Does Harder support Kenney attack on Netflix kids movie?
By Letter to the Editor on March 25, 2021.
Editor: On 12th May 2020, MP Rachael Harder produced and shared a FaceBook assault on the then Heritage Minister’s attempt to stifle COVID 19 misinformation (according to Harder).
Her main point was to defend free speech.
I am not questioning the correctness of her position, rather I am wondering whether she supports Premier Kenney’s recent denouncement of a children’s animated film depicting allegedly, “big, bad oil”? (“Bigfoot Family”.) All in the interest of “freedom of expression” of course!
Further, the so called Canadian Energy Centre or “War Room” which was founded to counter perceived foreign funding of groups opposing further oil-sand expansion, was complicit in the barrage of negativity toward the film.
Vilifying Netflix because of the film’s contents strikes me as strange and yet, quite comical.
As with most public denouncements of anything (in this case a film), it has precisely the opposite effect.
Remember the religious outrage directed at the “Last Temptation Of Christ” over three decades ago? The film’s box office receipts soared because of the outcry.
“Free speech” is an essential component of democracy and in that I concur with Ms Harder. I therefore hope Ms. Harder and Mr Kenney understand that those opponents of oil sands operations are simply exercising their free speech rights no matter where their funding is sourced from.
Likewise, Netflix is well within its rights to broadcast a family orientated animated film.
So to continue, no doubt Kenney and possibly Harder, will maintain that it is their right to decry in a very public way, their own displeasure with the film’s release.
And “so it goes”. (Courtesy of Kurt Vonnegut.)
John P Nightingale
Lethbridge
-1
These Reformers have made Albertans the laughing stock of the world. Those of us with relatives in other provinces know what they think of Albertans. They have though Albertans were the dumbest people on the planet for their stupid choices in electing fools, like bozo the Klein, now they have the proof.
If you don’t like our great province FC then you need to move east to Toronto and area where you will fit in perfectly with all the Alberta haters!
Yes we are struggling now but will get out of this mess providing we can minimize the gut-punches coming from Ottawa in the form of regulation and Supreme Court of Canada approved taxes! You continue to harp like a endless struggling animal that knows its going to die soon.
it is not about being an alberta hater (you note med issues frequently…look up xenophobe and see if there is a med for that condition. it spread quite broadly among separatists in quebec). it is about being an ignorance and stupidity hater. fortunately, we are seeing more albertans choosing to not be xenophobes. good luck with your growth, j57.
Need to pull your head out of the sand! And quickly before you suffocate! If I can maybe insert Alberta-resource-hater instead! That may very well hone in on the target a little closer for you and FC! In fact maybe both of you could go hand-in-hand on a trip back east where at least one of you came from.
Either way if you don’t like our natural CLEAN resources here then you don’t like Alberta! There is no middle ground for you.
You must also like the ‘clean’ $250 billion liability we’ve accrued for abandoned wells, pipelines, and leaking tailing ponds. Now, that’s a ‘gut punch’ to our future economy.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/02/04/Alberta-Mega-Oil-Gas-Liability/
Well said.
Aren’t we done with the $30 million War Room, yeti?
…particularly now, that The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a federal carbon tax is constitutional. They also mentioned that climate change is real, and that climate change is a federal issue.
“Yeti” indeed! 😆
ha! any chance saskatchewan will choose to catch on to the war room idea…saskwatch…nah, too easy.
The UCP, Alberta’s very own ABominable Snowjob!
smart letter – ty, jpn. having not heard of the bigfoot family release, i likely will never have watched it…but thanks to the war room, it is on my viewing list. (not sure i can agonise through “last temptation…”, though).
jpn makes a particularly great observation: “I therefore hope Ms. Harder and Mr Kenney understand that those opponents of oil sands operations are simply exercising their free speech rights no matter where their funding is sourced from.” put another way, and keeping in mind the oil robber baron legacy – which robbed alberta to nth degree, left behind a lot of money owing, and has left us a considerable and wickedly expensive environmental mess: why is it ok for the ucp and big oil to ooze their pro-oil propaganda, with big money coming from each in support of that cause, but it is not also ok for those opposed to have benefactors, as well?
Now that Kenney has thumbed his nose at our oil executives by trying to stop the carbon tax that the executives fully supported Albertans are once again the big losers. By closing the carbon tax the province has lost billions of dollars and what did these lawsuits cost us?
This guy is another Ralph Klein who as his mother Flo told my mother she didn’t think he was capable of running this province proper and she was certainly right and Kenney isn’t any smarter.