Conservative candidate tells CBC that renewable energy supporters are “extremists”

Holy black-and-white logic, Ron Liepert!

Liepert, a former Alberta Energy Minister and Conservative candidate for Calgary Signal Hill in the upcoming 2015 election, delivered a master class in ad hominem reasoning this week for listeners of CBC Radio’s The Current.

Debating the Keystone pipeline with Greenpeace Canada’s Keith Stewart, Liepert repeatedly complained of “extreme environmentalists” with “extreme arguments” waging “extreme environmental attacks on Alberta’s oil industry” for calling for a transition to renewable energy sources.

After labelling critics of unsustainable oil and gas development as “extremists” several times, Anna Maria Tremonti finally interrupted Liepert and asked him point-blank: “Why do you call them ‘extreme environmentalists’?”

The aspiring future member of a Harper government (who recently won a heated nomination battle by defeating MP Rob Anders), explained:

“Because individuals like your guest would like to see fossil fuels eliminated across the world. That is simply not going to happen. You know, he lives in this dream world where somehow airplanes are going to fly with solar power, how transit in his city is going to be powered by renewables from wind. This is just a dream world that these extremists live in and we have to face reality. If you were to shut down the oil and gas industry in Canada today — I don’t have the statistics in front of me — but our unemployment rate would probably be pushing 20% in this country. And we’d be living in a dream world that simply cannot exist.”

Perhaps most staggering about Liepert’s comments is the fact that Calgary’s CTrain light rail transit system is actually powered by renewable wind energy. And this magical wind-powered train even stops in the very same riding where Liepert is planning a run in 2015.

But Tremonti pressed further, pointing out Liepert’s “extremist” label is the “same language we use for ISIS.” So Liepert elaborated:

“They don’t look at what is real and what isn’t. They have this extreme view of what the world should look like and it’s not real.”

Listen:

Photo: nikonvscanon. Used under a Creative Commons BY-2.0 licence.