UCP’s ‘war room’ takes on Netflix, claims anti-oil Bigfoot is ‘brainwashing’ kids
War Room #WarRoom
To Alberta’s Canadian Energy Centre “war room,” it’s a big hairy deal warping the minds of children.
But for others, the centre’s attacks on the Netflix Canada movie Bigfoot Family for alleged slurs against the oil and gas industry are another oversized stride deeper into embarrassment.
The energy centre has launched a campaign inviting the public to censure Netflix Canada for airing the animated family film it says unfairly demonizes the province’s petroleum sector by featuring a scheme to blow up a valley to extract oil.
“Clean oil? You’ve got to be kidding me,” says one character in the movie first released last summer that features Sasquatch as a family’s father.
“So much for no environmental impact.”
The family’s members then heroically resist an oil company’s destructive operations in Alaska.
The energy centre said the film’s message is dangerously directed at younger, impressionable audiences.
“Our children are the key to the future — but they can’t succeed if they’re filled with misinformation … brainwashing our kids with anti-oil and gas propaganda is just wrong — and Netflix needs to know that,” states a page on the centre’s website, which invites the public to express disapproval to the streaming service by email.
The web page said that by noon Friday, more than 1,200 people had done just that, adding the Canadian petroleum industry’s record of environmental sustainability is among the world’s best.
But in a tweet on Friday, Andrew Leach, a University of Alberta energy and environmental economist, ridiculed the centre’s campaign as a display of insecurity.
“Canadian oil and gas boosters are so insecure that they’re worried that a show about Bigfoot might be mistaken for a documentary? Honestly, it’s a show about A BIGFOOT FAMILY and you’re concerned that people might imagine that it’s otherwise completely accurate?”
Overcoming the challenge of attracting investment for the industry isn’t helped by targeting a kids’ movie, said NDP energy critic Kathleen Ganley.
“It’s a bit of an idiotic use of taxpayer money,” she said. “Decisions are made by adult investors and I don’t think this movie does much for them.
“(The war room) has never gotten away from being a maximum embarrassment.”
The energy centre — which produces content to defend Canada’s energy industry and correct what it calls misinformation — had already drawn mockery for its repeated faux pas in creating a logo, its own inaccuracies and attacks on journalists.
The operation’s been budgeted for $4.7 million this fiscal year and $12 million for the next, enough to draw the ire of critics who condemn it as wasteful and counterproductive.
The provincial corporation launched in late 2019 was also taken to task last November by the province’s auditor general for awarding $1.3 million in sole-sourced contracts without justification or documentation.
In a statement, energy centre CEO Tom Olsen said a parent had alerted them to the film and defended confronting Netflix Canada by calling the Bigfoot Family an outrageous and dishonest attack on the oilpatch.
“It villainizes energy workers and disparages the industry’s record on and commitment to environmental protection,” said Olsen.
“We have promoted Indigenous opportunity provided by the energy sector, environmental gains by industry, and consistently release peer-reviewed research pieces on the reality of fossil fuels in Canada and around the world.
“ We intend to continue this important work.”
Ganley said it’s impossible to measure what impact the centre is having on swaying public opinion and attacking a Netflix film doesn’t look promising.
“Lobbying for pipelines is not an invalid thing for a government to do,” said Ganley, adding her NDP government showed tangible results doing that while in power.
“This seems to be aimed in the wrong direction.”
Netflix Canada didn’t return a request for comment.
Critics have also taken aim at the UCP-launched public inquiry into foreign-funded enemies of Alberta’s oilpatch whose deadline has been extended three times — now to May 31 — and its budget hiked to $3.5 million from $2.5 million.
Both UCP fight-back strategies have become political millstones that are nonetheless difficult to escape, said Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt.
“It’s almost as if the war room is trying to embarrass themselves,” he said. “This whole strategy has no wins … there comes a time when they have to fish or cut bait.”
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
on Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn