• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Jurisdictions Canada

Dogwood Snarks Back After Kenney Claims Pipeline Opponents Are Russian Agents

March 9, 2018
Reading time: 4 minutes

Dogwood B.C.

Dogwood B.C.

 

Unless you’ve been standing against Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion as an agent of the Russian government (or as a bot deployed by a Russian troll farm), you might have a few choice words for Alberta opposition leader Jason Kenney.

During a week in which the Trans Mountain debate went from intense to ridiculous, Kenney raised the old, false accusation that pipeline protesters fighting to protect Indigenous rights, iconic waterways, and endangered species are actually agents of foreign powers bent on undermining Canada’s fossil industry. CBC responded with a long post that gave lots of play to wild claims that Kenney admitted were unsubstantiated.

“In whose interest is it that Canadian oil and gas does not get to global markets? Well, obviously, it’s in the interest of Russia, with the fourth-largest reserves on earth,” Kenney said Monday, during a stop in Vancouver. “If the Russian government decided to deploy an organized social media campaign to attack U.S. energy, so there’s less American energy exports, it’s entirely reasonable to assume they might have tried to do the same thing in Canada.”

“I have no evidence of that, but it’s a reasonable question.”

“The reality is there are thousands and thousands of British Columbians, who independent of any environmental campaign, feel strongly about the place where they live and are going to speak up and put pressure on their lawmakers,” responded the Dogwood Initiative’s Kai Nagata. “You could cut off all sources of out-of-province funding for environmental campaigns, and that wouldn’t change the scale of public opposition to Kinder Morgan.”

Dogwood was out yesterday with an impromptu selfie campaign, urging supporters to send photos to Kenney to reassure him that they aren’t Russian bots.

“It’s time to fess up,” Nagata wrote. “Are you being paid by Vladimir Putin?”

“The question is laughable, but it shows how unhinged the debate has become around oil tankers on the B.C. coast. ‘I don’t have any evidence,’ Kenney admitted to the reporter. But like Donald Trump, what comes out of his mouth becomes news.”

Somewhat more hinged was a panel discussion at the University of Ottawa Tuesday, when Bill Nye the Science Guy challenged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his government’s support for Trans Mountain.

“Tell us about the Kinder Morgan pipeline,” Nye asked the PM, citing a study that showed how Canada could drop all fossil fuels by embracing renewables.

“We are going to have a transition phase while we develop alternatives to fossil fuels,” Trudeau replied. “So while we are developing those alternatives…we still need to be able to power our homes, our cars, our economy.”

Nye applauded Canada’s recent investments in scientific research, and accepted Trudeau’s rationale on Kinder Morgan, The Canadian Press reports. “It’s your country, Canada’s going to do what it’s going to do,” he said. “And the prime minister had a very well-thought-out answer that it’s for economic development in the short term.”

Later, he told reporters that “the pipeline is, in the big picture, bad. But in the short term, what are you going to do?” CP also noted Nye’s reference to the Alberta “tar” sands, a term despised by the province’s fossil industry [even though the industry itself made it up—Ed.]

“I’m charmed by the term ‘oilsand’,” he said. “But, everybody, it’s tar. That’s what it is. You have to use almost a third of the energy in the tar to make synthetic crude oil.”

None of that was enough balance for Kenney, who took to social media to critique Nye’s comments. “Today a millionaire American celebrity joined our prime minister to attack Alberta’s oilsands,” he tweeted. “Bill Nye has no business attacking Alberta’s ethical oil & gas industry—and the hundreds of thousands of Albertans that depend on the sector for their livelihood.”

A day later, Finance Minister Bill Morneau responded with the assurance that the Trudeau government “is waging a ‘behind-the-scenes’ campaign to make sure Kinder Morgan Inc.’s expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline goes ahead,” CP reports.

“The entire government is working to help reach an agreement that would mitigate British Columbia’s objections to the expansion, Morneau said. He declined to provide details of those efforts or a timeline for when they may produce results.”



in Canada, Energy Politics, Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion, Oil & Gas, Sub-National Governments, Tar Sands / Oil Sands

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Jason Woodhead/Flickr
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
314
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay
Petrochemicals & Plastics

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
197
zephylwer0/pixabay
Supply Chains & Consumption

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
170

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

The federal government's Cliff Street Power Plant is at the centre of Ottawa's plans to reduce natural gas demand. Photo: PWGSC

EXCLUSIVE: Ontario Regulator Refuses New Pipeline, Tells Enbridge to Plan for Lower Gas Demand

May 30, 2022
5.1k
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
197
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
170
Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
314
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.6k
Michael and Diane Weidner/Unsplash

Scientists, Politicians Debate Ethics of ‘Climate Tinkering’

June 7, 2022
74

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
73
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
95
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
37
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
95
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
51
Next Post
12019/Pixabay

Colorado Ski Operators Lose Billions to Warmer, Drier Winters

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}