Guest Column: Canadian Energy Centre seeks to bring measured tone
By Medicine Hat News Opinon on December 18, 2019.
Re: “Energy war room an expensive joke at best,” Dec. 14 Since the Canadian Energy Centre’s (CEC) public launch last week, it has been gratifying to see the breadth and depth of interest in our mandate to create a new, pragmatic, fact-based narrative about Canadian energy. Like many new ideas, our website and social media accounts have prompted a lively discussion about defending the energy industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of people across Canada, and continues to be the economic engine for the country. Our work is particularly important for communities like Medicine Hat, the “Gas City,” that has been hit hard by the industry downturn in recent years and has even had to shut down much of its own gas production. Creation of the CEC is a direct response to the domestic and foreign-funded campaigns against Canada’s oil and gas industry that have divided Canadians and devastated the Alberta economy as energy production in the United States and elsewhere has ramped up. Our approach is to be informative, positive and educational about the Canadian energy industry. There will be an increasing global demand for oil and gas over the decades to come. With our focus on ever-improving environmental standards and our commitment to labour and human rights, Canada should be the world’s supplier of choice. There is no question about that. Two-thirds of the CEC’s $30 million budget comes from Alberta’s energy industry through the Technology, Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) program that collects the greenhouse gas emissions levy on the province’s largest emitters. The remaining one-third of our budget is repurposed from the previous government’s advertising fund. The CEC has a strict budgeting process that involves the corporate directors, a business plan, and expenditure reports in line with the Fiscal Planning and Transparency Act. We are subject to the Whistle Blowers Act and will be audited by the Auditor General’s office. Oversight is rigorous. Our work is necessary. It has been shown that the campaigns to shut down new pipeline projects and damage the reputation of our oil and gas industry have received tens of millions of dollars from U.S. environmental foundations. The landlocking of Alberta energy has cost tens of billions of dollars in lost capital, meaning fewer jobs and markedly less money for public services. On top of that, lack of market access for our oil and gas has had a devastating impact on the prosperity of energy companies operating in Canada – resulting in lost jobs and lower value for their shareholders that include many of the country’s biggest pension plans and investment funds. We take our responsibility to tell Canada’s energy story very seriously. We invite everyone to join us in public discourse – the sharing of knowledge, facts and ideas that will help us reach our potential with energy that is produced in the most responsible and sustainable manner possible. We aim to bring a more measured tone to a conversation we think is vitally important. (Tom Olsen is CEO and managing director, Canadian Energy Centre.) 20-19
[…] rebranded Energy War Room is trying to do, pleaded Managing Director Tom Olsen yesterday in his much anticipated riposte to an acerbic column last week in the Medicine Hat News, is to bring a little civility to the […]
Wonderful news: “2/3 of the 30 million comes from the energy industry through the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) program that collects the greenhouse gas emissions levy on the province’s largest emitters”
I wondered how long it would take the Cons to recreate the revolving door they used under Redford…its such an elegant system. Tax the polluters up front,then give it back to them through some back door, for work they do to lower emissions. This program kkk kenny has dreamed up is even better…
Tax them for CO2 up front…….than give it back to them to fund war rooms fighting bogus foreign environmentalists………….when the real threat rising against all of us is climate disruption…caused…seal your ears all true denialists….by GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS….emissions produced by the very industry telling us how unjustly attacked they are.
It’s brilliant, as far as it goes……..but there is no tone, measured enough, to disguise the lies and financial fudging at the heart of it.
I think the only “denialist” here is ingamarie.
First, “kkk kenny”. Really? You are comparing Jason Kenney to the KKK? Can you show some proof of this or is this just your childish way of trying to capture attention? Typical leftist hate thrown at people they can not or will not have rational discussions.
Second, “real threat rising against all of us is climate disruption”. What is this climate disruption that you are speaking of? There is no disruption. There is climate change. We ALL agree there is change. What we disagree on, is the cause. Liberals, NDP and Greens generally think it is caused by humans, I believe it is part of the earth’s natural cycle as evidenced by past ice ages and warming trends prior to human existence.
Normally we could have debates and discussions on the cause of climate change and discuss what we as humans need to do to prepare ourselves for this change. Hint, taxes will not do a thing to help prepare us. Unfortunately, when you throw out garbage like “kkk kenney” you show the world your immaturity, ignorance and hatred. There is no point in taking you seriously or trying to have a conversation with you.
Come back when you grow up.
Denialists deny something real Homer…like the climate disruption already wrecking havoc around the world. Fanticists imagine international conspiracies picking on them for no reason. kkk kenny may not be a member of the clan, but he sure is comfortable stirring up fears and resentments that have no basis in fact.
You like the man obviously. You are one of his base, a person he doesn’t read the science because he knows better already…..’there is no disruption’ you say…the climate is always changing…you say.
But that’s not true in any scientific sense Homer…..in terms of climate, the earth has been in a period of relative stability for thousands of years….but that is changing now as CO2, and other greenhouse gases, like methane, rise in the atmosphere. The last time this happened was one of the major extinctions…….but the last time it happened CO2 rose much more gradually…..over centuries.
What is happening now is unprecedented. What’s more, due to a delay effect in CO2 effects, what we are emitting today will affect the weather in the near future………the disruptions we are enjoying today come from emissions released decades ago……….can’t deny the consequences any more now though……because the consequences are here.
You……and all folks like you who can’t distinguish between weather and climate……or trust the actual scientists over the hirelings of right wing shrink tanks……..are well on the way to being climate criminals…your determination to be better dead than wrong being what it is.
But in this instance, you are wrong…….and party politics or shallow partisan hatreds have nothing to do with it . Hint: War rooms and recycled money from phoney taxes on the big polluters won’t change the reality that is anthropogenic climate change. It’s too bad that fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases, but they do. Environmentalists who want us to transition off them aren’t full of hate….or in the employ of fantasy enemies of Alberta………they are trying to do what Greta is trying to do.
Tell the people their house is on fire…..increasingly, literally on fire. Check out Sydney, Australia for an example. War rooms to shut them up are what’s hateful. And more than a little stupid.
“Creation of the CEC is a direct response to the domestic and foreign-funded campaigns against Canada’s oil and gas industry that have divided Canadians and devastated the Alberta economy as energy production in the United States and elsewhere ramped up. ” Could it be that our tar is just more expensive to produce than the oil from the United States and elsewhere? More expensive from a monetary perspective. but more importantly, from an environmental perspective.
“It has been shown that the campaigns to shut down new pipeline projects and damage the reputation of our oil and gas industry have received tens of millions of dollars from U.S. environmental foundations.” Where is the evidence? Anything said by Vivian Krause is inadmissable due to her obvious bias.
See also,
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/03/analysis/data-based-dismantling-jason-kenneys-foreign-funding-conspiracy-theory
Most importantly, we ought to be diversifying instead of trying to revive a zombie industry. The climate crisis is already upon us. We don’t have time to waste. We should not build any more fossil infrastructure. We need to phase out the industry with just treatment for the workers.
[…] many of the comments and inaccuracies in Mr. Appel’s column.” Instead, they provided a risible bit of fluff that failed to directly address any of Appel’s […]