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Alberta Politics

Meet Billy Briquette. Alberta War Room launches Ethical Coal Mining cartoon for kids.

Move aside Bigfoot Family, there’s a new cartoon on the block. Meet Billy Briquette!

The Canadian Energy Centre is launching a new cartoon series to educate young Albertans about the virtues of open pit coal mining in the Alberta Rocky Mountains.

Billy Briquette
Billy Briquette

“We’re taking our campaign against Sasquatch Family to the next level,” said CEC CEO Tom Olsen, who appeared at a Thursday morning press conference standing beside a life-sized Billy Briquette mascot.

The 100-episode cartoon series will feature Billy Briquette as he joins his friends Nixy the Wild Horse and Bobby Bitumen as they use teamwork to stop villains ranging from local town councils and country music stars to eco-left European bankers and coal dictators. Billy will also be joined in Episode 37 by his Australian cousin, Hector.

“My friends, for a long time oil has been in the crosshairs of the radical-urban-eco-bohemian-marxist-left and now they are targeting our democratic coal,” said Premier Jason Kenney, also standing uncomfortably close to the smiling life-sized piece of coal.

“Let me be clear, Alberta’s ethical mountain top removal of coal needs a champion and that’s why we’re introducing you to Billy today,” Kenney said.

The cartoon series also received praise from senior Alberta cabinet ministers.

“Changes to the Film and Television Tax Credit make productions like Billy Briquette possible,” said Doug Schweitzer, Alberta’s Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation and director of the Canadian Energy Centre.

“I’m thrilled that productions like Billy Briquette will help drive diversification and provide customers to open pit coal mines across Alberta,” Schweitzer said.

“Alberta – with large coal reserves – is perfectly positioned to continue to offer investment in a stable and ethical democracy,” said Energy Minister Sonya Savage.

“Billy Briquette will showcase this to young Albertans and the investors across the world,” said Savage, who is also serves on the War Room’s board of directors.

Along with a wide variety of branded merchandise, bumper stickers and a theme song performed by Tom Olsen and the Wreckage, the life-sized lump of coal mascot is expected to visit more than 100 Alberta elementary schools in the next year. The cartoon series will be integrated into the new provincial Social Studies curriculum and be mandatory viewing for students in Grades One through Six.

After Netflix declined a proposal to stream the series, it was decided that the $25 million animated production will be viewable exclusively on the Canadian Energy Centre YouTube page. 

Author’s note: Readers will note that today is April 1 and, as the Canadian Energy Centre is exempt from FOIP, we are unable to confirm that plans for the Billy Briquette cartoon series and associated merchandise are in the works.

15 replies on “Meet Billy Briquette. Alberta War Room launches Ethical Coal Mining cartoon for kids.”

I actually started to Google Billy Briquette before I caught on… smh. April fools day isn’t funny anymore

Yes they were, RD, and the judge felt so about the charge that he/she also gave Mr. Nixon pass on a very legitimate charge of threatening a game warden.

Kiddie propaganda is not a laughing matter, obviously, you think otherwise.

So why do progressives think that kiddie propaganda is ok?

It’s not so much mountain top removal as mountain back and sides removal, leaving a tuft or two on top untouched.

Mr. Floatie has retired from service in Victoria. He had nothing to doo-doo. Maybe we could convince him to be the spokespoop for this craptacular cause.

I see the UCP just love to take Alberta as far back as they can. How good would open pit coal mining be for Alberta? If Albertans are okay with a measly 1% royalty rate on coal, (the Alberta PCs gave us this rate, under either Don Getty, or Ralph Klein, and it’s likely the latter who was responsible for this), more selenium contamination than we can handle, giving harm to water tables, wildlife, and the environment in general, making an ugly eyesore out of what once was beautiful mountains, having cheap, temporary labour, while some foreign company laughs all the way to the bank, then it’s a good idea. But reality dictates otherwise. Recently, some type of mining company was penalized for not properly addressing selenium contamination in Canada.The debt loving and foolish spending UCP, can’t look past making their corporate friends richer, at the expense of Albertans. The UCP are at their halfway mark in their term, and they are doing so many very expensive boondoggles, costing Albertans billions. It’s like a condensed form of what the Alberta PCs were doing from the mid to late 1980s, and onwards. The biggest boondoggles. Preservation of the environment is priceless, as one cannot eat money.

had to share this and got quite the response from the folks on the Protect Alberta Rockies page: 94 comments; 68 shares; 216 reactions and quite a few were angry because either they believed it, not sure if they read your article or thought humour on the topic was highly inappropriate. So I’d say your April fools post was very successful. Thanks

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