Jason Kenney Dropped A Will Smith & Chris Rock Meme In His Calls To Scrap The Carbon Tax

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney dropped a meme of actor Will Smith appearing to hit the comedian Chris Rock as part of a series of tweets calling for the federal government to scrap the carbon tax.

Kenney shared the meme of the incident which took place at the Oscars 2022 on Sunday night. The photo showed Smith labelled "reality" appearing to hit Rock, who was labelled as "green energy policies".

Twitter users had some thoughts on Kenney's use of the meme to convey his point.

"Somebody got some poor Twitter advice today," one user joked.

"Had to double-check if this was real Kenney. I'm shocked that a minister would find this amusing," another user said.

Another added: "The number of bad decisions that had to be made for this to be created and tweeted by this account is staggering. Yet here it is."

Some users opted to flip the meme back to talk about the impact of climate change and the upcoming leadership review Kenney is facing.

Kenney also shared a joint letter alongside Saskatchewan's Premier Scott Moe and Manitoba's Premier Heather Stefanson calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to temporarily suspend the federal carbon tax due to "skyrocketing energy costs" across Canada.

The premiers talked about the impact of Russia's attack on Ukraine, as well as the pandemic and inflation levels that had "placed considerable financial stress on families and businesses".

"While we all recognize the importance of addressing climate change, the current exigent circumstances [...] mean that now is not the time to be further increasing energy costs for Canadians," the Premiers wrote.

"We are therefore calling on your government to temporarily suspend the federal carbon tax to provide the relief that Canadians need and deserve."

Earlier this month, Alberta announced it would scrap fuel tax from April 1 to combat high prices, meaning that gas prices for people in Alberta would be 13 cents a litre cheaper.