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National Observer
18-06-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
A US climate conspiracy has spread to Canada — and local politicians haven't been warned
In a crowded room in Ottawa in April 2024, a woman stands in front of a screen displaying a bill from Tennessee. 'This is what we're aiming for,' she says, pointing at the text. 'We have their original resolution … and now we're making a Canadian version.' The Tennessee bill is uncompromising: it bans any city, municipality or school district from implementing climate policies traceable to the United Nations' Agenda 21, Agenda 2030 or net-zero goals if they in any way impact private property rights. A man in the crowd calls out that the UN is creating a 'one-world government' under its 'total control.' The woman onstage, Maggie Hope Braun, agrees and begins promoting the toolkits of Tom DeWeese, a US Tea Party influencer who claims that climate change is a hoax designed to usher in global socialism. Five months later, in September 2024, Maggie Hope Braun stood in front of the Peterborough County Council in Ontario and gave a far more polished speech. This time was different: she didn't mention Tennessee, provincial bans, a UN-takeover or a one-world government. Instead, she focused on fiscal responsibility, recommending that Peterborough County leave Canada's flagship local net-zero program. Mayor Carolyn Amyotte of North Kawartha was in the chamber that day. She said that Braun sounded 'reasonable, credible, legitimate and totally evidence-based. There's a lot of people I think that could be susceptible to it.' It wasn't until Amyotte came across Canada's National Observer's investigation into Braun's group KICLEI in May 2025 that she realized the full scope of what she had witnessed. Multiple councillors have told Canada's National Observer that they did not receive warnings from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities about KICLEI's misinformation campaign, even though it knew politicians were being exposed. Our investigation found that KICLEI – named to mimic the sustainability network ICLEI – is using an AI chatbot to turn climate misinformation into reasonable-sounding and convincing speeches, reports and letters to target 8,000-plus elected officials across Canada. The goal is to get municipalities to abandon net-zero policies. Three scientists at NASA, the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, and University of Melbourne told us Braun's group KICLEI misrepresented their research. On June 4, Amyotte introduced a motion to share Canada's National Observer's investigation with all elected officials in Peterborough County. But there are signs that her warnings are not reaching everyone. As this Tea Party-inspired misinformation campaign continues, the institutions responsible for the targeted net-zero program appear to be avoiding giving it oxygen. Multiple councillors told Canada's National Observer that they did not receive warnings from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities about KICLEI, even though our reporting has found it knew that politicians across the country were being exposed to its misinformation. They still are. Last Monday, Patrick Wilson, a councillor in the town of Cochrane, Alberta, introduced a motion to leave a national climate initiative, which will be voted upon on June 23. He quoted extensively from KICLEI's website, saying that it expresses concerns 'much better and more eloquently than I could.' 'Make it so they don't know which side it's coming from' KICLEI was created in 2023 by Braun, an erstwhile Freedom Convoy activist, with the aim of convincing municipalities across Canada, like Cochrane and Peterborough, to leave a voluntary net-zero framework called Partners for Climate Protection. The framework was developed by ICLEI Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to help municipalities transition to net-zero (through a process covering emissions inventories, target-setting, action planning, implementation, and monitoring), based on international climate agreements, including the UN's Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals. But those UN ties got the conspiracy gears turning, just as they did 15 years ago in the US. Dozens of US cities left ICLEI around 2010 due to a Tea Party backlash against the UN's Agenda 21, which they saw as threatening property rights. Campaigns in small rural municipalities eventually snowballed into state-level legislation. KICLEI is explicitly trying to replicate the Tea Party's American blueprint in Canada. In a YouTube video recorded in Ottawa in April 2024, Braun displays Tennessee's bill banning UN-linked climate policies and announces plans to 'do what they've done here.' 'They're tapping into conspiracist sentiments, which have been long-held beliefs in far-right circles in the US,' said Wes Regan, a researcher at the University of British Columbia investigating how conspiracies impact municipal planning. But they face an uphill battle. In its 2010 heyday, the movement failed to spread to Canada, which Regan suspects is because Canadian audiences are more moderate and less receptive to US Tea Party terms like 'climate hoax,' 'UN takeover' or 'one-world-government.' The movement has adapted. At a bustling information session in Pembroke, Ontario, Braun advised supporters to 'remove every triggering word — make it so they don't know which side it's coming from.' This tactic is streamlined by KICLEI's AI chatbot, which uses language like 'local consultation' and 'environmental stewardship' over overt ideological signals. Regan is troubled by this shift toward outward moderation while the underlying ideology hasn't changed. 'They're taking the right-wing conspiracist, anti-globalist playbook and using language that's friendly, positive and empathetic,' he said. Braun disagrees. 'There's nothing deceptive about using language that connects,' she told Canada's National Observe r in her written response to questions. For her, avoiding terms like 'Agenda 21' is simply good communication. She denied importing US laws. Braun published a blog post with detailed answers but refused to give an interview with Canada's National Observer. 'I actually thought they were an environmental group' To find out whether elected officials are falling for KICLEI's campaign, we attended the annual conference of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) – a body that represents over 2,000 councils across Canada. FCM organizes many environmental programs, including the Green Municipal Fund and the PCP program, which has been targeted by KICLEI. Canada's National Observer sent its findings by email to FCM three weeks before the conference, which started May 29. That afternoon, FCM hosted a workshop on misinformation, attended by hundreds of elected officials. Multiple councillors told Canada's National Observer that AI was mentioned only in passing and KICLEI's misinformation was not addressed. Councillor Mara Nagy from Pickering, Ont. said that she expressed concerns about KICLEI during the workshop because her colleague had fallen for it. The panel did not directly answer that part of her question. 'I would've liked for KICLEI to be addressed head-on,' said Nagy. She explained that the confusion is causing frustration among elected officials. 'I've not heard from FCM since,' she added. This silence was 'out of respect' for ICLEI, according to Ewa Jackson, managing director of ICLEI Canada. Jackson explained that they try not to amplify KICLEI's misinformation, instead providing support to municipalities who reach out with concerns. ICLEI has known about the campaign for almost two years – they stated that they have warned members and that it was raised by elected officials during a recent Sustainable Communities Conference. Jackson accepts that the campaign has caused confusion. When she introduced herself to elected officials in the misinformation workshop, she was mistaken for a representative of KICLEI. Another attendee of the workshop was James Leduc, mayor of Bradford West Gwillimbury, Ont., who started receiving KICLEI's correspondence after the town adopted its climate plan in November. 'I actually thought they were an environmental group,' he said. According to Chris Russill, an expert in climate communication at Carleton University, this confusion provides 'opportunities' to shape the opinions of elected officials. Russill also warned that AI has caused an 'exacerbation' of long-standing democratic vulnerabilities, including the lack of resources for local governments to fact-check correspondence. Faced with this, elected officials like Leduc look towards institutions like FCM for guidance. 'We really need their support,' he said. In a written response to Canada's National Observer, FCM acknowledged that 'disinformation campaigns have caused frustration for some members' but said that they have only received a 'small number of inquiries' about KICLEI's campaign. FCM's annual conference now appears to be a missed opportunity to set the record straight. In attendance at the event were multiple elected officials from Cochrane, Alta. – the same town that will vote next Monday on whether to leave the PCP program. During a press conference at the event, FCM President Rebecca Bligh said that FCM is 'alive to the issue' and that fighting AI-generated misinformation is an opportunity to partner with the federal government, which launched a new ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation in May 2025. But for now, it appears that councillors like Amyotte and Nagy are left scrambling to warn their colleagues before more municipalities abandon their net-zero commitments to carefully crafted conspiracy theories.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Old guard isn't cutting it' Ro Khanna tells voters in town hall tour
BAKERSFIELD — The banner draped behind Rep. Ro Khanna promised, in a deliberately Bernie Sanders-esque style, 'Benefits over Billionaires.' The hand-painted signs in the audience lambasted Elon Musk. But in the three town halls Khanna hosted in three red House districts far from his Silicon Valley home base on Sunday, it was the Democrats who were unambiguously being put on blast. So it was up to Khanna to convince his audience that his party still had a pulse. 'I want to know why in the world the Democratic Party hasn't fought yet?' asked Ryiad Cooper, a 45-year-old combat veteran at Khanna's afternoon event in California's Inland Empire, the eastern exurbs of Los Angeles. 'I'm sorry but you're the only Democrat standing here, so you're the only person I've got to ask.' Town halls are, once again, in the political zeitgeist, much like the Tea Party-inspired outpouring of 2009 or the 2017 backlash to the efforts to gut Obamacare. Republican leadership is advising members to avoid in-person meetings; those who forged ahead anyway are rewarded with viral clips of booing crowds Meanwhile, Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hosted mega-rallies over the weekend, including attracting 34,000 attendees in Colorado. Khanna, the 48 year-old son of Indian immigrants who has carved out a distinct and somewhat incongruous niche as tech-friendly populist, had planned a tour designed to make California's most vulnerable House Republicans sweat. He intended to send a signal to GOP Reps. David Valadao, Ken Calvert and Young Kim that the DOGE wrecking ball through the federal government and fears of cuts to Medicaid and Social Security was fomenting a popular backlash that could soon put their jobs at risk. Valadao, Calvert and a spokesperson for Kim all responded with variations of the same theme, brushing off Khanna's visit as a political stunt. All three of their districts had shifted further right in 2024 compared to four years prior, a reflection of just how much ground Democrats had lost even in the blue bastion of California. The road trip, inspired by Sanders, suited the peripatetic congressman. He's been known to take political tours far outside his Bay Area stomping grounds — traveling in West Virginia and Kentucky, for example, to explore how tech industry innovation could transform coal-dependent economies. His trips to the early primary state of New Hampshire, which are so frequent he's been jokingly called the fifth member of the state's House delegation, have often fueled speculation of Khanna's eventual presidential ambition, not to mention his near-constant appearances on cable news shows and his active presence on X. His profile is high enough to draw out respectable crowds — roughly 1,000 apiece in his three events on Sunday, mostly the dedicated Democrats who keep MSNBC playing in the background. He was received warmly and enthusiastically, and even when attendees grew pointed about the Democratic Party, they never turned sharp on him. But there was a tinge of pleading when attendees came to the mic. They wanted marching orders on what they could do to stop Trump. They wanted assurances the Democrats had some sort of plan. They wanted him to know they were scared. Khanna readily conceded that his party had dropped the ball. 'Our messaging is too fragmented,' he acknowledged in Bakersfield. 'The old guard isn't cutting it.' He was particularly searing in his critiques of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom he faulted for not extracting any concessions to avert a government shutdown. 'He didn't get any concessions,' he told POLITICO. 'I believe if Nancy Pelosi was in his position, we would have still had the government open, but we would have gotten concessions.' But when an attendee asked if Khanna agreed with Sanders that perhaps more people should run as independents, the congressman responded with a riff forcefully defending his party. 'We are the party that got the 40 hour workweek. We are the party that got overtime pay. We are the party that got Social Security. We are the party that got Medicare. We are the party that got Medicaid. We are the party that funded public schools. We are the party that fought and got civil rights and voting rights,' he said. He kept going as the applause from the crowd overtook him, basking in the nostalgia of a time when being a Democrat didn't feel like such a bummer. As soon as he stepped off stage in Bakersfield, he instructed his staff to blast out that clip defending the party. It was an unexpected highlight, given how down so many had seemed about the state of the Democrats. But, on the two and a half hour drive from Bakersfield to his next stop in Norco, Khanna told POLITICO that the moment stood out as precisely what dejected Democrats were searching for. 'What surprised me is the reaction of it in the room, because they were — as you know — very, very skeptical about the Democratic Party and our leadership,' he said, sitting in the front passenger seat as his political director navigated a bulky SUV through the curves of the Grapevine. 'And yet, at least being up on stage, it seemed to me that that answer got the most enthusiasm. So they're looking also for kind of an inspiration for our party.' On that front, Khanna appeared to have delivered. Lisa Jo Gage, a social services provider in Bakersfield whose business could be decimated by Medicaid cuts, said she left 'more hopeful than when I walked in.' 'It was uplifting to see people of so many backgrounds in the same room believing in the same thing,' said Gage, a 56 year-old Democrat. 'Living in a red county can be exhausting at times feeling like no one sees or feels things that I am seeing or feeling.' Khanna recognized that the folks attending his town halls wanted to do more than vent. 'It was more than just a therapy session,' he said. 'I think it was people asking for direction. They're saying we're ready to spend our time on a Sunday and come out. What are you guys doing?' For Democrats, that question is much harder to answer. Khanna gamely did his best. By the second and third stops of the day, he took pains to add more specifics. Schumer should not have simply demanded concessions, he should have demanded that no veterans be fired and no Social Security offices be shut down. He said Democrats should not have voted against the Laken Riley Act, which makes it easier to detain immigrants without legal status charged with smaller crimes, nor should some of his House colleagues have voted to censure Rep. Al Green for his disruptions at Trump's address to the joint session of Congress. But Khanna also had to state the obvious: when it comes to governance, his party has very little leverage. 'The reality is, we don't have the White House, we don't have the Senate, we don't have the House,' he said in Norco, a pocket of rural horse country in the industrialized Inland Empire. 'So we can point fingers, but what we need to do is figure out, how are we going to get past this? What are we going to do to actually stop Musk and Trump and prevent these cuts? And the only thing I can think of is to organize like we're doing here in every red district in this country.' In the car between events, Khanna acknowledged that there's no one pat answer that is going to immediately satisfy voters yearning for direction. 'What we need from the Democrats is a plan,' he said. 'Every day we should have our leaders saying 'here's what we're doing…' What I got [from the town halls] is there's not a clear sense of the plan.'
Politico
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Politico
‘Old guard isn't cutting it' Ro Khanna tells voters in town hall tour
BAKERSFIELD — The banner draped behind Rep. Ro Khanna promised, in a deliberately Bernie Sanders-esque style, 'Benefits over Billionaires.' The hand-painted signs in the audience lambasted Elon Musk. But in the three town halls Khanna hosted in three red House districts far from his Silicon Valley home base on Sunday, it was the Democrats who were unambiguously being put on blast. So it was up to Khanna to convince his audience that his party still had a pulse. 'I want to know why in the world the Democratic Party hasn't fought yet?' asked Ryiad Cooper, a 45 - year-old combat veteran at Khanna's afternoon event in California's Inland Empire, the eastern exurbs of Los Angeles. 'I'm sorry but you're the only Democrat standing here, so you're the only person I've got to ask.' Town halls are, once again, in the political zeitgeist , much like the Tea Party-inspired outpouring of 2009 or the 2017 backlash to the efforts to gut Obamacare. Republican leadership is advising members to avoid in-person meetings ; those who forged ahead anyway are rewarded with viral clips of booing crowds Meanwhile, Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hosted mega-rallies over the weekend, including attracting 34,000 attendees in Colorado. Khanna, the 48 year-old son of Indian immigrants who has carved out a distinct and somewhat incongruous niche as tech-friendly populist, had planned a tour designed to make California's most vulnerable House Republicans sweat. He intended to send a signal to GOP Reps. David Valadao, Ken Calvert and Young Kim that the DOGE wrecking ball through the federal government and fears of cuts to Medicaid and Social Security was fomenting a popular backlash that could soon put their jobs at risk. Valadao, Calvert and a spokesperson for Kim all responded with variations of the same theme, brushing off Khanna's visit as a political stunt. All three of their districts had shifted further right in 2024 compared to four years prior, a reflection of just how much ground Democrats had lost even in the blue bastion of California. The road trip, inspired by Sanders, suited the peripatetic congressman. He's been known to take political tours far outside his Bay Area stomping grounds — traveling in West Virginia and Kentucky, for example, to explore how tech industry innovation could transform coal-dependent economies. His trips to the early primary state of New Hampshire, which are so frequent he's been jokingly called the fifth member of the state's House delegation, have often fueled speculation of Khanna's eventual presidential ambition, not to mention his near-constant appearances on cable news shows and his active presence on X. His profile is high enough to draw out respectable crowds — roughly 1,000 apiece in his three events on Sunday, mostly the dedicated Democrats who keep MSNBC playing in the background. He was received warmly and enthusiastically, and even when attendees grew pointed about the Democratic Party, they never turned sharp on him. But there was a tinge of pleading when attendees came to the mic. They wanted marching orders on what they could do to stop Trump. They wanted assurances the Democrats had some sort of plan. They wanted him to know they were scared. Khanna readily conceded that his party had dropped the ball. 'Our messaging is too fragmented,' he acknowledged in Bakersfield. 'The old guard isn't cutting it.' He was particularly searing in his critiques of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom he faulted for not extracting any concessions to avert a government shutdown. 'He didn't get any concessions,' he told POLITICO. 'I believe if Nancy Pelosi was in his position, we would have still had the government open, but we would have gotten concessions.' But when an attendee asked if Khanna agreed with Sanders that perhaps more people should run as independents, the congressman responded with a riff forcefully defending his party. 'We are the party that got the 40 hour workweek. We are the party that got overtime pay. We are the party that got Social Security. We are the party that got Medicare. We are the party that got Medicaid. We are the party that funded public schools. We are the party that fought and got civil rights and voting rights,' he said. He kept going as the applause from the crowd overtook him, basking in the nostalgia of a time when being a Democrat didn't feel like such a bummer. As soon as he stepped off stage in Bakersfield, he instructed his staff to blast out that clip defending the party. It was an unexpected highlight, given how down so many had seemed about the state of the Democrats. But, on the two and a half hour drive from Bakersfield to his next stop in Norco, Khanna told POLITICO that the moment stood out as precisely what dejected Democrats were searching for. 'What surprised me is the reaction of it in the room, because they were — as you know — very, very skeptical about the Democratic Party and our leadership,' he said, sitting in the front passenger seat as his political director navigated a bulky SUV through the curves of the Grapevine. 'And yet, at least being up on stage, it seemed to me that that answer got the most enthusiasm. So they're looking also for kind of an inspiration for our party.' On that front, Khanna appeared to have delivered. Lisa Jo Gage, a social services provider in Bakersfield whose business could be decimated by Medicaid cuts, said she left 'more hopeful than when I walked in.' 'It was uplifting to see people of so many backgrounds in the same room believing in the same thing,' said Gage, a 56 year-old Democrat. 'Living in a red county can be exhausting at times feeling like no one sees or feels things that I am seeing or feeling.' Khanna recognized that the folks attending his town halls wanted to do more than vent. 'It was more than just a therapy session,' he said. 'I think it was people asking for direction. They're saying we're ready to spend our time on a Sunday and come out. What are you guys doing?' For Democrats, that question is much harder to answer. Khanna gamely did his best. By the second and third stops of the day, he took pains to add more specifics. Schumer should not have simply demanded concessions, he should have demanded that no veterans be fired and no Social Security offices be shut down. He said Democrats should not have voted against the Laken Riley Act, which makes it easier to detain immigrants without legal status charged with smaller crimes, nor should some of his House colleagues have voted to censure Rep. Al Green for his disruptions at Trump's address to the joint session of Congress. But Khanna also had to state the obvious: when it comes to governance, his party has very little leverage. 'The reality is, we don't have the White House, we don't have the Senate, we don't have the House,' he said in Norco, a pocket of rural horse country in the industrialized Inland Empire . 'So we can point fingers, but what we need to do is figure out, how are we going to get past this? What are we going to do to actually stop Musk and Trump and prevent these cuts? And the only thing I can think of is to organize like we're doing here in every red district in this country.' In the car between events, Khanna acknowledged that there's no one pat answer that is going to immediately satisfy voters yearning for direction. 'What we need from the Democrats is a plan,' he said. 'Every day we should have our leaders saying 'here's what we're doing…' What I got [from the town halls] is there's not a clear sense of the plan.'
