Patrick Moore finds new platform in Regina after city cancels him from conference

http://co2coalition.org/2020/02/13/patrick-moore-finds-new-platform-in-regina-after-city-cancels-him-from-conference/

By Lynn Giesbrecht

After being cancelled from the City of Regina’s sustainability conference, Patrick Moore has found a new platform to speak in Regina the night before the conference begins.

Moore is slated to speak at the Conexus Arts Centre on May 19, and in a Wednesday tweet announcing the talk, he said the venue was booked for him by Rebel Media founder Ezra Levant.

In an email Wednesday, Levant confirmed he has booked the venue.

“Media bullies, environmental extremists and political scolds thought they could deplatform Dr. Moore. We’re re-platforming him — and it looks like he’ll have a far larger audience than before,” Levant said in the email, noting more than 470 tickets have already been sold.

“The incredible response by Reginans shows that Canadians won’t accept political elites telling them who they can or can’t hear from, especially on global warming and related matters. People want to come and judge for themselves.”

Tickets for Moore’s event range from $25 to $2,000 depending on whether you’re looking for general admission or want to be an event sponsor. Most media are required to pay $50 to attend, while entry for CBC, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera and Vice is listed at $250, with a note that “fake news has to pay a little more.”

Moore had initially been scheduled as one of the keynote speakers at the city’s Reimagine Conference on May 20, which is focused on generating meaningful discussions around how to make the city’s facilities and operations 100 per cent renewable by 2050.

On Feb. 7, Coun. Mike O’Donnell told reporters that Moore’s keynote speech had become a detraction to the conference’s purpose and that his talk had been cancelled.

“We’re not hosting a climate change conference and so we feel that we need to refocus,” O’Donnell said at the time, adding that the committee had initially reached out to Moore to talk about “a sustainable energy future.” The committee no longer felt that this was the direction Moore was going with his talk.

After Moore announced his new speaking plan, O’Donnell said he did not have an opinion on the new arrangement and hopes people will “see the value in the conference” for the city instead of letting the speech detract from it.

Shanon Zachidniak, founder of local environmental group EnviroCollective, had been outspoken about wanting Moore removed from the agenda.

After hearing that he will now be speaking at his own event, Zachidniak said this felt much more appropriate.

“While I feel that Patrick Moore’s objective here is to derail the city’s progress on meeting the goals that it set out to be 100 per cent renewable, this is the more appropriate format for him to come speak,” she said.

“Perhaps it’s a good thing that those who want to hear him will now have the opportunity to do so outside of the conference. It’s true, I for sure don’t agree with his belief system, but that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have the chance to say his views. It’s just about whether or not that conference was the appropriate venue for it, and it wasn’t.”

But Zachidniak is concerned that Moore’s speech will increase divisions between Regina residents, preventing the city from having meaningful conversations around sustainability in the future.

“That’s the part that makes me feel disheartened,” she said.

“All of our future is at stake here. Nobody likes it. It’s not convenient for any of us. We don’t have time to sit around arguing about it.”

Levant will be attending Moore’s speech, saying in his email, “I want to be there for what is shaping up to be the largest event of its kind since Dr. Jordan Peterson spoke in Regina.”

He also said re-platforming Moore is a rejection of “the cancel culture that is sweeping our establishment institutions.”

Moore said in an interview in early February that the title of his talk was going to be “Fake invisible catastrophes and threats of doom.”

After learning that the city had cancelled his talk, Moore tweeted, “I have been de-platformed, cancelled, and round-filed by the great City of Regina for daring to question the God-Given wisdom of the catastrophists. Actually, I don’t want to be part of such a stupid exercise. It’s impossible to make a city 100% renewable.”

This article appeared on the Regina Leader-Post website at https://leaderpost.com/news/local-news/patrick-moore-finds-new-platform-in-regina-after-city-cancels-him-from-conference

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