Ezra Levant: Advocacy Group

Peter Kent Dept: The ad was produced by EthicalOil.org, an advocacy group that was the brainchild of Conservative activist Ezra Levant and was founded by Alykhan Velshi, a former aide to Mr. Kenney, according to Globe and Mail. In hiring a law firm to complain about an attack ad, the Saudis have thrown oil on the fire and the offending ad ran on the Oprah Winfrey Network in Canada, and is now appearing on SUN TV, but a planned run on CTV s Newsnet was cancelled due to legal concerns after a lawyer for the Saudis wrote a letter of complaint. Oil-industry executives and Conservative government ministers, including Environment Minister Peter Kent, have echoed the ethical-oil argument, popularized in Mr. Levant s book, Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada s Oil Sands. Environmental organizations, meanwhile, have mounted high-profile protests aimed at stopping the expansion of oil-sands imports to the U.S. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.