Latest news with #Kenney
Edmonton Journal
28-05-2025
- Business
- Edmonton Journal
Wednesday's letters: Research cuts hurt Alberta economy
Article content Yet again, Alberta divests from innovation and weakens industry. Does the government not want research or biotechnology sectors? There is a clear, unsettling pattern of Alberta defunding non-oil industry incentives — to its detriment. In 2019, my friend almost moved to Calgary for a video game company, but Kenney scrapped the Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit. Now, my friend works for Meta and remains in Ontario. Alberta is left out of the benefits of his generous salary, all by its own doing. Imagine if he had the chance to grow a tech business in Alberta back then. Now, Smith is doing the same for medical research and biotech. The public must be aware that the government is disincentivizing non-oil industries and good opportunities for the province, and is keeping business away.
National Observer
22-05-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
Pierre Poilievre needs to fight for Canada
As a conspicuously educated and literate man, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney is surely familiar with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. And yet, it still didn't stop him from creating his own political monster in the United Conservative Party, a sewn-together beast that is now wreaking havoc on both his province and country by empowering and amplifying Alberta's separatist movement. 'This is playing with fire,' Kenney told the media at ATCO 's recent annual general meeting. 'And if Albertans doubt that, look at a real historical example of what happened in Quebec's economy as a result of merely the election of a PQ government.' He wasn't the only Conservative warning about the economic risks associated with the Alberta government's de-facto surrender to the province's separatists. "I think the separatist discussion is very unhelpful and not constructive to Alberta," ATCO CEO (and longtime Conservative) Nancy Southern said. It's worth pointing out that the fire Kenney's warning Albertans about wouldn't be nearly as easy for Danielle Smith to start he hadn't brought the fringe elements of Alberta's Conservative movement into the province's political mainstream. It hasn't helped that Conservative politicians, pundits and business leaders have spent the last decade telling Albertans that their economic woes were the direct result of a hostile and malicious federal government. Those arguments may have helped them win elections, attract donations and otherwise keep their supporters properly lathered. Now, they're the kindling that's actively fueling the separatist fire. This fire won't get extinguished by fact-wielding progressives, much as they — and I — will try. Instead, it will have to be fought primarily by Conservatives like Jason Kenney. As former NDP advisor and podcaster Zain Velji said on a recent episode of The Strategists, 'you want to be really careful about who forms the opposition here. In some ways, if this could be a battle of Conservatism, that is actually what leads to potential success.' That means folks like former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former CPC interim Leader Rona Ambrose, and high-profile members of parliament like Michelle Rempel-Garner ought to step forward and defend their country. It also means that Pierre Poilievre's impending by-election in Battle River-Crowfoot, where the CPC candidate won 82 per cent of the vote in April, suddenly takes on even more importance. That's because it offers Poilievre an important opportunity to stand up for Canada and help advance the fight against the very same separatist Alberta Conservatives that he has courted in the past. As columnist Chantal Hebert said on a recent episode of Good Talk, 'no future prime minister can be grey on the issue of national unity.' That's especially true for a politician running in a province where the idea of separating from Canada is being actively debated. In some respects, he may have chosen the worst possible riding in which to do that. A recent poll found that 70 per cent of federal Conservative voters in Alberta support separating from Canada, and that figure is probably even higher in Poilievre's chosen riding given its rural (and deeply Conservative) nature. Coming out strongly against the idea of Alberta independence would guarantee a backlash from many of the voters who marked a ballot for his party in April. Pierre Poilievre avoided a fight by picking the safest Conservative riding in Canada for his byelection. Now, with Alberta's separatists on the march, he has one on his hands anyways. How he responds to it will determine his political future. If Poilievre wants to win the next federal election, he should welcome that backlash. It would help put some distance between him and the fringier elements of his political base, and show Canadians in the rest of the country where his loyalties really lie. It would almost certainly win him support in places like British Columbia, Ontario, and the Maritimes, where the idea of Alberta separating from Canada is seen as irresponsible and reckless nonsense. And it would give him the chance to reinvent himself as the person who protected Canada rather than the one who relished describing it as broken and stupid. This won't be easy for Poilievre. He would have to abandon the story he's told Canadians — and especially Albertans — for years now, one in which the Liberal government is the architect of all their pain and suffering. He would have to show Albertans they're better off as part of a united Canada than on their own, and in so doing renounce some of the lies they now treat as gospel. Canada isn't trying to kill their oil and gas industry — far from it, in fact. And Carney isn't the biggest threat to their prosperity. That would be Donald Trump. Hardest of all, perhaps, he'd have to at least implicitly acknowledge the damage his particular brand of politics has done to the fabric of our country. It's easy to get people to blame someone else for their misfortunes, and easier still to make them angry at some politically convenient scapegoat. That's especially true when you have access to the tools of social media, which Poilievre has wielded more effectively than any politician in Canada. Getting people to calm down and see reason after they've been fed a steady diet of partisan fearmongering and falsehoods is a much more daunting challenge. But if Poilievre actually wants to change the reputation he's earned over his long career in politics, he'll have to do more than just embark on yet another image makeover. Using his forthcoming byelection as an opportunity to renounce and rebuke Alberta's separatist movement, and the politicians enabling it, would be a good start.
Winnipeg Free Press
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Keeping separatists inside the Alberta UCP tent
Opinion There was a time when then-Albertan premier Jason Kenney seemed to be the constant churlish voice of a rich province wanting even more. But that's before we met current United Conservative Party Leader and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Now, Kenney looks like the voice of reason — or at least a someone willing to speak bluntly about the current discussion of the dangers of a possible referendum on Alberta separating from Canada. Chad Hipolito / The Canadian Press files Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney Kenney, speaking to the shareholders of oilfield supply company ATCO — where he sits on the board of directors — called even the talk of Alberta separatism business-destroying 'kryptonite for investor confidence.' Kenney was blunt. 'This is playing with fire. And if Albertans doubt that, look at a real historical example of what happened in Quebec's economy as a result of merely the election of a PQ government,' Kenney said, saying the threat of instability drained billions of dollars in investment from that province. 'Quebec has paid the price for the uncertainty created by separation for going on 50 years now. I don't want Alberta to be in the same situation.' But back to Danielle Smith, and her current political stand of I-really-don't-want-Alberta-to-separate-but-here-let-me-make-the-whole-process-easier. A particularly disturbing aspect of Smith's position on separatism — where she actively foments an idea she says she's not in favour of — is that she has said that it's politically important for the UCP to keep from having a new separatist party form in the province. In a CTV interview, she said that her actions in changing laws to make it easier to call a referendum in Alberta had just that goal, 'If there isn't an outlet, it creates a new party.' And in the Alberta legislature, she said, 'We do not want a permanent feature of Alberta politics to be parties that send representatives to Ottawa whose sole purpose is to break up the country or brand-new political parties whose sole purpose is to take this province out of Confederation … What we are working toward is a united Canada with respect for provincial constitutional sovereignty over our areas of jurisdiction.' Any new party with that goal would drain support particularly and uniquely from the UCP — meaning Smith is protecting her party's rear at a time when Canada is under a particularly dangerous economic attack from the current president of the United States. The last Alberta provincial election was an extremely close one, The UCP won 49 per cent of the vote compared to the NDP's 30 per cent, but while that sounds like a convincing win, the truth is that the NDP's vote was far more efficient. While the UCP won many ridings overwhelmingly, the NDP only needed something like 2,600 votes in six particular ridings — out of 1.76 million cast provincewide — to have won the election. So you can understand Smith's concern. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. But looked at it through Smith's politically pragmatic lens, it's hard not to be reminded of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre taking coffee and doughnuts to members of the trucker convoy occupying Ottawa: playing up to a segment of the population just to keep them in your tent. Never mind the good of the country: first and foremost, protect the standing of your own party and your own political future. The question has to be asked: is political gain — or the protection of a segment of your support — worth the threat to our country as a whole? As a country, we can all use more Kenney blunt honesty and less Smith self-serving performance. Play with fire — get burned.
National Observer
15-05-2025
- Business
- National Observer
States are banning forever chemicals. Industry is fighting back
This story was originally published by Wired and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration In 2021, James Kenney and his husband were at a big box store buying a piece of furniture when the sales associate asked if they'd like to add fabric protectant. Kenney, the cabinet secretary of New Mexico's Environment Department, asked to see the product data sheet. Both he and his husband were shocked to see forever chemicals listed as ingredients in the protectant. 'I think about your normal, everyday New Mexican who is trying to get by, make their furniture last a little longer, and they think, 'Oh, it's safe, great!' It's not safe,' he says. 'It just so happens that they tried to sell it to the environment secretary.' Last week, the New Mexico legislature passed a pair of bills that Kenney hopes will help protect consumers in his state. If signed by the governor, the legislation would eventually ban consumer products that have added PFAS—per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, known colloquially as 'forever chemicals' because of their persistence in the environment—from being sold in New Mexico. As health and environmental concerns about forever chemicals mount nationally, New Mexico joins a small but growing number of states that are moving to limit—and, in some cases, ban—PFAS in consumer products. New Mexico is now the third state to pass a PFAS ban through the legislature. Ten other states have bans or limits on added PFAS in certain consumer products, including cookware, carpet, apparel, and cosmetics. This year, at least 29 states—a record number—have PFAS-related bills before state legislatures, according to an analysis of bills by Safer States, a network of state-based advocacy organizations working on issues around potentially unsafe chemicals. The chemical and consumer products industries have taken notice of this new wave of regulations and are mounting a counterattack, lobbying state legislatures to advocate for the safety of their products—and, in one case, suing to prevent the laws from taking effect. Some of the key exemptions made in New Mexico highlight some of the big fights that industries are hoping they'll win in statehouses across the country: fights they are already taking to a newly industry-friendly US Environmental Protection Agency. PFAS is not just one chemical but a class of thousands. The first PFAS were developed in the 1930s; thanks to their nonstick properties and unique durability, their popularity grew in industrial and consumer uses in the postwar era. The chemicals were soon omnipresent in American lives, coating cookware, preventing furniture and carpets from staining, and acting as a surfactant in firefighting foam. In 1999, a man in West Virginia filed a lawsuit against US chemical giant DuPont alleging that pollution from its factory was killing his cattle. The lawsuit revealed that DuPont had concealed evidence of PFAS's negative health effects on workers from the government for decades. In the years since, the chemical industry has paid out billions in settlement fees around PFAS lawsuits: in 2024, the American multinational 3M agreed to pay between $10 billion and $12.5 billion to US public water systems that had detected PFAS in their water supplies to pay for remediation and future testing, though the company did not admit liability. (DuPont and its separate chemical company Chemours continue to deny any wrongdoing in lawsuits involving them, including the original West Virginia suit.) As the moniker 'forever chemicals' suggests, mounting research has shown that PFAS accumulate in the environment and in our bodies and can be responsible for a number of health problems, from high cholesterol to reproductive issues and cancer. EPA figures released earlier this year show that almost half of the US population is currently exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. Nearly all Americans, meanwhile, have at least one type of PFAS in their blood. For a class of chemicals with such terrifying properties, there's been surprisingly little regulation of PFAS at the federal level. One of the most-studied PFAS chemicals, PFOA, began to be phased out in the US in the early 2000s, with major companies eliminating the chemical and related compounds under EPA guidance by 2015. The chemical industry and manufacturers say that the replacements they have found for the most dangerous chemicals are safe. But the federal government, as a whole, has lagged behind the science when it comes to regulations: The EPA only set official drinking water limits for six types of PFAS in 2024. In lieu of federal guidance, states have started taking action. In 2021, Maine, which identified an epidemic of PFAS pollution on its farms in 2016, passed the first-ever law banning the sale of consumer products with PFAS. Minnesota followed suit in 2023. 'The cookware industry has historically not really engaged in advocacy, whether it's advocacy or regulatory,' says Steve Burns, a lobbyist who represents the industry. But laws against PFAS in consumer products—particularly a bill in California, which required cookware manufacturers to disclose to consumers if they use any PFAS chemicals in their products—were a 'wakeup call' for the industry. Burns is president of the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, a 501c6 formed in 2024 by two major companies in the cookware industry. He and his colleagues have had a busy year, testifying in 10 statehouses across the country against PFAS restrictions or bans (and, in some cases, in favor of new laws that would exempt their products from existing bans). In February, the CSA was one of more than 40 industry groups and manufacturers to sign a letter to New Mexico lawmakers opposing its PFAS ban when it was first introduced. The CSA also filed a suit against the state of Minnesota in January, alleging that its PFAS ban is unconstitutional. Its work has paid off. Unlike the Maine or Minnesota laws, the New Mexico bill specifically exempts fluoropolymers, a key ingredient in nonstick cookware and a type of PFAS chemical, from the coming bans. The industry has also seen success overseas: France excluded kitchenware from its recent PFAS ban following a lobbying push by Cookware Sustainability Alliance member Groupe SEB. (The CSA operates only in the US and was not involved in that effort.) 'As an industry, we do believe that if we're able to make our case, we're able to have a conversation, present the science and all the independent studies we have, most times people will say well, you make a good point,' Burns says. 'This is a different chemistry.' It's not just the cookware industry making this argument. Erich Shea, the director of product communications at the American Chemistry Council, told WIRED in an email that the group supports New Mexico's fluoropolymer exclusion and that it will 'allow New Mexico to avoid the headaches experienced by decisionmakers in other states.' The FDA has authorized nonstick cookware for human use since the 1960s. Some research—including one peer-reviewed study conducted by the American Chemistry Council's Performance Fluoropolymer Partnership, whose members include 3M and Chemours, has found that fluoropolymers are safe to consume and less harmful than other types of PFAS. Separate research has called their safety into question. However, the production of fluoropolymers for use in nonstick cookware and other products has historically released harmful PFAS into the environment. And while major US manufacturers have phased out PFOA in their production chain, other factories overseas still use the chemical in making fluoropolymers. The debate over fluoropolymers' inclusion in state bans is part of a larger argument made by industry and business groups: that states are defining PFAS chemicals too broadly, opening the door to overregulation of safe products. A position paper from the Cookware Sustainability Alliance provided to WIRED lambasts the 'indiscriminate definition of PFAS' in many states with recent bans or restrictions. 'Our argument is that fluoropolymers are very different from PFAS chemicals of concern,' Burns says. Some advocates disagree. The exemption of fluoropolymers from New Mexico's ban, along with a host of other industry-specific exemptions in the bill, means that the legislation 'is not going to meet the stated intentions of what the bill's sponsors want it to do,' says Gretchen Salter, the policy director at Safer States. Advocates like Salter have concerns around the use of forever chemicals in the production of fluoropolymers as well as their durability throughout their life cycles. 'Fluoropolymers are PFAS. PFAS plastics are PFAS. They are dangerous at every stage of their life, from production to use to disposal,' she claims. Kenney acknowledges that the fluoropolymer exemption has garnered a 'little bit of criticism.' But he says that this bill is meant to be a starting point. 'We're not trying to demonize PFAS—it's in a lot of things that we rightfully still use—but we are trying to gauge the risk,' he says. 'We don't expect this to be a one and done. We expect science to grow and the exemptions to change.' With a newly industry-friendly set of regulators in DC, industry groups are looking for wins at the federal level too. In February, an organization of chemical manufacturers and business groups, including the American Chemistry Council and the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, sent a letter to the EPA outlining suggested 'principles and policy recommendations' around PFAS. The group emphasized the need to 'recognize that PFAS are a broad class of chemistries with very diverse and necessary properties' and recommended the agency adopt a government-wide definition of PFAS based on West Virginia and Delaware's definitions. Both of those states have a much more conservative definition of what defines PFAS than dozens of other states, including Maine, New Mexico, and Minnesota. A federal definition like this could 'have a chilling effect on state legislation going forward,' said Melanie Benesh, the vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, an environmental activist organization. 'There would be this federal position that the chemical industry could point to, which might be convincing to some state legislators to say, well, this is what the federal government has said is a definition of PFAS. As you start excluding PFAS from the class, you really limit what PFAS are covered by consumer product bans.' Shea, of the American Chemistry Council, told WIRED that the group believes 'that the federal regulatory approach is preferable to a patchwork of different and potentially conflicting state approaches.' States with bans face a monumental task in truly getting PFAS out of consumers' lives. Vendors in Minnesota have been left with expensive inventory that they can no longer sell; Maine's law, one of the most aggressive, makes exemptions for 'currently unavoidable use' of PFAS, including in semiconductors, lab equipment, and medical devices. PFAS are used in so many of the products in our lives that it's almost unfathomable to think of phasing them out altogether, as soon as possible. For advocates like Salter, it's a change worth making. 'There might be essential uses for PFAS right now,' she says. 'But we want to spur the search for safer alternatives, because we don't want to give a pass to chemicals that are harming human health. By exempting them altogether, you are completely removing that incentive.'
Calgary Herald
14-05-2025
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Varcoe: ATCO head says separation talk 'impacting investments now,' as Canada aims to be energy superpower
Article content The debate around separation has increased in volume following last month's federal election. The provincial government recently introduced legislation to reduce the number of signatures required to trigger a provincial referendum on citizen-led initiatives — this could potentially include a question around Alberta separating from Confederation. Article content Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, who is also on the board of ATCO and Postmedia, said Wednesday that separation talk is 'kryptonite for investor confidence,' noting he was asked about the issue by investors at a Wall Street conference this week. Article content If the concept is presented to voters, Kenney believes Albertans will overwhelmingly reject it, but he also worries it could affect investment into the province, pointing to the flight of capital from Quebec during the 1970s. Article content Article content 'People who are toying with this idea need to understand that if this action gets to a ballot, it will cause enduring, grand damage for Alberta and very significant loss of investor confidence, at least in the short to medium term,' said Kenney. Article content Similarly, University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe said last week that investors dislike uncertainty, and the run-up to the Quebec sovereignty referendum in 1980 led some companies to relocate. Article content 'Calgary is the home of the second-largest number of headquarters in Canada, and many of these firms have operations nationally and internationally,' said Tombe. Article content 'A separate Alberta would be a business and economic risk for these entities in the same way that it was for many firms who left Quebec . . . but — and this is a big but — we are nowhere near this being anything but a very fringe conversation.' Article content Meanwhile, the broader issue of Canada building infrastructure is a pressing priority for the federal government and the provinces, along with industry. Article content Article content After the federal cabinet was sworn in Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government will take steps to build critical infrastructure and make Canada a 'superpower' in conventional and clean energy. Article content He also garnered attention with comments made to CTV on Tuesday that he'd be open to more oil and gas exports, new pipelines and possibly making changes to Ottawa's Impact Assessment Act and the oilpatch emissions cap. Article content During the election campaign, Carney indicated he would keep both policies in place, despite demands from the Alberta government to turf the cap and overhaul the Impact Assessment Act. Article content Southern, who has known Carney since he was the governor of the Bank of Canada, said the new prime minister understands economics and the importance of having pragmatic growth that delivers a sustainable future and long-term prosperity. Article content
