Jason Kenney’s war room tactics in defending the oil and gas industry strayed into dangerous territory last week.
He's now raised the ire of Amnesty International, which says his rhetoric against oil and gas industry activists puts human rights at risk.
Speaking to executives last week at the Oil Sands Trade Show and Conference in Fort McMurray, Jason Kenney, in making a case for his multi-million-dollar taxpayer funded “war room," enviously mused about how environmental activists are in some places rounded up and jailed.
“They know they couldn’t get away with this in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In fact, Greenpeace did do a protest on an offshore rig in Russia and their crew was arrested and thrown in a Siberian jail for six months and funnily enough they’ve never been back,” he said smirking as he paused for effect, possibly awaiting applause or laughter that never came.
In fact the room went completely dead quiet, not so much as a faint cough after his comment. Perhaps even the oil executives were taken aback and stunned into silence by the premier’s insinuation that protesters should be punished.
“I’m not recommending that for Canada,” Kenney continued after a couple of seconds, “But it’s instructive.”
Ah, there it is, the infamous “but.”
Absolutely nothing about Putin’s Russia should be considered “instructive,“ unless we want to start taking pages right out of an authoritarian regime’s playbook. Let’s be real, we’re talking about a country where critical journalists and opposing politicians have conveniently wound up dead or disappeared. Where non-violent protesters demanding fair, open elections and government accountability are rounded up and arrested by the thousands.
Kenney went on to say environmental activists would not dare protest in other countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela. Of course they wouldn’t — those are basically dictatorships that have never been known for upholding core democratic principles such as the right to protest and peacefully express opposition to government policy.
Canada’s global reputation, thankfully, stands in stark contrast to such bastions of regression, as a principled nation of democratic discourse, not the suppression of free speech and dissenting ideas. Demonizing activists and dissenters is a slippery slope, one that should certainly not be funded by taxpayers.
Besides, Kenney’s rhetoric aside, Alberta’s oil and gas industry is largely struggling not because of activists, yet rather as a result of international variables that are far beyond any provincial government’s ability to control.
Foreign interests that have been divesting from our oilpatch are unlikely to be influenced very much by non-government organizations.
However, they are unquestionably keeping a close, keen eye on critical market factors like the global oversupply of cheaper sources that has driven down the price per barrel much lower than was ever predicted 10 years ago, when speculators deluded themselves and the public into believing the sky was the limit.
Of course that’s more complicated — as the truth typically is — than placing all of the blame on the shoulders of a convenient scapegoat to shore up support.
Instead of changing his worldly opponents’ minds, Kenney’s rhetoric last week just dug them in deeper.
— Ducatel is the Round Up's editor
