A10 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| TUESDAY,FEBRUARY18,
EDITORIAL
PHILLIPCRAWLEY
PUBLISHERANDCEO
DAVIDWALMSLEY
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFI
n May, 2018, a year before Jason Kenney became Premier
of Alberta, he gave a rousing speech at his United Conser-
vative Party’s first annual meeting. He called thegathering the biggest political convention in Alberta history,
and the crowd was boisterous. There were shouts of “Go get
’em, Jason!”
The speech contained much of what Mr. Kenney has putinto action since winning office. Among his promises was a
red-meat plan for a muscular “fight back strategy” for
Alberta. Mr. Kenney would create “a rapid response war
room” to “rebut every lie told by the green left,” going after
political opponents and “foreign-funded special interests.”
The war room opened two months ago. Even as thegovernment cut back spending elsewhere, it found $120-
million over four years to fund what it dubbed the Canadian
Energy Centre. Mr. Kenney’s first budget last fall outlined an
“assertive strategy” for the war room, whose “success will
bolster the energy sector, get Albertans back to work and
increase [provincial] revenues.”
The centre has been an embarrassing flop from the start. Ithas lurched from pillar to post. On its debut, its logo was dis-
covered to have been plagiarized. The first public opponent
the war room took on was the Medicine Hat News – yes, that
long-time enemy of all things Albertan. And a splashy video
on YouTube began with the lamest of arguments: “Canadian
oil and gas makes our world better. It just does.” Well, then,
case closed! The war room later took the video down.
Most of the centre’s money is coming from cash raised byAlberta’s industrial carbon tax. That money is supposed to go
to environmental innovations, not poorly conceived
propaganda. Worse of all, the war room was designed to pass
itself off as somehow separate from its political masters. On
Twitter and YouTube, there is no indication itis a govern-
ment operation. A note on funding is buried on the website.
The war room’s spinners have interviewed people while
claiming to be reporters.
It is, in short, a political PR operation dressed up injournalist-face. It’s an agencyof government, masquerading
as an independent news organization. That is wrong.
It also isn’t working. At all.
In the boxing ring of Alberta versus oil’s opponents, thewar room has been pummelling itself. It has drawn little
attention online beyond mockery. The latest self-inflicted
wound came last week.
Attempting to rebut a piece in The New York Times aboutthe oil sands and skepticism among financiers, the war room
decided to attack the journalistic credibility of the Times
itself. It tweeted that the newspaper has a “particular beef
with Alberta” and “they aren’t the most dependable source.”
The tweets went on to say the Times’ “track record is very
dodgy” and it has been “called out for anti-Semitism
countless times.”
The tweets were deleted and the centre’s CEO apologized.
The centre is not salvageable. It should be closed.
Beyond a lust to battle perceived enemies, it remainsunclear why Mr. Kenney felt this was the right strategy. Was
the goal to delegitimize the mainstream media? Or, having
created a story about Alberta being under attack from
nefarious outside forces, did Mr. Kenney feel he had to
convince voters he was battling those forces?
There’s nothing wrong witha government communicat-ing with citizens. That’s its job. The Albertagovernment, like
its peers across the country, has a huge crew of people doing
marketing, media relations and communications. They
pump out press releases, studies, tweets, Facebook posts and
videos. Ministers regularly hold press conferences. As
Premier, Mr. Kenney is one of the most quoted public figures
in Canada.
But whengovernments get their message out,they have todo so as transparently as possible. That means speaking for
themselves. Mr. Kenney hardly needs others to do his talking
for him; he is rather adept at getting his point of view across.
The Alberta Good News Network? Not so much.
There’s an old adage in the PR business: Don’t makeyourself the story.The government of Alberta has every
reason and every right to want to get its message out there.
Just do it honestly, and above board.
Mr. Kenney should shutter the false front that is theCanadian Energy Centre. Spend the money on something
that will better serve Alberta, and Albertans.
Alberta’s‘war
room’fires,
andbackfires
BOARDEDUPRe Democracy Gets Schooled In
Quebec (Editorial, Feb. 14): It is
with sadness that we are witness-
ing the demise of school boards in
Quebec. School boards are one of
Canada’s oldest forms of
democracy and, despite their
occasional flaws, have permitted
local priorities to be addressed in
our school systems. Now, such
initiatives in one province must
emanate from the bureaucracy in
Quebec City.
Would a provincialgovern-
ment ever have introduced
French Immersion in elementary
schools? It was a school board in
Saint-Lambert, Que., that
pioneered this, responding to
demands of parents wanting to
ensure their children would be
able to participate in a bilingual
country.
This led to boards in Ottawa
and elsewhere to pick up on what
has proven to be a very popular
and successful program.
Provincial control of curricu-
lum, testing, teacher negotiations
and funding has, over the years,
reduced the scope of school
boards to innovate. Now, with
Quebec’s example, they look to be
an endangered species.
AlexCullenOttawaWhile Section 23 of the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms does offer
guarantees of minority language
instruction across the country, it
makes no specific mention of the
right to elect and maintain
minority linguistic school boards.
In Mahe v. Alberta from 1990,
the Supreme Court was asked to
determine whether the clause
implicitly gave this right. It
concluded that Section 23 “clearly
encompasses a right to manage-
ment and control” and “in some
circumstances ... warrant an
independent school board.” How-
ever, these circumstances were
never clearly outlined nor
defined.
Moreover, history shows that
in any case, since 1982, successive
Quebec governments have shown
no compunction in attempts to
ride roughshod over Charter
rights whenever it suits a purpose.
Now that French boards will be
legally abolished, it will surely
only be a matter of time before
those “pesky” English boards
suffer the same fate.
History shows that centralized
government control of education
has remained a major objective in
Quebec since the days of la
Révolution tranquille.With all
school boards gone, that aim
would come to fruition, and along
with it another nail in the coffin of
the Anglo community in Quebec.
AlanScrivenerCornwall,Ont.LEAVINGONAJETPLANERe Bombardier To Depart Com-
mercial Plane Business (Report
on Business, Feb. 14): Imagine ifCanada had invested more than
$1-billion into medical research
and the hospitals to house it,
instead of supporting Bombar-
dier’s airplanes. Quebec would
have first-rate hospitals full of
first-rate professionals, and we
would have a very useful result of
such an investment.
Could we keep this idea in
mind for future use of public
money? We will always need
hospitals.
BarbaraKlunderTorontoRe Family Control Preserved
Bombardier’s Independence But
At Huge Cost (Online, Feb. 7): The
story of Bombardier, a great Cana-
dian business that looks to have
lost its way, could have been easily
avoided. I do work in succession
planning and corporate culture,
and this seems like a classic case
of the founding family not having
the insight to plan for bright new
leaders to further build a strong
culture of innovation and global
competitiveness.
Sometimes, family-run
businesses in this country lose
sight of their critical stewardship
and the need to embrace change,
along with deeper commitments
to preserving Canadian identity
and protecting taxpayer invest-
ments where government money
is involved. I find it heartbreaking,
to say the least.
The C-series (now renamed the
Airbus A220) is one of the most
sophisticated aircraft flying, built
from the ground up in Canada.
Now, our Canadian engineers are
left to work for the other guys.
Airbus scored big on this – with a
bargain-basement price.
AlexanderLutchin
CEO,ExecutiveCoachGlobal;
TorontoFACE-OFFRe Toronto Police Chief Orders Of-
ficers To Stop Using Clearview AI
Software (Feb. 14): If this software
can be used to catch and incrimi-
nate those involved in child
torture or pornography videos, I
say to hell with privacy concerns.
Sometimes we have to submit to
things for the common good.
AlisonDennisKingstonIt is well documented that eyewit-
ness testimony is notoriously
inaccurate, fraught with human
error and complicated by individ-
ual bias, even when it is sincere. So
what is a police service to do? If a
reliable application in the
artificial-intelligence toolbox can
be more accurate, why not put it
to good use?
Let’s say we perfect facial-
recognition software to the point
where it dependably separates
multiple sets of identical twins,
then it is ready.
Honouring offenders’ rights to
privacy should be lower on the
rights and freedoms hierarchy
than the right to safety. Might
there be abuse of the application?Of course. That is why it should be
regulated.
HughMcKechnieNewmarket,Ont.@JORDANBPETERSONRe In The Ghoulish World Of On-
line Snark, Toasting To Metastasis
Is A Virtue (Feb. 13): I believe
columnist Robyn Urback is right
to criticize how social media
weaponizes the illnesses of
outspoken persons for odious
“gotcha” payback, falsely framing
it as karmic justice. Serious critics
of Jordan Peterson’s exclusionary
ideology should know better and
separate his person from his pub-
lic persona.
When a public person becomes
sick, their humanity should de-
serve our cathartic pity. Instead of
defaulting to ill will and schaden-
freude, we should identify with
the sufferer and express compas-
sionate solidarity. If ad hominem
attacks are wrong in debates over
ideas, then they should be wrong
when involving ailments. In bat-
tle, doctors are known for treating
the wounded enemy with the
same dedication afforded their
own. As current events show,
there is no connection between
good ideas and good health.
When it comes to illness, we
should all be on the side of good-
will toward others. The state of his
ideas is a different matter worthy
of rigorous disagreement. I wish
Mr. Peterson well – his ideas, like
everyone else’s, need a healthy
defence.
TonyD’AndreaTorontoI believe the online “virtue” of
schadenfreude points to some-
thing even more disturbing: We
hypocritically prize ourselves as a
society intolerant of hatred, while
at the same time indulging in it.
The only issue becomes who or
what should be its “proper” tar-
get: the right or left? Conserva-
tives or liberals? Jordan Peterson
or his opponents?
To hate at all is to corrupt one’s
soul. Disagreeing or even con-
demning others should only be
justifiable in so far as we don’t lose
sight of their humanity. And
that’s what happens when we
hate – the antithesis of genuine
virtue.
PaulSalvatoriTorontoRobyn Urback’s column remind-
ed me of graffiti I once read on the
wall of a university washroom
stall when I was a grad student. It
read: “God is dead, signed
Nietzsche.” Below that was writ-
ten: “Nietzsche is dead, signed
God.”
FrankFoulkesTorontoLETTERSTOTHEEDITOR
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