Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has responded to an open letter from Amnesty International that criticized his government’s aggressive approach in defending the oil and gas industry. The head of Amnesty’s Canadian branch warned that the premier’s efforts have put human rights at risk.
Kenney writes: Before responding to your open letter, titled Human rights concerns regarding the Government of Alberta’s “Fight Back Strategy,” I would like to offer a note of sympathy. Honestly, it can’t be easy being the long-time head of Amnesty International Canada (AI), stuck in annoyingly free and peaceful Canada, having to work yourself up into high dudgeon to denounce a democratically-elected government peacefully standing up for its citizens.
On the other hand, your insistence that the burning human rights threat in Canada right now is – to use your description – the “establishment of an energy ‘war room’ devoted to defending the oil and gas industry in Alberta and a public inquiry into the foreign funding of groups who oppose or criticize energy developments in the province” can hardly pass unchallenged. Relentless misinformed attacks against our oil and gas industry have cost us thousands of jobs and hurt families from every region of our province. The cost in investment and jobs has been incalculable. Our government won the largest democratic mandate in Alberta history in part on a promise to stand up to those attacks. I will not apologize for keeping that promise.
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