Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told oil executives that environmental groups might think twice about exercising their right to protest if Alberta took a firmer approach, citing Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin as one example.
In a fiery but carefully-worded speech to oil executives at the Oil Sands Trade Show in Fort McMurray Tuesday, Kenney worked to encourage resentment and animosity between business leaders and environmentalists.
"They figure they could push us around, that we were the weakest kid in the school yard," Kenney told the oil executives. "You know what happens in the school yard? The bully normally picks on the kid who doesn't push back."
Kenney was promoting controversial plans to create a $30 million "war room" and launch a public inquiry targeting environmental groups, when he cited examples of autocratic regimes known to jail or murder their critics in an apparent attempt to explain why Alberta needs to get tougher with environmentalists.
The Premier shared one anecdote, claiming Putin sends environmentalists to prison camps in Siberia and are never seen again — Kenney suggested he wouldn't advocate doing that in Canada, but underlined his belief that Putin's approach to dealing with environmentalists is very "instructive"