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Like a cowboy trying to cling to the backside of an ornery steed, it was fitting that the UCP government chose the week of the Calgary Stampede to attempt one of its most daring acts of bravado to date.

Or, if you prefer a different western metaphor, a treacherous two-step that could leave the province spinning in circles.

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How else is there to describe the audacity it takes to launch a public inquiry founded, in part, on the idea that Alberta has been unfairly targeted for its environmental record, and then five days later push ahead with a program that will further weaken the province’s climate change efforts?

Not that anyone in Jason Kenney’s government appears to have a sense of irony about the whole thing, nor even an acknowledgement about the mixed messaging inherent in the two announcements.

But if the idea behind the inquiry and the UCP’s $30-million “war room” is to give Alberta a bigger platform from which to defend its energy sector, the government is doing itself no favours by watering down measures to manage emissions from that industry.