When Alberta energy giant, Encana, announced it was leaving Calgary and moving to the States, the terrible-tempered Jason Kenney was quick to blame it all on Justin Trudeau. If only Trudeau wasn't undermining Alberta's gawd-given oil, if only Justin wasn't dragging his heels on building pipelines, none of this would have happened.
So outrageous were Kenney's complaints that the Globe's Gary Mason decided to take the Alberta premier to the woodshed.
None of this has to do with the Trudeau government or its “no more pipelines bill,” as Mr. Kenney calls Bill C-69. That doesn’t matter to the Alberta Premier. Encana leaving makes for good domestic politics. It gives him a platform upon which he can demand more pipelines, demand Catherine McKenna not be renamed environment minister in the next cabinet, demand an energy corridor to the east coast commence immediately, demand an urgent meeting of first ministers, demand equalization reform.
It’s completely nuts.
Mr. Kenney’s ego is out of control. I’m not sure whether he’s politicking for his current job or whether he’s establishing his bona fides to take over as federal Conservative leader. He certainly has become the loudest conservative voice in the country. And whether it’s current leader Andrew Scheer or someone else who ultimately assumes command of the federal party, they should be prepared for a long to-do list the Alberta Premier will have waiting for them.
The risk Mr. Kenney runs is overreach. He becomes so obsessed in his demonization of Justin Trudeau that he actually creates sympathy for the Prime Minister instead. Because at some point, people outside of Alberta and Saskatchewan are going to see straight through the narrative.
They are going to see a provincial premier, who has some legitimate grievances, attempting to bully the person running this country (and an old political foe he doesn’t much care for on a personal level) into acceding to his every wish. They are going to see someone seemingly more interested in personal aggrandizement than engaging in the kind of give-and-take inherent in national deal-making.
And Mr. Kenney needs to understand that deliberately mischaracterizing the decisions oil-and-gas companies make for his own political gain ultimately doesn’t get him anything other than angrier citizens.Why is Kenney doing this? Because, like Trump, he knows his base is just stupid enough to believe his horse shit.
6 comments:
"Why is Kenney doing this? Because, like Trump, he knows his base is just stupid enough to believe his horse shit."
There appears to be an awful lot of 'believers' who fit this profile Mound, I find it difficult to believe that there are that many unthinking ideologues....
it's all go go go for the Chubby One squawking from atop his high horse, cowboy hat adorned, declaring his credentials to turn the world into a GHG nightmare for the benefit of the oil companies, and that fringe of Alberta nutbars scared to go out looking for a real job.
"We demand the right to poison the world! Alberta's FUTURE depends on it!" -- Google Translate of Kenney's recent gushings. Select language - Albertan to English.
BM
The manufactured reality many Albertans live in is disturbing, to say the least. Their inability or unwillingness to live in the world that exists today makes them, like the fossil fuels they rely on, massively out of date.
You kind gentlemen might like to read my next post on the unholy marriage between modern conservatism and evangelical fanaticism.
If the Canadian oil business is based on a price much higher than the world price, and if the Canadian oil business refuses to build a refinery, and nobody want the the thick gooey stuff, why should we have any sympathy for a business that fails to recognise reality?
If one reads the background about Encana just how much asset stripping has been going on in the last few years - to the benefit of the shareholders - buybacks and higher dividends, it is as if a hedge fund owns the bloody thing now!
Kenney is in the harper league of odious, self-serving politicians who have their eye on something bigger and for him, it's the PM's chair. Psychologically, I see him as the vastly over compensating closet case that is all too common in religion and politics. Although he has been brilliant at frothing up the pent up Albertan anger, (and many have a right to be angry as the corporate world chews up and spits out average workers) he has also turned off the rest of the country in droves, which cancels out at the end of the day and his ambitions go up in smoke. He will be around in Alberta for some time but doesn't stand a chance of ever becoming PM and the sooner he gets over that the sooner he can get back to preaching his religion.
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