UPDATE: Fire Mark Cameron billboard unveiled in Alberta
May 17, 2019: We've rolled out our Fire Cameron billboard just south of Leduc, Alberta along the side of Highway 2 — and it looks magnificent!
UPDATE: Mark Cameron, in his own words: Carbon tax won't change climate
May 6, 2019: The appointment of Mark Cameron from the carbon tax lobby group, Canadians for Clean Prosperity, flies in the face of the anti-carbon tax, pro-business agenda that swept Jason Kenney and his UCP into power in Alberta just a few short weeks ago.
But that was me making the case.
Today I'll let Mark Cameron tell you why Mark Cameron shouldn't be working for an anti-carbon tax government.
FIRE CAMERON!
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has been on the job less than a week, and he's already assembled one of the most competent provincial cabinets I have ever seen.
That said, I’m very concerned about who he has chosen to be his Deputy Minister of the Policy Coordination Office.
Jason Kenney needs to replace Mark Cameron immediately, and we need to push Kenney in the right direction.
Cameron is one of Canada's leading pro-carbon tax propagandists.
Until two weeks ago, he was the executive director of Canadians for Clean Prosperity.
Cameron has also held positions at BlackBerry and Ontario Power Generation.
Over a decade ago, he worked in Stephen Harper's office in a policy and research capacity.
He sounds like a pretty decent conservative until you get to the Canadians for Clean Prosperity stuff — but they’re a nonprofit that tries to sell the idea of carbon taxes to conservatives by calling it a market-based solution to pollution. (That's corporate PR talk for a wealth transfer tax — one that does nothing but punish ordinary Canadians for their lifestyle choices).
While working at Canadians for Clean Prosperity, Cameron even penned an op-ed for Maclean's, attacking Doug Ford for fighting back against the federal government's carbon tax. While Albertans were fighting through a recession made much worse by an NDP carbon tax, Cameron was scribbling out garbage like that.
Then there’s the matter of who Cameron appointed to the Canadians for Clean Prosperity board of directors: Bruce Laurie.
Laurie is the president of the Ivey Foundation, which is a major donor to the Tides Foundation Canada. He also sits on the board of directors at the vehemently anti-coal organization, Physicians for the Environment, and served on the advisory board of Catherine McKenna's eco-fiscal commission.
Once Kenney became premier, it became the job of us here at The Rebel to make sure that Jason Kenney keeps his campaign promises and stays conservative. All the forces acting on him right now are pulling him to the left.
It’s my job to remind Kenney why you elected him. He was elected to repeal the carbon tax, and he's been openly advocating for an investigation into the often foreign-funded groups that have been allowed to sabotage the oil and gas sector, the kind of interference Cameron’s own board of directors funded through Ivey.
In fact, Jason Kenney told exactly that to a Senate hearing on Monday in Edmonton about Justin Trudeau's tanker ban. Yet on the very same day, he was also appointing Mark Cameron, the kind of person Jason Kenney promised to weed out of government, to inoculate our government against, and not infect our government with.
Was there no one else from Alberta available who could have been hired as the Deputy Minister of Policy Coordination?
Luckily for us, Jason Kenney seems to be the kind of politician who actually listens to the people who voted for him. I think he is receptive to constructive criticism from his own side.
So, here's what I want you to do:
First, I want you to send a polite email to the premier's office, asking Jason Kenney to find somebody better, more aligned with the values that sent him to the premier's office. No swears — and please don't be rude. Just let Jason Kenney know how you feel about his appointment of Mark Cameron.
Here's the email: [email protected].
Secondly, I have a petition, calling on Premier Jason Kenney to replace Mark Cameron with someone who doesn't have a long history of supporting NDP and Liberal policies on carbon pricing.
You can sign that petition below.
I'll hand deliver it to the premier's office, provided they let me in the door!
Let’s send a message to Premier Kenny that Albertans have zero tolerance for a carbon tax, no matter who is pushing it.