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In a way, it’s almost unfortunate that the NDP called for the war room to be shut down, given how politics these days seems to mean never conceding a point to your political opponents. But the inevitable “we told you so” from the NDP will lose a lot of its political sting if the government is seen to be genuinely candid and contrite in acknowledging its mistake and correcting course.

It’s been relatively easy as of late to forget that the centre exists at all, but they were certainly garnering attention last week amid a spate of apologies and deleted tweets.

First was a retweet that showed up on the centre’s Twitter feed, spreading an inaccurate claim about the emissions from the proposed Teck Frontier oilsands mine. When the war room was called out on the tweet, the response was, “Whoops. That was done in error. I was givener this morning and got a little carried away. Sorry about that.”

Now, it’s a little alarming that it’s that easy for false information to be sent out by such a well-funded operation, especially since its stated mission is to counter misinformation about the oil and gas industry. If you dabble in misinformation, it’s a lot harder to lecture others about doing so.

That was followed by a lengthy Twitter thread on the centre’s account in response to a New York Times article about international investors turning sour on fossil fuels. The centre’s response, however, went in several strange directions, enough so that the tweets were deleted and the CEO himself apologized.