Jason Kenney and The Tyee

On April 24, 2020, as oil prices plummeted, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney took a question from a Calgary reporter who asked, “When do you start thinking about a full-on transition away from fossil fuels?”

Kenney shook his head. “That kind of question in the middle of an economic crisis, from a Calgary-based media outlet, really, frankly throws me for a loop. Uh, it sounds like you’re reporting for The Tyee or something.”

Which raised more questions, beyond why it’s a sin to mention green energy to Jason Kenney.

Some Albertans no doubt wondered: “What the heck is The Tyee?”

And our readers might have asked: “Why the big focus on Kenney and his province? Isn’t The Tyee proudly based in B.C.?”

Fair enough. Three reasons.

One, we’re neighbours! We care about Albertans.

Two, what happens next door often resonates here — and not just pipelines.

And three, Kenney’s approach to governing has provided a cautionary example of the kind of politics that some powerful interests would like to see here in B.C.

Pulling from Trump’s playbook, Kenney has cynically deployed all manner of faux-populist tactics to whip up an angry and fearful base. These methods have included…

Using social media to launch personal attacks on opponents.

Endorsing the yellow-vest movement, with its many extremist precursors to the Ottawa trucker convoy.

Blaming structural economic woes on manufactured scapegoats (environmentalists, teachers, doctors, Trudeau, “the green left agenda,” take your pick).

Failing to stand up to anti-vaxers as waves of COVID deaths swept Alberta.

Attempting to rewrite the history and values that children are taught in schools.

Trying to quietly sell off protected lands to foreign coal miners.

Throwing away billions of the public’s dollars on a propaganda centre, a failed witch hunt to identify enemies of the state and a squandered public investment in the Keystone pipeline that foolishly bet on Trump’s re-election to pay off.

All the while accumulating scandals and humiliations.

Now that Kenney has stepped down as leader of his United Conservative Party (sort of) it remains to be seen whether the nasty political culture he fomented will endure.

In any case, no one can say The Tyee didn’t send up one warning flare after another, including articles I’ve highlighted below.

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From The Tyee files, some greatest hits

In the meantime, back to the stellar collection of bylines who’ve held Kenney and company accountable all these years. Names that include Andrew Nikiforuk, Michael Harris, Taylor Lambert, David Climenhaga, Geoff Dembicki, Mitchell Anderson, Ben Mussett and recently the team of Charles Rusnell and Jennie Russell.

Our Kenney alerts began in 2016, as he announced he was pivoting from being Harper’s protégé to trying to unite the right in Alberta to toss out the NDP government. We published a Kenney backgrounder drawn from Marci McDonald’s excellent reporting in the Walrus, and reprinted a version again in 2019, weeks before he was elected premier, when it was clear his coalition included toxic extremists:

Seven Jason Kenneys: A Prep Memo for Albertan Voters
The many faces of the UCP’s would-be premier, from Marci McDonald’s in-depth Walrus profile. By David Beers

In August of 2019, we published our first column by David Climenhaga, which he generously shares from his excellent Alberta Politics blog. Sixty-one more of his pieces ensued, most recently this one:

Kenney Is (Almost) Out. That Doesn’t Mean the NDP Is In
Alberta New Democrats still face a tough road to election victory. By David Climenhaga

Weeks before the 2019 election of Kenney’s UCP, our Will McMartin explicitly tied Alberta’s fate to B.C., showing how Kenney’s promised budget-slashing had failed in this province under Gordon Campbell. Albertans were fairly warned:

Jason Kenney’s Tax Cut Logic Failed Next Door. Here Are the Numbers
Should Albertans believe axing corporate taxes ‘pays for itself’? It cost BC billions. By Will McMartin

Also just before the election, our Geoff Dembicki, raised in Alberta, investigated the dangerous games Kenney was playing with right-wing extremists:

‘Footsy with Freaks’: How Kenney Makes Room for Bigots in His Party
In Alberta, many fear a UCP win on April 16 will threaten their rights and safety. By Geoff Dembicki

After the UCP won government, Dembicki documented the new premier’s dismantling of programs designed to help the very oil patch workers Kenney claimed to champion:

Alberta Created a Way to Help Fossil Fuel Workers. Kenney Is Wrecking It
Coal workers promised transition pay are left hanging. By Geoff Dembicki

Fast forward to the pandemic and the obligation provincial leaders faced to protect workers from contagion. Our contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk, who lives much of his time in Alberta, took readers inside the Kenney government’s abject failure to meet the challenge, by documenting the deadly conditions in the province’s meat-packing plants:

Alberta’s Meat Plant Workers Share Their Fears and Anger
As Cargill prepares to reopen, voices from the frontlines of Canada’s largest COVID-19 outbreak. By Andrew Nikiforuk

Ignoring US Alarms, Alberta Meat Packers Spawned Canada’s Biggest Outbreak
As the virus gripped US plants, the union pleaded for a shutdown. They were rebuffed. By Andrew Nikiforuk

Then, as if under cover of pandemic, Kenney and his crew tried to sell coal strip mining rights to foreign interests, quietly erasing protections for Alberta’s fragile Rocky Mountain eastern slopes established nearly a half century before. Nikiforuk’s acclaimed investigations are credited with playing a key role in stopping the attempt. They are gathered in this piece:

Alberta’s Coal Mining Reversal: These Tyee Pieces Tell the Tale
Andrew Nikiforuk’s investigative coverage preceded the public outcry and never let up. Here are 13 key articles. By Andrew Nikiforuk

Did Nikiforuk in The Tyee really stop Kenney’s coal ambitions? Here’s University of Alberta political scientist and head of the Alberta Wilderness Association Ian Urquhart:

"Andrew Nikiforuk's sustained, detailed coverage of the politics of coal in Alberta was central to the birth and growth of an environmental opposition to a provincial government never seen before in Alberta. With respect to the Kenney government's decision to rescind the 1976 coal policy, Nikiforuk was the first journalist to pay serious attention to the issue” and for long, key stretches “the only journalist covering this story. His work pre-dated and informed the Protect Alberta's Rockies and Headwaters Facebook group which grew within a few months to have more than 35,000 members. His coverage in 2021 very likely forced the government to create the Coal Policy Committee,” which marked Kenney’s coal agenda reversal.

Nikiforuk focused, as well, on Kenney’s caving to anti-science opponents of basic health measures other provinces were adopting to halt the exponential spread of COVID in its early phases, both before vaccines existed and during the all-important effort to inoculate as many people as possible. He did not hold back:

Jason Kenney’s Lethal Negligence
His decisions have led to hundreds of deaths. Who will hold him accountable? By Andrew Nikiforuk

Resign, Kenney, Resign
A political arsonist who sets his provincial house on fire three times is not fit to hold public office. By Andrew Nikiforuk

What Nikiforuk and others at The Tyee understand is that Albertans pride themselves on their work ethic and sense of self-reliance. Ranching, mining, oil and gas extraction — they are woven into the social fabric of the province. And the world is changing. The question our reporters and columnists have regularly posed is this: What if Albertans had a political leader who spoke difficult truths and sought creative solutions? What great strides might the province make?

Jason Kenney, as documented again and again in The Tyee, instead ducked the realities facing Alberta. He used his bullying power to tip the scales for the fossil fuel industry rather than helping to reinvent Alberta’s future.

Geoff Dembicki debunked Kenney’s false free-marketer credentials in this in-depth piece:

The Emperor Kenney’s New Clothes
The pandemic has exposed his contradictory claims and true priority. By Geoff Dembicki

Calgarian journalist Taylor Lambert detailed the ruthless political culture Kenney attempted to impose on his adopted province:

This Is ‘Kenneyism’
How the unpopular premier’s recipe of intimidation, disinformation and sweeping new laws is transforming Alberta’s culture. By Taylor Lambert

Ben Mussett profiled the Kenney government’s dismantling of harm reduction measures that put ideology over practical steps to preserve lives:

Alberta’s Grassroots Fight against Overdose Deaths
How an army of volunteers formed to save harm reduction from Jason Kenney’s rollback. A Tyee special report. By Ben Mussett

And more than two years ago, as the pandemic arrived, oil prospects plunged, and Alberta, like all of Canada, looked to Ottawa for support, Tyee contributing editor Michael Harris correctly deduced the jig was up for Jason Kenney:

Game Over for Kenney
Jason’s ace? There was always the federal government to bash. Not anymore. By Michael Harris

As The Tyee posted all this journalism, a funny thing happened. Our readership among Albertans climbed steeply. It’s nothing we consciously set out to achieve, but we’re very happy to welcome those new thousands of visitors we now receive. In fact, we are considering creating an Alberta-focused e-newsletter. If that sounds like something you’d like us to pursue, please let us know in the comments below.

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And so let us return to that day in April 2020 when Jason Kenney saw fit to lecture the press corps in Calgary on which questions members were not allowed to ask. Why did he believe Alberta’s media could be spoken to that way?

The questions Kenney deemed petrostate treason are exactly the sort a reporter from The Tyee would naturally pose to anyone in power.

Politicians come and go. Jason Kenney is but the latest one to prove it. But Canadians — Albertans included — deserve independent news media that is built to last.

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