Justin Trudeau: A New Voice for Big Oil
Justin
Trudeau has a lot of heart. But it will take time for him to develop his policy
positions. He is the voice of a new generation, promising a fresh alternative
to the sinister machinations of the Harper Conservatives.
Justin is
big on vision: details to follow.
Something
like this is the party line about Justin. The party line is hot air.
In fact,
Justin wrote a substantive policy piece in the National Post a few months back,
wherein he endorsed the plan of Nexen executives to sell out the company to the
Chinese government. It was a bit of a mystery at the time. Why would this young
visionary choose cheerleading for the agenda of a tar sands oil company as his
very first substantive policy position?
This
month, when Justin named Cyrus Reporter as his Chief of Staff, it all started
to make sense. Cyrus had already been on Justin's team for many months. He was
on Justin's team when Justin wrote the National Post column.
Cyrus
Reporter has for years been a paid lobbyist for several big oil companies, including
– quelle surprise! – Nexen.
Cyrus
also lobbied for several years for Syncrude. Remember the hundreds of ducks
that died in a tar pond in 2010? That was Syncrude. Cyrus also lobbied for BP
(remember the Gulf of Mexico?).
Justin is
no big-hearted naif. He has announced a very concrete policy position about tar
sands oil interests. And, in Cyrus Reporter, he has a slick (no pun intended)
operator as his right hand man.
The Big Oil execs can rest easy. If Justin rides his middle-aged charm into the Prime
Minister's Office, they can count on a serious Big Oil thinker backed by
sophisticated Big Oil operatives.
In other
words, Big Oil can count on nothing much changing.
Here is a
link to Justin’s column in the National Post:
Here
is a story about Justin naming Cyrus his Chief of Staff:
Here
is a list of the lobbyist Cyrus Reporter’s clients, from a government website:
