Jason Kenney is the Rodney Dangerfield of Canadian politics – he don’t get no respect!
Alberta’s premier went to Washington, D.C. He wanted to see someone important. But when he got there, no one was home.
At least, by the sound of it, no one answered the door when he knocked.
So Mr. Kenney found a right-wing podcast to complain to about it.
“When I go down to Washington, I’m schlepping around in a Yellow Cab, I can barely get a meeting with a janitor in the State Department,” he recently told one of the hosts of the Ruthless podcast – presumably Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to Republican powerbroker Senator Mitch McConnell.
It’s not completely clear when the conversation took place. The podcast was published on Tuesday. Presumably Mr. Kenney was on the phone from Calgary. But you’ll have to forgive me if I didn’t listen to the first hour of the podcast closely enough to be certain it was Mr. Holmes lobbing the gentle softballs at the premier. Life’s too short.
Truth be told, if Mr. Kenney had asked for a meeting with the janitor at the State Department, he wouldn’t have gotten that, either. That guy has work to do.
“About 60 per cent of U.S. oil imports come from my province, come from Alberta,” Mr. Kenney complained to his genially sympathetic host at the podcast the Guardian oversold as an edgy-oftentimes-irreverent entertainment show.
“And it’s kind of funny,” he whinged. “The Emir of Oman blows into town, which actually happened when I was last there, going around in a 40-car motorcade, aaaand every door is open to him. And Oman is responsible for less than 5 per cent of U.S. energy imports!”
Well, that’s what happens when you’re not the leader of a sovereign nation – a factoid that surely bothers Mr. Kenney considerably, although he didn’t acknowledge that point directly while slanging Justin Trudeau, Canada’s real prime minister.
The fact is, when you’re the premier of a Canadian province, you’re going to be about as significant as a speck of lint on the president’s coat sleeve when you visit the Imperial Capital – and the smart strategy for any interloping tourist is to take in the sights, enjoy a drink of D.C. Brau, and get out of town without embarrassing yourself or telling any fact-checkable lies that might make their way back home.
This is especially true if you haven’t even been very nice to the president, or other important figures in his party and administration. Or, worse, if you’ve been hobnobbing with the man most likely to wreck the president’s re-election chances.
Mr. Kenney’s unhappy predicament and his possibly imaginary ride with a D.C. cabbie – perhaps a refugee from Venezuela – was entertaining enough to earn a mention in a CBC story about the province’s latest effort to build a faux diplomatic corps in the United States, an Alberta project that waxes and wanes over the years depending on whether the province is in the midst of a boom or a bust.
Painful as it is to listen to a Republican podcast, though, it’s worth the effort to take in Mr. Kenney’s cheerful bloviations if you’re a serious student of Alberta politics.
For one thing, it’s clear that narratives that have worn a little thin north of the 49th Parallel still spring easily to the man’s lips when he’s got a new audience.
That tall tale about the Rockefeller Foundation and its nefarious plot to landlock Alberta oil? It enjoys new life in Q-adjacent circles south of the world’s longest undefended border.
“There’s this constellation of organizations, and many of them were present at a conference hosted by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation in New York in 2008 to develop what they called the Tarsands Campaign,” Mr. Kenney breathlessly told his interlocutor.
“The reason why those groups focussed on landlocking Canadian energy, Alberta energy, is because I think they saw us as kinda boy scouts, they saw us as the easy kid to bully in the schoolyard.
“They’re not going to be able to persuade Vladimir Putin or any OPEC dictatorship to produce or ship one less barrel of oil. But they figured, you know, Canada, we’re this apologetic … What’s the definition of a Canadian? Someone who apologizes when you step on their foot, right? How do you get 10 Canadians out of the pool? You say, ‘Excuse me, would you please get out of the pool.’ And then they get out and they apologize for having been in the pool. So that’s our national character. It’s kinda charming in a way, but it means that we’re an easy target for political and legal pressure.” …
Not all Canadians will be impressed by the easy contempt of this condescending caricature. Indeed, some of us would be mildly offended. But Mr. Kenney’s obsequious description seemed to please his American host.
Mr. Kenney went on: “They just had a crew of about two dozen radicals storming a pipeline construction site in my next-door province of British Columbia, with axes, to, and like, basically, eco-terrorism! And ultimately, a lot of this stuff, traced itself back to U.S. Foundations that have been funding it.” (The emphasis is mine, not Mr. Kenney’s. The facts are open to considerable dispute. In reality, no one yet knows who did the damage, or why.)
Mr. Kenney – sounding more relaxed and confident than he does nowadays at any Alberta Government news conference – rambled on: “In my government, we appointed a judicia… a legal inquiry into the foreign funding behind the campaign to landlock Alberta energy,” his small correction a tacit one. (He said nothing to his host about the findings of the inquiry in question – to wit, that there’s no evidence anyone, anywhere, did anything wrong, let alone illegal.)
He trotted out the old ethical Alberta oil yarn for his new, if somewhat limited, audience. “If you look at the world’s top 10 energy producers, oil and gas producers, there’s only two that are democracies, Canada and the United States …” (One imagines Australia, No. 6 on that Top Ten list according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and India, No. 7, might have something to say about that.)
And he actually broke some news that should concern the good people of Alberta, low as their taxes may be.
The Keystone XL Pipeline may be done and dusted, he told his host, but “the dream hasn’t died … We’re willing in principle to participate in de-risking a major pipeline, and if there’s a future alignment in the U.S. Congress and or administration that want it to happen, I’m sure we can find pipeline companies that will build it, and maybe pick up some of the assets from Keystone XL.”
That, folks, presumably means more free billions for pipeline companies if Mr. Kenney manages to stick around!
He touted the chances of federal Conservative leadership contender Pierre Poilievre, whose name for his American listeners he pronounced Pawliver.
He claimed in his youth at the University of San Francisco – where, “I studied philosophy, right?” – that “I was a bit of a young lefty. … I actually ran the Al Gore primary campaign on my campus in 1988.”
And he corrected his host’s pronunciation of Alberta – a change that will come as news to most of us Albertans. “It’s not Alber-ta, It’s Alberda. We kinda pronounce it just ’Berda. Kinda like Alabama, ’Bama, you know?”
We do, actually. Mr. Kenney’s dream really does live on!
He ended on this note: “I’ve won 12 elections, so I don’t know what defeat is like. Hopefully never do.”
Some Albertans may not share that sentiment.
Thanks for listening to and reporting on the far out-there right loony land. It’s more than a little disgusting and certainly embarrassing.
Now go have a good shower before you catch something.
1968 primary? — JK was born in 1968
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Error by author? You are already forgiven.
Lie from JK? He can take himself back to ‘Burda’ and bury himself head down in his own BS.
PJP: My typo. I have corrected it. He said 1988. And he said he was ran the campaign on campus. DJC
… “I actually ran the Al Gore primary campaign in 1968.”
I think you mean 1988.
Also, WTF? He ran the Al Gore primary campaign? Maybe the local chapter of it but not the primary. And a “lefty” in his school days, the same time he was lobbying against gay couples having any kind of spousal rights when their partner was dying of AIDS? I think not.
Expat: I made a typo and a transcription error in that quote, which I corrected when I reread the piece this morning. Mr. Kenney claims to have led the campaign on campus, and the year was, as you say, 1988. I listened to it five times this morning. He really did say that. DJC
Five times? You’ve earned the rest of the day off, I think.
The head honcho of the UCP is so comical when his desperate attempts to save his political career, and his backside, flop. Albertans aren’t going to be laughing at the stupidity of this Liberal turned Reformer, when they have to shove billions of dollars more down the drain on another foolish pipeline gamble. The UCP already flushed down the drain $7.5 billion on a pipeline, because they didn’t get the memo that if Joe Biden was elected president, he said he would cancel KXL. The head honcho of the UCP forgot what happens when you assume. The big orange guy was going to be getting a second mandate, in the mind of the head honcho of the UCP. That didn’t pan out. From not doing what Peter Lougheed did, these pretend conservatives and Reformers left Alberta high and dry. We are out $575 billion, because the oil royalty rates of Peter Lougheed were ceased. We also are lacking $260 billion that is needed to cleanup the abandoned oil wells in Alberta, thanks to Ralph Klein’s foolishness. The Redwater Upgrader fiasco, which Ted Morton denied being involved with, is running way over $30 billion in costs. The UCP threw more money at the thing, to try and keep it afloat. Steve Allan was paid a very large annual salary to procrastinate and delay, on a very costly report that drew blanks. Nobody else would be getting a very princely annual salary to produce nothing. The UCP also threw away a few hundred million dollars to a petrochemical/pipeline corporation, that never spent the money in any reasonable fashion. Also, the UCP thought it was okay to allow oil companies in Alberta to not pay their property taxes. Alas, for the municipalities, because they had to pick up the slack, and we end up paying for that. Norway and Alaska handled their oil wealth differently than Alberta has, and Albertans ended up paying for the stupidity of these pretend conservatives and Reformers who abandoned Peter Lougheed’s principles. How much more foolish can you get?
Jason is clearly happiest with a new audience. I really hope we can give him one.
Kenney is sure full of himself, so have a few other Premiers along the way. It’s funny how they get put in their place by the big boys in Washington.
Bama? Seriously? De-risking? Not again! When will the Randian Thatcherites just mount their fairground ponies and ride off into a green screen on some empty lot across from the Petroleum Club? Leave governing the province to grownups please.
Jason Kenney. International man of mystery. Budding oil sheik, foreign affairs expert, business mogul, and failed politician.
Looks to me like he may doing what others do when they suspect their jobs are highly at risk.
Reaching out and gaining contacts who may help secure future employment opportunities. I hope he is successful in finding a job stateside. So we could see the back of him.
Well, at least there is a little entertainment value in this. It is a change from the same old, same old in Alberta.
Even some of my American relatives know what a joke this guy is, especially the Republicans. His reputation exceeds him. Trying to pretend he is conservative when there is nothing conservative about him . Blaming American companies for attacking our oil industry when our oil industries are mostly American and not one single oil executive was dumb enough to support him really made him look stupid and the big question is what are the lawsuits going to cost us? He is without a doubt a right wing extremist and is only interested in looking after himself and his friends and doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process, while he uses the peoples oil and tax wealth to try to buy votes. We watch Norway and Alaska build up huge savings accounts for their children’s future and we can’t even afford to paint lines on our roads, fix our potholes or provide citizens with proper snow removal, yet we watch the horrific storms in eastern Canada being handled in proper fashion.
The dude, WORSHIPS the Queen. As mentioned he’s campaigned against abortion and gay marriage and gay folks being able to see their dying partners. He’s a lifelong catholic who is obsessed with the pope, and his first big break was the CTF. Jason Kenney is as conservative as they come. Pretending he isn’t because it doesn’t fit your idea of what an ideal conservative is is just wishful thinking.
Alan K Spiller: You certainly have it right.
Kenney’s appearances on right-wing friendly media outlets seem to run the gamut from the comical to the pathetic on the regular basis. I recall during an appearance on Fox News’ Laura Ingram’s church-lady rage-fest, Kenney’s tile referred to him as a “Canadian Politician”. I presume the vast majority of viewers thought Kenney could be the mayor of something, something in some place called Kannada (Or was it Kannadia?) In any case, Kenney was going on and on about ethical oil, Saudis bad, Russia bad, Jesus is Lord, and so on.
I suppose Kenney may have it stuck in his head that if he sounds uber-Republican enough, people will like him. At least that what all those GOP-sponsored leadership courses he took in the 90s told him. Now, he can’t get a meeting with the custodian at the Dept. of Energy. I guess he can blame Biden for that. But I recall a time about twenty years ago, the then premier King Ralph gave V-POTUS Dick Cheney a pass because he had never heard of Alberta’s tarsands. One wonders how on earth a former CEO of Halliburton had never heard of the tarsands? Maybe Cheney knew about them, but he wanted to play head games with Klein’s already melting brain. Remember: Cheney is the same guy who shot his best friend in the face during a hunting trip, so who knows what his external artificial heart is doing to him?
In any case, Kenney gets no respect, desperately wants to go back to Ottawa, and is willing into foot the whole bill for a revived Keystone XL project…well, Alberta’s money anyway.
Just: A small correction. Mr. Cheney’s heart is real. It came out of the chest of a real human being. DJC
One questions if Cheney ever had a heart in the first place.
If there’s any doubt as to the existence of Cheney’s various organs, we could start with whether he has a Paw-liver or not?
If Mr. Cheney’s heart came out of a real human being, it must find its current abode quite unfamiliar.
Poilievre- Pawliver? As in codliver oil? A remedy for someone badly in need of a good evacuation.
Similar to codliver, but with the emphasis on PAW. I have heard this is how the Poilievre family pronounced their name in their Calgary years. DJC
I have heard it said that Pierre Poilievre referred to himself as “Peter” for many years. The pronunciation of Poilievre as “Paw-liver” may have something to do with being mocked for being Franco-Albertan in Calgary. Poilievre’s background has him coming from a family in Saskatchewan before being “adopted” by another family in Calgary. In this light, I wonder if Poilievre is of Métis heritage? If he is, this could explain the myriad of distractions around Poilievre’s background, not only including how his name is pronounced.
I mean, the guy is from Calgary, but he’s the long-serving MP in an Ottawa riding. Perhaps the pronunciation change of his name to Pierre Poilievre was meant to give him a grounding with the Franco-Ontarian demographic? Where Paw-liver is concerned, who knows what this guy’s up to?
Poiliviere, according to MacLeans magazine, pronounces his name, “paul-ee-EV”.
This guy makes me so angry I can’t even articulate how angry he makes me.
Anyone confused about when Jason Kenney is lying only needs to look and confirm his lips are indeed moving.
Berda, go back to Ontario you useless fuck.
A love watching fellow seniors going around pretending what great conservatives they are while bashing liberals at every turn, and calling anyone who isn’t as dumb as them a liberal while they are the fools who are supporting one. It certainly makes them look stupid. They are just too stupid to do any research on the fool’s background and don’t want to hear the truth, they can’t handle the truth , they aren’t man enough to handle it.
Anonymous and I certainly know how stupid these seniors are while they hurl their sarcastic comments at us in the newspaper blogs. It gives me a good laugh. A guy told me about 15 years ago that I shouldn’t bad mouth these seniors , I should pity them, because they really are that stupid. I am sorry but I have no pity for stupid seniors who should be a lot smarter, and my senior friends feel the same way. As another friend , a lawyer, pointed out , you can call 50 seniors stupid and the only ones who are offended by it are the stupid ones. The others know you aren’t taking about them and they know exactly who you are talking about, they have experienced the same thing. Now these stupid seniors are praising Reformer Pierre Poilievre for wanting to destroy the careers of thousands of young Canadians by scraping the CBC. It shows just how stupid they are.
The confidence trick never changes, because the stratagem, operating as a feedback loop, fulfills the needs of both the manipulator salesman and the manipulated sleep walkers. That is,
“The political realm in particular is one key area where conspiracy beliefs are salient and thriving. For instance, conspiracy theories are intrinsically connected to the rhetoric of populist political leaders who arguably exploit conspiracy theories for strategic reasons. Importantly, citizens’ belief in conspiracy theories predicts voting behaviour and intentions and non-normative political action. Traditionally, conspiracy beliefs have been associated with authoritarian worldviews, as exemplified by positive relations between conspiracy beliefs and right-wing authoritarianism. Stripping a politically right-wing stance from the surplus meaning of authoritarianism (and its strong connection to traditions and authorities), many studies have found a linear relationship between self-reported political orientation and conspiracy endorsement, suggesting that conspiracy beliefs are more common at the political right than at the political left.”
“Conspiracy mentality and political orientation across 26 countries”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01258-7
It is assumed that individuals would eventually tire and grow weary of the repetitive nature of the political ‘game’ and the hucksters that perpetuate it, but that assumption appears to be incorrect, in the same sense that one would assume that “Jason Kenney” particularly and the public more generally would eventually become tired of the pretentious and superficial projected affectations that are “Jason Kenney”.
Just want to focus in on a minor thing for a moment.
The attack Chuckles refers to in BC by axe-wielding assailants was not “basically” eco-terrorism, it was “literally” eco-terrorism, if of a form far more effective and (relatively) ethical than I had expected to see, and several years before I had expected to see it. From what I understand, the RCMP is now patrolling many remote construction sites several times per day. That’s a win for the folks with axes – now those cops and resources are occupied defending instead of attacking. If they can make this project expensive enough, it will cease to be profitable to the oligarchy and governments that have cooperated to forced it upon us (if you agree with that project, good on ya, but without extralegal Police violence it never would have happened). It, or future attacks like it, could provoke an over-reaction from corporations or government, and if and when that happens it will be a win for the eco-terrorists as well – one of the goals of an insurgency is to provoke an over-reaction.
Eco-terrorism has the potential to become very, very bad, although I expect not for a few more years yet. Corporations and governments have proven time and again that they are obstacles to responsible environmental policy, and when they make peaceful change impossible they make violent change inevitable. As more and more people die who believe they will not experience any consequences from climate change and more and more people are born who believe they will, and as the lived reality of climate change becomes harder and harder to deny, we can reasonably expect more people to become radicalized. We can also reasonably expect that this could happen very quickly if there are a few high-profile natural disasters in quick succession. We can also expect this to happen not just to marginalized individuals and groups, but responsible, tax-paying, highly valuable citizens. After all, if you sincerely believe that only violent revolution can save your species from extinction, a whole bunch of rash and violent actions start to look not only reasonable, but morally required. This is not a good thing, and is completely unnecessary. We could have made relatively cheap adjustments to our economy in the 90s to deal with this but that would have caused a few oligarchs to have to work for their profits, so nothing happened. Every day we continue to respond to this existential threat with gaslighting and bad-faith promises raises the bill our society (and all of humanity) will eventually have to pay.
Please note that I am *predicting* a rise in eco-terrorism over the next 10 years or so, not *advocating* for one. Somehow, this needs to be said, as we can learn from Mr. Suzuki’s example. Terrorism is bad, m’kay?
Compliments to your sober assessment of the near future socio-political events we are all likely to experience Neil. It is indeed rare to see or read or hear anything from anyone or anything related to Alberta that has such a clear-eyed view of the world.
It is all to often the belligerent outbursts from the likes of fellow commenter, B.Larson and the obvious responses from normally inclined folks that dominate the discussion.
I too fear that we are being painted into a corner by the self-serving and irresponsible actions, or lack thereof, of corporate decision makers and their political lackeys. It cannot be more obvious to any thinking person that the ‘normal’ way of doing business is causing great grief and calamity at scales from local to global. The denial of such obvious realities are the most vociferous in petro-states such as Alberta.
As you say and as you demonstrate there are a few normally inclined folks in Alberta still. Normal people will resist their demise. Even violently and aggressively if that is the only course open.
It’s not necessary but it is likely.
Off-topic, but Mr. Charest made headlines today saying he wants to be “a Prime Minister for Alberta.”
…Do the big brains in the CPC not yet understand that “for Alberta” basically means “against most of Canada*?” I thought Mr. Charest was running as the moderate candidate? I expected Mr. O’Toole would have provided a useful example of what happens to people who spend the leadership campaign saying one thing and the federal campaign saying another.
I miss the days when politicians were willing to get elected, or not, on matters of principle. “This is what I believe, go cast your ballot and I’ll live with the results.” I dislike many things about Mr. Mulroney, but he told us what he believed, gave us the choice, and was willing to not get re-elected if we chose against him. Now it seems that politicians (for sure not just the CPC) campaign on what polls well. “This is what my brain trust said would get me elected, go cast your ballot, if the polls change tomorrow so will all my deepest convictions.” I am not a fan of this development.
*I’m not saying Canada is against Alberta, I’m saying that I see Albertans as the most likely to believe that climate change is not real, to believe that facts don’t matter, and to believe that negative consequences will not apply to others but not to them. Those beliefs put them, politically, at odds with anyone who doesn’t share them… which, statistically, is most of the rest of the country. JMO, no offense or disrespect intended.
To bad, It’s going to really embarrassing losing the next election to such a loser.
You think this is bad? Look who is coming to the Alberta Beef Industry Conference 2022 in Red Deer. None other than Lord Black of Cross-Harbour himself for a “fire side chat.” Paid for by the check-off money taken from every beef producer in Alberta. Oh, and there is a washed up former PC Cabinet Minister on offer as well. So, there are our leaders telling the troops what to do.
https://www.abiconference.ca/sessions/
I lived in Alberta for 30 odd years, and never heard it pronounced Alberda. Mayhaps J the big boy should return to Sa Catch U Waan. Alberta can seriously do without this yokel. If it walks like a yokel, talks like a yokel, it must be a Yokel.
Can someone please explain how a few people with axes rolled some heavy equipment weighing thousands of kilos? I haven’t figured that one out yet. There must have been some mighty engineering minds among them. Did they use their axes as wedges? Did they set it up like a Hollywood stunt, with gigantic ramps? Did they tie it with dental floss to a team of pet gerbils?
I do relish the image of the self-important petit prince riding around aimlessly in a taxi in D.C. Imagine having to ride in a lowly taxi (the horror — where is the chauffeur, the limo, the motorcade?) (There’s always public transit, you know. Next time, take the bus.)
As much as I want to live in a fantasy world of my own making, it is not possible. The Emir of Alberta keeps p!$$!ng in the pool.
Chopped liver, Pawliver, Alburduh-bama-rama-lama-ding-dong.
It’s a good thing most of us here in the future 51st state haven’t lost our minds yet, despite ample opportunity to take advantage of that time-limited offer over the past three years. Note: I am not saying that some Alberduhns haven’t lost their minds. Au contraire, mes amis! I think it is quite likely that *more than one* has flown over the Cuckoo’s nest.
We seniors on the West Coast don’t pay a passenger fare on the ferries (just the vehicle fare) Moon’s Day through Thor’s Day, and yesterday was pension day, so the traffic back from town shopping was mostly grey-headed this afternoon. And so, I checked out the RuthLess podcast interview with K-Boy while I waited in the ferry lineup—what the hell, nothing to do but strum my parlour guitar —and try to stifle the gag reflex as I took in the ham-handed takedowns of Biden and Trudeau; ‘We ‘mercans down here jus’ cain’t figure out why Biden would do sumthin like kill thet perty paplan…’
What was especially difficult for me to keep my cookies down was what Kenney called a “pejorative”—the so-called “tar sands” (he said it, not me; I always say what it actually is: bitumen in a sandwich). And there are terms of the art of omission, too—omission of emissions involved in extracting the lowest grade of petroleum out of its sandy deposit. Let’s just leave it at the commission of disingenuousness, like Kenney’s referring to the stuff that won’t flow through a pipe ‘lessn it be mixed with gasoline as somehow “ethical.”
But to fact check the whole interview would be tedious. I rather think “the Rodney Dangerfield of Canada” distils it about right.
I was fascinated, though (though perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, having briefly perused the preceding hour of the podcast which featured enough puerile snickering to make one vomit), by the impish discussion about pronunciations, “Pawliver” being outstanding. Kenney said it, not his hosts (unless I missed it skipping over the inane fore parts of the podcast). I’ve never heard it pronounced that way, but perhaps K-Boy deferred to Americans’ apparent embarrassment in pronouncing words foreign to them—Cretin and Creetin come to mind (and remember “freedom fries” instead of “french fries” when France, like Canada’s Chrétien, declined to join the “Coalition of the Willing” which attacked Iraq in 2003—but I don’t recall how the ‘mercans mispronounced “poutine”—“freedom curds-n-gravy fries,” I reckon…Maybe K-Boy can ask John Kerry next time he’s down south).
But “Pawliver”…talk about softball. Poilievre, of course, means ‘hare pelt,’ but while we’re at mangled mouthfuls, you gotta wonder if K-Boy has an aversion to liver-n-onions (Alberda should have the best, according to him) —which in ‘mercan might sound something like: “Oh, no! Not Pa’s liver agin!” (I know people like that.) Or how’s about in french: “Mais, non! Pas le foie, encore!” I bet they never get it right, anyhow—and then make out like they’s doin’ it on purpose!
Hey Jason! Pathetic, man! Really, really pathetic!!
Scotty: I decided to leave out the bit about “tarsands” being pejorative when I looked and saw I’d written 1,300 words at that moment, and it was 1:30 a.m. It’s worth noting, as I was about to, that the term was used in official documents by the Alberta government for years. It’s oilsands that’s the new kid on the block, coined to sound more respectable, although it too in time will see its reputation tarred. As for the Pawlivers, I have heard that’s how the family pronounced its name during the years they lived in Calgary. DJC
Yes, I have glowing government publications on my shelf which refer to the deposit as “tar sands.” Proudly, too. Nobody fooled me—or a lot of other people, I bet—when Harper started calling it “oil sands” instead, presumably to suggest the industry is every bit the equal of conventional oil—which, I always thought, is disingenuous on two counts: first, that the product is a much lower grade and much more difficult to pipe and refine (which bears upon the dubious case that Americans were intentionally depressing the Dilbit market value because the deposit is landlocked, the rationales for both pushing the Northern Gateway pipeline— too hurriedly, it turned out, for it to clear the courts—, and the federal purchase of the TMX expansion of the existing, 70-year-old TM pipeline which, many Albertans caterwauled, just wasn’t good enough to reap the windfall profits they allege exists—somewhere in “Asia” without much real interest ever being expressed from that distant marine direction) ; second, the reference to “oil sands” distracts from the larger distinction this sandy bitumen has from real oil: it burns a lot of fossil fuel just to extract it—so much, in fact, that the GHG footprint is gigantic compared to conventional oil—all BEFORE it gets combusted out the tailpipes of North America.
My suspicion was confirmed when, all of a sudden, correspondents online began saying things like: “How dare you use that term of disrespect—you, suh, have besmirched mah honuh, suh!”—like if we were face to face, the gauntlet would be thrown down and I challenged to a pistol duel (I ain’t shot nuthin but my old hounds since I was a boy back in the southern Ontario sticks, so I’d never accept such a challenge from them’s as adept at the art of shootin‘ irons as Albertans is, ‘specially from the sticks). This was about when Canadians were just twigging to the conservative’s newly discovered social medium which soon betrayed an updated-daily national coordination of HarperCon talking points. ‘Course that was years before Jason Kenney got Sasquatch involved, so it seemed a tad maudlin by its then-novelty.
Now, “Pawliver”—it makes sense that Poilievre’s family pronounced it that way during their Alberta days: indeed, K-Boy waxed a substantial bit in the interview that Alberta’s kinda like Texas, as if his resort to foreign support wasn’t already mortifyingly apparent enough as it was; so “Pawliver” it was. I don’t wonder that his hosts will when Canadian news (didn’t sound like they pay attention to it, anyway) uses the french pronunciation. And, boy, I can’t wait to hear K-Boy pronounce it again in a Canadian context. If it’s in french, the modulation will underscore his cloying suckin-up to an American audience.
Scotty: Growing up in English Canada, from time one meets people with French names pronounced in different fashions – Beauchamp vs. Beauchamp (Beecham vs. Beau-chom), Pelletier vs. Pelletier (Pelly-tear vs. Pellet-yay), Couvelier vs. Couvelier (Koovy-leer vs. Koovell-yay), and so on. No doubt there are examples that originated in many other languages too, for example, Nagy vs. Nagy (Naggy vs. Nodge). Then there are the ones that are spelled differently but pronounced pretty much the same way: Climenhaga vs. Kleimenhagen, for example. At any rate, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to adapt your name to the local preference if that suits you, or not if it doesn’t, or to change it if you move to another place. What one ought not to do, I suppose, is change the pronunciation or spelling against the preference of the person who owns the name – something only an arrogant dweeb would do. Jason Kenney! C’mon down! DJC
Kenney suffers from a political disease called smallponditis. It isn’t contagious, but people in Washington tend to avoid people with it like the plague. It can be a chronic, manageable condition, not necessarily fatal but it tends to have less favorable outcomes for those who are overly ambitious.
People in Washington may not know, or really care that Kenney packed his carpet bags and left Ottawa for the province, which he spent the least time in, of the three he lived in, to pursue political opportunity. However, they probably at least understand opportunists and carpet baggers. I suspect they get a lot there. I also suspect they have figured out the best way to deal with such people is to ignore and avoid them until eventually they go away.
While those who want to build pipelines are probably pleased Kenney is eager to fund them again, they probably realize so would many others in the UCP. Kenney’s only advantage is that he has power and access to the public purse now, but his future is uncertain.
He may trot out that he won twelve elections, but in politics you are only as good as your next election. Down in the polls, Kenney might find thirteen to be unlucky.
The smarter people in politics know when to call it quits. As the saying goes, you got to know when to fold em.
“Alberda”.
What a pathetic excuse we have as a representative of our province. Considering that he’s from just outside Tronno, doesn’t know how to extract a fuel nozzle from his beloved (chauffeured and expensed) truck and would have great difficulty identifying the front end from the back end of a horse unless it decided to contribute to global warming, he considers himself an expert in all things Alberta (with a “t”).
The sooner the UCP enter the entrails of history like Bible Bill Aberhart and his ilk, the better.
I always find it hilarious when Premier Jason Kenney brags about having won 12 elections; when you consider that he’s always run in an electoral district so blue that they would have voted conservative even if the candidate was an upside down mop leaning in a corner.
The truth is that Jason Kenney has never truly won a single election; he was in handed an All You Can Eat golden ticket at the very generously funded by the taxpayers ‘for politicians only buffet’, the first time around, and he has encrusted himself ever since.
“I’m schlepping around in a Yellow Cab.”
Is it just me, or does the fact that nobody in Kenney’s office knows about Uber/Lyft is the most worrisome indicator of incompetence yet?
When Kenney talks about school reform is he meaning giving every student a slab of slate & a piece of chalk, and calling it a tablet?
Bring back smoking in restaurants to kill Covid?
Alberta premiers — especially, but not exclusively, Conservative ones — are as vociferous in defending exclusive provincial jurisdiction over health care, education, natural resources, etc. as any premier of Québec. Imagine, if you will, the reaction if Ottawa tried to set up a Ministry of Education or give direction to a school board.
So, what gives them the right to step into exclusive federal jurisdiction over foreign affairs & international trade policy? Alberta has no more right to overseas offices than it has to its own army. Those offices need to be shut down, pronto.
I don’t give a damn about what Pawliver calls himself , anyone who is dumb enough to promise that he will destroy jobs for young Canadians by scraping the CBC, when it’s all some parts of the country have, and after I watched nurses bawling their eyes out in my office , victims of the Ralph Klein brand of Reform Party stupidity is enemy number one in my eyes, and anyone who is dumb enough to support him is a Lunatic. I learned that from Kenney.
Three of my senior best friends are Ralph Klein victims of his massive budget cuts while he helped his rich friends screw Albertans out of hundreds of billions of dollars, while Albertans praised him for doing it. Where is the intelligence in that?
For several weeks our desperate premier has been burning up Twitter boldly being against the 1915-16 Armenian genocide, similarly opposed to Moskow’s current and truly villainous invasion of Ukraine. Supportive (though not financially) of the Oilers Foundation’s large donation to KidSport, and also applauding the various ways various groups of people celebrate their cultural holidays. Sounded like he almost takes credit for the work of Canadian Forces being assigned a mission by someone, somewhere while he is concurrently premier of the province they are stationed in.
The federal Liberal-NDP not-a-coalition bugs him so much I’m not sure if he can sleep at night. Not even a non-binding resolution by the UCP caucus can make Justin Trudeau surrender his comfy chair and give up governing power to the province of Alberta.
He is adding more cash to fund helicopter ambulance services, a resource keeping mostly just oil workers safe. Palling around with the ambassador from Norway whose $1.4 trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund puts Alberta to shame. Obtuseness in private school funding and Calgary ranking 13th in life-work balance globally, and 2nd among Canadian cities for pedestrian downtown foot traffic, also happened. All hail Jason Kenney! The excitement overwhelms me. Somewhere two stray dogs made a third stray dog.
I’ve always felt there’s something very disingenuous about Jason Kenney, and especially his ignorance in regards to the processing of Alberta’s natural resource of what the industry favorably calls Oil Sands. I’ve done a fair bit of research on this and have found that there are very few facilities in the World that can actually process Tar Sands; or more accurately, Bitumen. I remember there was an idea called “Energy East”.
This was a scheme to use inactive natural gas pipelines to pump diluted Bitumen to an Irving Oil Processing Plant on the east coast. Quebec killed this effort.
Then there was the Keystone XL Pipeline. What seems to have been lost in the frenzy over the last few years, was that Keystone was an EXPANSION of an existing pipeline that leads to a Petroleum Processing Plant in Texas that amongst other things; processes “Oilberduh’s” diluted Bitumen. It turns out this BIG refinery in the place of big; Texas, has been hurting financially ever since Venezuela, the other major source of bitumen went up in smoke with sanctions and embargoes.
There appears to be small localized processing plants scattered around the world that can process bitumen, but no one seems to have the capacity to provide any significant volume of productivity, and then; how do you get it anywhere?
I’m cognizant enough to remember a different Alberta Government leased railcar oil tankers to get our bitumen to market because of the lack of pipeline capacity.
What the hell is Bumbles Bobandy talking about?
Bitumen is still the most expensive oil derivative to extract from the planet and the most environmentally invasive and exploitive. With renewable/alternative energy competing with conventional oil and gas, becoming more accessible and less expensive in the third countries, where and to whom is our bitumen supposed to go? Why haven’t the Oil Companies who raked in Hundreds of Billions of dollars of Profits out of Canada and Alberta, built a Bitumen Processing Plant in Alberta? I suspect it’s because it’s more profitable to sell it back to us as value added petroleum byproducts and synthetic oil after it’s processed in their plant. Five to ten billion dollars to build a Bitumen Processing Plant, it was speculated 5 years ago, that price tag has gone up. Also, it takes 5 to 10 years to build the damn plant. Doesn’t seem to be a viable solution in the long term.
I’m so cynical it disturbs me to think Jayboy Randy Kenney might be sending thoughts and prayers in the hope that the War in Ukraine lasts a long while if not escalate, to maintain a healthy price of oil so that he can ride another oil price boom as the mythical champion of a delusional petrostate.
Jason the Cosplay Cowpoke is riding another boom that’s going to go bust. The same cycle of a completely dysfunctional one trick pony economic model based on a natural resource of which it’s value is determined by a myriad of factors beyond the control of The Mighty Kenney and any other individual. A boom and bust cycle I’ve been through countless times, (10 times?) since 1960. It’s disruptive, creates uncertainty and is not a healthy economic model.
If anyone reading this can provide more historical information and knowledge about the state of Bitumen, and if I got something wrong, I apologize in advance, please correct me.