Jason Kenney is taking aim at Al Gore after the former U.S. vice-president said Alberta's oilsands treat the environment like an "open sewer."
Kenney, who is running to lead Alberta's new United Conservative Party, posted a video on his Facebook page skewering Gore for comments he made last week in an interview with Toronto's CP24.
"The world becomes steadily more aware of how dangerous it is to keep loading up the sky with this global warming pollution, using the sky as an open sewer. We can't do that anymore," Gore told the outlet in a response to a question about the oilsands, according to affiliate BNN.
Kenny bashed Gore in his online diatribe as someone who "defines the meaning of hypocrisy."
"Vice-president Gore has a swimming pool at one of his homes that consumes as much power in a year as the average American household uses in four years," Kenney says, citing a recent report by The National Center For Public Policy Research, a conservative American think tank. The organization says in its environmental policy it is firm in the belief that "private owners are the best stewards of the environment."
Kenney slams Gore for having the "temerity" to criticize Alberta's energy industry while taking trips on private jets between his multiple properties and to environmental conferences.
The Alberta politician even wades a bit into the current diplomatic crisis engulfing the Arab Gulf.
After he accuses Gore of becoming "hugely rich" with his "documentaries and lectures attacking Canada," Kenney bashes Gore's sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera in 2013. The Qatar-funded broadcaster used it to start up Al Jazeera America, a short-lived channel that shut down in 2016.
"They're so bad that they've actually now been blacklisted and embargoed by Saudi Arabia," he says, referring to the economic blockade imposed on Qatar.
Gore sees Albertans as 'boy scouts': Kenney
Gore also used the "open sewer" remark to criticize Alberta's oilsands four years ago, to the ire of then-natural resources minister Joe Oliver.
"Well, he's off the mark," Oliver told The Globe and Mail at the time. He accused Gore of making "wildly inaccurate and exaggerated comments."
More from HuffPost Canada:
Kenney postulates in his Facebook clip that Gore and his "fellow travellers" bash Alberta's energy industry because they "see us as Boy Scouts." He says that's why the province needs a strong government that will fight back and tell the "truth" about "hypocrites like Al Gore."
"So, I'm sorry Mr. Gore," Kenney says at the end of his video, "how about you sell two of your three homes, how about you shut down that swimming pool, how about you start to practice what you preach before you criticize the hardworking women and men of Alberta?"
Also On HuffPost: