By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald
When rational arguments and facts don’t work, sometimes you need to deliver a visual baseball bat to the head.
That’s what Alykhan Velshi has created — seven grand-slam hits to knock some sense into the craniums of critics of the single greatest wealth and jobs generator in the country — Canada’s oil and gas industry.
Velshi, a lawyer and a former communications director for federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, has just taken over EthicalOil.org from his friend, Ezra Levant, the author of the book Ethical Oil.
The ads juxtapose grim visuals of the outcome of conflict oil next to cheery photos from Canada’s ethical oil. One ad shows two men with nooses around their necks as they prepare to be hanged for the “crime” of being homosexuals in some Middle Eastern country with the word “persecution” running across the photo on a red banner. Next to it, the arms of two men holding hands with rainbow bracelets and the word “pride” running across the image on a green background.
Another shows a distraught woman in a hijab buried up to her waist with a message that reads, “Conflict oil countries: Women stoned to death,” contrasted next to a smiling photo of Melissa Blake, mayor of Wood Buffalo, Canada’s geographically largest municipality, with the words: “Canada’s oilsands: Woman elected mayor.”
“These ads have been created to remind people of what the choice is,” explains Velshi via telephone from Toronto.
“When they’re thinking about the oilsands, they shouldn’t be comparing the oilsands against some magical, plentiful, renewable, clean fuel that doesn’t exist because at the end of the day when you fill up your gas tank, you’re filling it up with an oil product,” Velshi says.
“When you look at it from that perspective, it’s either ethical oil from Canada and its oilsands and other liberal democracies like the U.S. and Great Britain, or conflict oil from politically oppressive, environmentally reckless countries.”
Put another way, if you’re a woman looking for a mate, it’s not very useful to compare every guy you meet to Superman, because Superman doesn’t exist. It would be nice if he did, but you’ll never get anywhere relationship-wise if you keep waiting around for that perfect, fictional character to fly into your life and sweep you off your feet.
The same thing applies to energy. You’ll never get anywhere as long as you wait around for some “Back to the Future” fuel to power your souped-up DeLorean. You have a choice — it’s either ethical oil or bloody oil; Canadian oil or Saudi oil. Oil that funds terrorism or oil that funds peacekeeping. Oil that fuels conflict in Sudan where indigenous peoples are killed or oil that employs aboriginals.
Indeed, the oilsands employs a lot more than aboriginals and is expected to increase employment almost exponentially over the years.
According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s oil and gas industry employs 500,000 Canadians directly and indirectly. And while the oilsands only produce about five per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gases — or 0.1 per cent of the world’s GHG emissions — it contributes much more to Canada’s economy, with oil and gas making up one-quarter of the value of the TSX alone.
According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI), oilsands growth will grease the wheels of employment in Canada from 75,000 in 2010 to 905,000 jobs in 2035, with 126,000 of those jobs originating in provinces other than Alberta.
Already, these ads, which appear on EthicalOil.org and on YouTube, are generating a lot of hits and bringing in some PayPal donations.
It’s Velshi’s hope to generate enough funds to buy billboards in Toronto and Montreal and perhaps in Europe, too, which gets most of its oil and gas from Libya, Algeria and other despotic, oppressive regimes.
Velshi says EthicalOil.org will not accept donations from any foreign governments or corporations.
When asked if he thinks his organization is needed because the oil industry and the Alberta government do such terrible jobs defending the oil and gas industry, he doesn’t bite.
“Industry has to speak in the language of industry and government has to speak in the language of government. I don’t. I’m just trying to put the message as starkly and as clearly as possible.”
If the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is the flip side to the environmental group the Pembina Institute, then EthicalOil.org could be compared to more radical groups like Greenpeace or ForestEthics.
Velshi is widely credited with helping the federal Conservatives manage its message in the last election that socked it to the federal Liberals and saw the Tories finally win a majority government.
Whether or not this 27-year-old wunderkind can get past first base against radical environmental groups funded by large foundations and sometimes even masochistic big oil, remains to be seen.
His track record would indicate EthicalOil.org will be hitting homeruns many times and just might eventually drive home the real choice the world must make about its energy buying practices. Instead of regular or super, maybe one day the world will say, fill ’er up with ethical oil, please.
Licia Corbella is a columnist and editorial page editor.lcorbella@calgaryherald.com
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Corbella+Ethical+campaign+aims+silence+critics/5176068/story.html#ixzz1TVfEFbmU
That’s what Alykhan Velshi has created — seven grand-slam hits to knock some sense into the craniums of critics of the single greatest wealth and jobs generator in the country — Canada’s oil and gas industry.
Velshi, a lawyer and a former communications director for federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, has just taken over EthicalOil.org from his friend, Ezra Levant, the author of the book Ethical Oil.
The ads juxtapose grim visuals of the outcome of conflict oil next to cheery photos from Canada’s ethical oil. One ad shows two men with nooses around their necks as they prepare to be hanged for the “crime” of being homosexuals in some Middle Eastern country with the word “persecution” running across the photo on a red banner. Next to it, the arms of two men holding hands with rainbow bracelets and the word “pride” running across the image on a green background.
Another shows a distraught woman in a hijab buried up to her waist with a message that reads, “Conflict oil countries: Women stoned to death,” contrasted next to a smiling photo of Melissa Blake, mayor of Wood Buffalo, Canada’s geographically largest municipality, with the words: “Canada’s oilsands: Woman elected mayor.”
“These ads have been created to remind people of what the choice is,” explains Velshi via telephone from Toronto.
“When they’re thinking about the oilsands, they shouldn’t be comparing the oilsands against some magical, plentiful, renewable, clean fuel that doesn’t exist because at the end of the day when you fill up your gas tank, you’re filling it up with an oil product,” Velshi says.
“When you look at it from that perspective, it’s either ethical oil from Canada and its oilsands and other liberal democracies like the U.S. and Great Britain, or conflict oil from politically oppressive, environmentally reckless countries.”
Put another way, if you’re a woman looking for a mate, it’s not very useful to compare every guy you meet to Superman, because Superman doesn’t exist. It would be nice if he did, but you’ll never get anywhere relationship-wise if you keep waiting around for that perfect, fictional character to fly into your life and sweep you off your feet.
The same thing applies to energy. You’ll never get anywhere as long as you wait around for some “Back to the Future” fuel to power your souped-up DeLorean. You have a choice — it’s either ethical oil or bloody oil; Canadian oil or Saudi oil. Oil that funds terrorism or oil that funds peacekeeping. Oil that fuels conflict in Sudan where indigenous peoples are killed or oil that employs aboriginals.
Indeed, the oilsands employs a lot more than aboriginals and is expected to increase employment almost exponentially over the years.
According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s oil and gas industry employs 500,000 Canadians directly and indirectly. And while the oilsands only produce about five per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gases — or 0.1 per cent of the world’s GHG emissions — it contributes much more to Canada’s economy, with oil and gas making up one-quarter of the value of the TSX alone.
According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI), oilsands growth will grease the wheels of employment in Canada from 75,000 in 2010 to 905,000 jobs in 2035, with 126,000 of those jobs originating in provinces other than Alberta.
Already, these ads, which appear on EthicalOil.org and on YouTube, are generating a lot of hits and bringing in some PayPal donations.
It’s Velshi’s hope to generate enough funds to buy billboards in Toronto and Montreal and perhaps in Europe, too, which gets most of its oil and gas from Libya, Algeria and other despotic, oppressive regimes.
Velshi says EthicalOil.org will not accept donations from any foreign governments or corporations.
When asked if he thinks his organization is needed because the oil industry and the Alberta government do such terrible jobs defending the oil and gas industry, he doesn’t bite.
“Industry has to speak in the language of industry and government has to speak in the language of government. I don’t. I’m just trying to put the message as starkly and as clearly as possible.”
If the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) is the flip side to the environmental group the Pembina Institute, then EthicalOil.org could be compared to more radical groups like Greenpeace or ForestEthics.
Velshi is widely credited with helping the federal Conservatives manage its message in the last election that socked it to the federal Liberals and saw the Tories finally win a majority government.
Whether or not this 27-year-old wunderkind can get past first base against radical environmental groups funded by large foundations and sometimes even masochistic big oil, remains to be seen.
His track record would indicate EthicalOil.org will be hitting homeruns many times and just might eventually drive home the real choice the world must make about its energy buying practices. Instead of regular or super, maybe one day the world will say, fill ’er up with ethical oil, please.
Licia Corbella is a columnist and editorial page editor.lcorbella@calgaryherald.com
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Corbella+Ethical+campaign+aims+silence+critics/5176068/story.html#ixzz1TVfEFbmU
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