Worst Travel Agent Ever: Part Two

It's hard for me to sit here and celebrate anything that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has done after he gutted the post-secondary education system's grants and contributions that the government had made for years, leading to the eventual suspension of the hockey programs in Lethbridge as they look to find funding while Alberta has opted out of this abbreviated season. I generally don't like piling on top of people after they've already made some rather amazing errors in leadership like Kenney did when he posted this ridiculous video to his social media in an attempt to convince the NHL to pick Edmonton as a restart hub city, but more news came out today that Jason Kenney's choice of video might have been one of the all-time stupidest blunders by a government leader in the history of sports.

Tonight, a woman by the name of Lori Andrews posted the following comment on Twitter. From Lori's brief biography on the social media site, she's an "insanely happy interior designer and photographer" whose work you can see here.

A tiny update on the ridiculous “Edmonton” NHL video tweet by our dubious Premier- it was an unauthorized use- payment is being sought

— Lori Andrews (@designertweets) June 28, 2020

You mean to tell me that the video Jason Kenney used wasn't even produced by his government? Worse yet, he took them without asking, didn't credit the video team, and used them without payment, credit, or permission? That's a serious allegation, but it seems Miss Andrews has the evidence needed to make a claim, so let's dig into this.

You might be wondering where Kenney lifted the video from since Miss Andrews' tweet doesn't give much reference. Well, another gentleman stepped up to the plate and delivered a clutch hit when Joseph Shea, a musician and mountain-loving climate observer, dropped this little video as a reply to Miss Andrews after he recognized the vocal artist on Kenney's video as Ellen Braun who is part of his band!

This video was produced by Pursuit Collection and posted to their YouTube channel on July 11, 2019! Pursuit, as their YouTube bio reads, "is about our extraordinary life journey and the memories we create together along the way. We are a collection of leading experiential adventure experiences in iconic destinations in Alaska, Montana, Western Canada and coming in 2019, Iceland."

Now compare that video to the one that Kenney posted on his social media five days ago to entice the NHL.

It seems as though there are different videos spliced together from the "Banff Jasper" collection of videos that Pursuit did for their own business that Kenney is trying to pass off as his own! What exactly is going on at the Alberta legislature where Jason Kenney doesn't even vet the videos he's putting out on his social media? Why is this guy being allowed to lead anything when he legitimately stole video from Pursuit and passed it off as his own?

This is legitimately plagiarism - he stole copyrighted work done by someone else and passed it off as his own. Yes, there likely was some staff member who produced the video and didn't tell Kenney that he or she had stolen and spliced the video, but Kenney is still responsible for vetting the video if he's tweeting it out as an official video from him. This is basic work that clearly his government has little regard for or care to do after his first copyright fiasco led to a second copyright fiasco over stolen logos.

For all that he promised, Jason Kenney is an unmitigated disaster in office. From destroying the post-secondary education system to these repeated, flagrant copyright violations, this Alberta UCP government might go down as the worst in the province's history.

If Vancouver doesn't want the NHL games played there by choice, Edmonton should now lose the right to host the games as punishment for stealing someone else's work. The video was ridiculous at first, but with this new wrinkle in the story it just got criminally bad. That kind of behaviour deserves punishment, not reward, and the NHL should consider this when deciding on its western hub city.

If you're caught cheating, you don't get to win. Do the right thing here, NHL, and eliminate Edmonton from the hub city competition for this grand display of outright stupidity.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!