Ex-Greenpeace leader deplatformed from sustainability conference in Regina

Patrick Moore was supposed to be a main speaker at the Energy and Sustainability Conference at the Queensbury Convention Centre this May.

On Friday, Mike O’Donnell announced, at City Hall, that Moore’s speech may take away from the conference. He noted that Moore’s speech was more about climate change and less about the main goal of the conference which is to discuss sustainable energy.

One of the main discussions of the conference is about how to make operations and faculties in the city completely renewable by 2050.

“We’re not hosting a climate change conference and so we feel that we need to refocus,” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell mentioned that they originally contacted Moore asking him to talk about “a sustainable energy future.”

The Regina Leader-Post reported O’Donnell saying, “He has now announced in this last while that he wants to speak about a different topic. I’m not interested in that.”

Today, Moore tweeted, “Pleased to be getting some coverage exposing the City of Regina’s cowardice in de-platforming me. I did not intend to focus solely on climate change in my keynote, but no-one tells me what to say. I am independent and proud of it. I am sad for Canada.”

This week, Moore noted that his talk was called “Fake invisible catastrophes and threats of doom” and he wanted people to listen to the speech before judging it by its title.

O’Donnell said that the city will still be paying Moore for the event due to their contractual agreement. The agreement was to give Moore $10,000 and to cover expenses.

On Friday, O’Donnell said, “We have a contract. We’ll honour our contract.”

“We are just now speaking with the National Speakers Bureau and so we will obviously have some discussions with them but we will honour the contract.”

Moore responded to the announcement on Twitter saying, “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.”