Premier defending energy ‘war room’ after attacking the New York Times

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — Premier Jason Kenney is speaking out about the Canadian Energy Centre’s latest activity after a lengthy thread was sent out on social media in response to a New York Times article.

“They are just two months old, so they are just getting started,” was the Premier’s response at an announcement in Edmonton when asked how good of a job the energy “war room” has been doing.

There were four tweets sent out in a twitter thread in response to a New York Times article about Alberta’s oil sands divestment, calling them bias, anti-semitic, as well as having a dodgy track record.

The head of the $30-million organization, Tom Olsen, issued an apology on his personal twitter page saying it “did not meet CEC’s standard for public discourse.”

I apologize for some of the tweets in @CDNEnergyCentre Twitter thread this am
The tone did not meet CEC's standard for public discourse
This issue has been dealt with internally
There will be a substantive response to the NYT article w/in our mandate of challenging inaccuracies

— Tom Olsen (@TomOlsenXIX) February 12, 2020

Premier Kenney avoided commenting on the CEC’s effectiveness in promoting the energy sector.

RELATED: Alberta energy ‘war room’ chief apologizes for tweets attacking New York Times

“I wouldn’t venture to asses that after just a few weeks,” Kenney said. “We’d be happy to do an assessment once they have had several months of work to achieve that.”

The CEC was launched in December 2019, with the purpose of promoting Alberta’s oil and gas sector.

A Matter of Fact: New York Times article on oil sands divestment misleading, our response here: https://t.co/7XpJvSCPBZ

— Canadian Energy Centre (@CDNEnergyCentre) February 13, 2020

Kenney added big advertising opportunities are on the way for the centre, launching advertising campaigns in the coming week around projects like the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.