division and to ensure that those who are on the side of whatever government policy is at issue or whatever corporate interest is at play are the ones that get the corporate money or get the government money.”
In his speech, Kenney said Indigenous people in favour of natural resource development are often at a disadvantage compared with those working with well-funded environmental groups.
“If I’m premier, we’ll be writing cheques to allow them to go to court,” he said. “We’ll be supporting pro-development litigation.”
Indigenous entrepreneur Calvin Helin — who has proposed a $16billion oil pipeline between the oilsands and the northern British Columbia coast — thinks the litigation fund is an “excellent idea.”
“You have First Nations people who often are natural resource rich but cash poor. They don’t have money for stuff like this. How do we compete against American foundations?”
Alberta United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney has turfed a party member who once ran the call centre for his leadership bid amid reports the worker is behind an online store that sells white supremacist memorabilia.
“I am shocked and disturbed by reports of hateful and extreme online activity by a UCP member named Adam Strashok,” Kenney said in a statement on Twitter Tuesday.
“Neither I nor anyone on my staff was aware of the extreme views of the individual in question.”
Kenney said he has ordered party officials to cancel Strashok’s membership.
He added he recently asked the board of the UCP to develop a process for screening applicants for membership “to block those who have expressed hateful or extreme views.”
Strashok, who ran the call centre for a time in 2017 during Kenney’s United Conservative leadership bid, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Kenney was responding to a story in Ricochet Media that investigated ties from members of the Canadian Armed Forces to an online store glorifying the era of white rule in Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe.
It’s the latest in a series of UCP supporters voicing or associating with those expressing hateful and intolerant views.
Earlier this month three nomination candidates in a west Edmonton constituency were photographed with the antiimmigrant Soldiers of Odin group. Two of the candidates said they were unaware of the group’s notoriety when they posed for pictures.
Critics, including Premier Rachel Notley, have criticized Kenney for engaging in “dog whistle” politics by officially denouncing such views but in such a sterile, reactive manner through statements on social media that extremists may feel like they still have a home in his party.
Kenney was not made available for an interview. In his statement he said “I have been crystal clear throughout my public life, and from day one of the Alberta (conservative) unity movement that I reject unequivocally voices of hatred and bigotry.“
Kenney cited his history in the former federal Conservative cabinet advocating for multiculturalism and Canada’s ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity.