In 2017, Jason Kenney rode into town on his white horse, acting like one of the Earp brothers trying to bring order to Alberta politics like a modern version of the OK coral. You could almost see the smoke wafting from his six-shooter.
As the new sheriff in town, Kenney promised to bring order to the frontier, John Wayne style.
The promised order never arrived, and the legal shenanigans began before day one.
Kenney was accused of orchestrating another candidate’s kamikaze campaign for the leadership of the United Conservative Party to defeat his rival.
Kenney then turned his guns on a series of “enemies” he blamed for causing Alberta’s woes. His main target, conservation groups, which he labelled “Anti-Albertan.”
Kenney declared he had “undeniable proof that Alberta’s interests are being challenged and thwarted… blocked in and pinned down by well-funded foreign actors who have been waging a long-term campaign to landlock Alberta oil using partisan political tactics and outright misinformation in their campaign of defamation.
Once Premier Kenney launched a Public Inquiry into Anti-Albertan Energy Campaigns supposedly to find the smoking guns, but the proof never materialized.
After two years, four missed extensions, and $3.5 million in tax-payer dollars wasted, Kenney’s Inquiry concluded the 40 targetted groups did nothing “in any way improper or constitutes conduct that should be in any way impugned.”
Kenney had his guns fully loaded to shoot bandits. The only problem, the Inquiry concluded there were no outlaws.
But that didn’t stop Kenney. He unleashed his Gattling gun anyway. Kenney tweeted lies about the Inquiry’s findings, saying that “foreign-funded misinformation campaigns to landlock Alberta resources caused untold hardship for thousands of energy workers and their families. Today, we released a report that shines a light on these coordinated efforts to harm our province.”
But the Inquiry report found no such thing. The targetted groups were harassed by Kenney’s supporters; some even received death threats.
When asked to retract his lies and apologize, Kenney refused. When targetted groups filed a defamation lawsuit, Kenney hired high-priced outside lawyers to defend his lies.
Kenney’s lawyers raised two arguments in his defence. One, that Kenney wasn’t referring to any of the five groups that sued him, even though they were explicitly referred to in the hyperlinked document. Second, Kenney’s lawyer tried the novel Hyperling Defence.
On May 25th, Madam Justice Avril Inglis of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench shot down both arguments like a Winchester aimed at Kenney’s heart. She ruled that you can’t pretend you didn’t identify someone by not naming them in your remarks yet providing hyperlinks to web pages that identify them.
The case is important because it signals that Canadian politicians can’t use bully pulpits to go after people and groups that criticize them while legally exercising their democratic rights.
It’s un-Canadian for politicians to target critics by (ab)using their government power. It’s un-Canadian to make your political supporters think it’s okay to get violent with people who disagree with them.
And it’s dangerous, too.
The big question is whether Premier Smith will keep wasting Albertans’ money to defend Kenney’s lies. Albertans work hard for their money, and they don’t want it going to fat cat lawyers trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Most people in Alberta are tired of all this fighting. We don’t want our leaders to shoot from the hip; we want our politicians to work together and solve problems without attacking anyone who disagrees with them.
Perhaps it’s time for a change, y’all!
