Imagine being the federal minister in charge of the energy file and skipping a major world conference on a lower carbon that was happening in your own backyard.This isn’t an imaginary scenario, the minister who did this is Jonathan Wilkinson, Justin Trudeau’s minister of natural resources.Wilkinson was a no show at LNG2023 last week despite several attempts to invite him and other senior government leaders. In place of Wilkinson, the world’s leading figure from both the business and government side of the liquified natural gas industry heard from Edmonton MP Randy Boissonnault, Trudeau’s tourism minister.It’s not that Wilkinson would have had to go far, his constituency office is only about 30 minutes away from where the conference was held, it’s just that Wilkinson was too busy — there were scheduling conflicts.
“Unfortunately, there are a couple of domestic and international events that are in conflict with our event,” LNG2023 Executive Director Mel Ydreos explained regarding Wilkinson’s absence.
Key among those domestic events keeping Wilkinson away was his need to campaign for Elliott Weinstein, the Liberal candidate in the Calgary Heritage riding currently in the middle of a byelection. Wilkinson was out there for an event with Weinstein on July 11, the same day he announced funding for an Alberta solar project, while on July 11 he was meeting with a group called Student Energy, a youth climate change movement.
