It's wonderful that Ralph Klein and Stephen Harper are working to raise our profile in Washington, but for every silver lining there is a cloud -- and in this case it's a glowering thunderhead named Al Gore.
Last week, Ralph was in the U.S. capital promoting Alberta, and specifically the oil-sands as a reliable source of energy.
This week it was the PM's turn, with a meeting Thursday with birthday boy George Bush, and earlier a working dinner with heavy hitters from the president's cabinet.
It's still news to most Canadians that our country is America's No. 1 source of energy, but the Bush administration knows it and is increasingly interested in Canada -- Alberta in particular -- as a place where oil and gas don't go hand in hand with political instability and anti-Americanism.
The importance of Canada to the U.S. as an energy supplier is not news to former Democratic presidential candidate Gore. Back in January, he accused the oil industry of financing the election of "ultra-conservative" Harper to protect their interests in the oil-sands.
"The election in Canada was partly about the tar sands projects in Alberta," Gore told a crowd at the Sundance film festival in Utah. "The financial interests behind the tar sands poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win the election...and to protect their interests."
Apparently Gore was unaware that Canadian election law caps company donations at $1,000 a year, or that natural resources are controlled by provincial governments and not the feds. But why let facts get in the way of a good smear?
This week he was at it again, using an interview with Rolling Stone magazine to suggest development of the oil-sands is "truly nuts" -- equivalent to a junkie looking for a fix.
"They have to tear up four tonnes of landscape, all for one barrel of oil," moaned Gore. "It seems reasonable, to them, because they've lost sight of their lives."
Well, thanks for that, Al, but I'm guessing most Albertans have a better grip on their lives than a political also-ran who can't get over the fact he lost the presidency to George W.
Gore also has a Michael Moore-style movie out -- An Inconvenient Truth -- that tries to dramatize the eye-glazing greenhouse gas slide show presentation the former Veep has been boring audiences with for two decades (I have had the misfortune to sit through it twice).
Among Gore's more outrageous nose-stretchers in the film is the claim that scientists agree global warming could produce a 20-foot rise in sea level. A 2005 joint statement by the science academies of the Western nations, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, actually estimates a worst-case scenario of 35 inches.
But, again, why bother with facts when you're on a crusade? And Gore is most certainly on one. Despite the fact that the original Kyoto was dead on arrival, and swiftly dumped by his own president, Bill Clinton, he believes we need a Kyoto II to effectively kill developments such as Alberta's oil-sands.
Gore ignores the reality that the countries that signed Kyoto, including Canada, have thus far committed a gargantuan $150 billion to hypothetically reduce the average global temperature by 0.0015 degrees Celsius. At that rate, it would take around 665 years and $100 trillion to reduce it by one full degree Celsius. (Numbers courtesy of JunkScience.com, and official government data.)
If, by some fluke, Gore were to persuade the Democrats to make the same mistake twice and nominate him for the 2008 presidential race, the U.S. Senate would presumably once again prevent him from trashing his own economy.
But who would prevent him from trashing the oil-sands?
"I don't know what he proposes the world run on -- hot air?" wondered Alberta's premier.
Ah, if only. Gore could likely power Fort MacMurray all on his own.
