VALLEYVIEW, AB (April 13, 2019): Today, United Conservative leader Jason Kenney announced that a UCP government would obtain legal advice and pursue all possible legal remedies against the foreign-funded Tar Sands Campaign whose explicit goal has been to landlock Alberta oil and gas.



Independent researcher Vivian Krause has detailed how groups like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Hewlett Foundation have poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaign, including funding last year’s Federal Court application that led to a suspension of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion. She has also highlighted that groups like Lead Now and Progress Alberta who are campaigning for the Alberta NDP have received funds from US Tar Sands Campaign donors to landlock Alberta energy.



“We now know that for months Rachel Notley has been sitting on a legal opinion indicating that the Government of Alberta could take action against groups behind the Tar Sands Campaign,” Kenney said. “Some have estimated that Alberta is losing up to $16 billion a year in value from the price discount that results from our oil producers being captive to the US market. This is a direct result of the campaign to landlock Canadian energy supported by the Tar Sands Campaign, which in the last year has succeeded in delaying the Trans Mountain Expansion, Keystone XL, and the Line 3 replacement project.”



In a column published in the Financial Post, Krause reveals that since July 2018 she has sought to work with the Notley government to implement a legal strategy to push back against the Tar Sands Campaign, but that ultimately the NDP decided to do and say nothing to oppose the effort to landlock Alberta oil.



When asked about the memo by a reporter earlier this week, NDP leader Rachel Notley said that such a fight would be “a waste of resources.”



Krause writes that “it is clear to me that Notley will never do what is necessary for any Alberta pipeline project to go ahead… Rockefeller-supported organizations are helping to defeat the UCP, the only political party in the Alberta election that is committed to breaking the U.S. monopoly on Alberta’s overseas oil exports. Does this explain why Notley refuses to stand up to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and its campaign to landlock Canadian oil? Is this why Notley has rarely if ever publicly mentioned the Rockefeller-funded Tar Sands Campaign?”



Kenney said that a UCP government would challenge the groups behind the Tar Sands Campaign. “The NDP is supported by the very same groups that have been fighting to landlock our energy. That’s why they have done nothing and will do nothing to challenge the foreign funded special interests that are attacking our vital economic interests. The jobs crisis in Alberta has been caused in part by the flight of tens of billions of dollars of investment from our oil and gas sector to the booming US energy industry. The NDP has said and done nothing to push back against this campaign that is killing Alberta jobs. That is why I am announcing today that a UCP government would immediately pursue an aggressive legal strategy to hold the Tar Sands Campaign funders to account for what they have done to our province.”



Speaking to hundreds gathered at the pro-resource Rally for the North, Kenney also outlined the broader United Conservative strategy to fight back against the opponents of Alberta’s energy industry, including: