Alberta Premier Jason Kenney tours Fort MacMurray, site of major spring flooding - fails to see his own handiwork amid the damage. (Opinion)

by Larry Powell

Fort MacMurray, AB. Photo credit - MacMurray Aviation.

 Kenney was out inspecting the town of Fort MacMurray and region this morning, where major flooding has resulted in a mandatory evacuation order going out for the entire downtown area. Big trucks and low-lying buildings are reportedly submerged. 

This is the same Premier who "dissed" a reporter recently for daring to ask if this might be the time to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable, sustainable energy. Kenney was especially shocked that he was a member of the Calgary press core, who are apparently all supposed to be cozy little members of the same club, parroting Kenny's anti-science lies about the consequences of continuing to exploit the tar sands. 

This is also the same Premier who is spending millions of tax dollars from his own citizens, including desperate, unemployed oil workers, to fund a "war room," spreading mis-information about the consequences of a changing climate (more floods, wildfires, rains and droughts) and slandering environmental groups in the process. 

Until this man joins the 21st century, realizes that fossil fuels are "oh-so-20th-century" and begins helping people to re-train for work in alternative, renewables energy projects, he'll get zero sympathy from me.

Fort Mac - 2016. A Creative Commons photo.

Barely four years ago, catastrophic and historic wildfires decimated the same region, consuming many homes and businesses and raining havoc and misery down on hundreds of local citizens. 

Until we start to hold politicians like this accountable and call them out for the dangerous policies they advocate, these tragedies will only deepen.

In the age of Covid-19, these events are surely the last things we need right now!

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Bushfires damaged Australian rainforest that is home to Earth's only living specimens of ancient species

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