{"id":26728,"date":"2017-10-11T20:27:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T01:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26728"},"modified":"2017-10-11T20:27:02","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T01:27:02","slug":"how-oil-hijacked-albertas-politics-behind-the-curtain-with-former-liberal-leader-kevin-taft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26728","title":{"rendered":"How Oil Hijacked Alberta\u2019s Politics: Behind the Curtain With Former Liberal Leader Kevin Taft"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmog.ca\/2017\/10\/11\/how-oil-hijacked-alberta-s-politics-behind-curtain-former-liberal-leader-kevin-taft\">How Oil Hijacked Alberta\u2019s Politics: Behind the Curtain With Former Liberal Leader Kevin Taft<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-12201 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-bimage field-type-image field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmog.ca\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/Oil%27s%20Deep%20State%20Kevin%20Taft%20Alberta%20DeSmog%20Canada_0.JPG?itok=C0-Uln8t\" alt=\"Oil's Deep State Kevin Taft Alberta DeSmog Canada\" width=\"826\" height=\"551\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"new-horizontal-social-bar clearfix\">For decades, Kevin Taft has served as a thorn in the side of Alberta\u2019s provincial\u00a0government.<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>In his new book, Taft, who served as a Liberal <span class=\"caps\">MLA<\/span> between 2001 and 2012, and as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party \u2014 the province\u2019s official opposition \u2014 between 2004 and 2008, maintains his\u00a0course.<\/p>\n<p><em>Oil\u2019s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming \u2014 in Alberta, and in Ottawa<\/em> is a controversial\u00a0read.<\/p>\n<p>Notably the book implicates the Alberta <span class=\"caps\">NDP<\/span>, which was elected in 2015 with promises to challenge the sector\u2019s dominance over political processes. To help explain why that didn\u2019t happen, Taft deploys concepts of institutional capture and deep state \u2014 a term used when institutional capture occurs with several different entities and is maintained for a long\u00a0time.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a challenging and insightful read, one that will likely spark many debates about how we talk and think about the oil and gas\u00a0sector.<\/p>\n<p>DeSmog Canada chatted with Taft about the\u00a0book.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What inspired you to write <em>Oil\u2019s Deep State<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When you\u2019re in the middle of action in politics, you don\u2019t necessarily see the bigger picture. You\u2019re fighting the local\u00a0battles.<\/p>\n<p>After I left politics in Alberta, I was invited to go to Australia to talk about the effect of the fossil fuel industry on democracy, because they have some real concerns there. That prompted me to begin reflecting on my own\u00a0experience.<\/p>\n<p>Essentially, the book is an account of the collision between the oil industry and global warming, and how democracy is caught in the middle of\u00a0that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How Oil Hijacked Alberta\u2019s Politics: Behind the Curtain With Former Liberal Leader Kevin Taft For decades, Kevin Taft has served as a thorn in the side of Alberta\u2019s provincial\u00a0government. In his new book, Taft, who served as a Liberal MLA between 2001 and 2012, and as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party \u2014 the province\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1082,103,5317,13836,16437,637],"class_list":["post-26728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-alberta","tag-canada","tag-desmog-blog","tag-james-wilt","tag-kevin-taft","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26729,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26728\/revisions\/26729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}