City of Regina expects to pay about $6,200 for cancelled Patrick Moore speech

Regina city councillor Mike O’Donnell said the city expects to pay over $6,000 for the cancelling a controversial speaker for the city’s Reimagine Conference.

O’Donnell, who is co-chair of the sustainability focused conference along with Councillor Joel Murray, said the city paid a non-refundable $5,700 deposit in December to book Patrick Moore.

Moore is an out-spoken skeptic of man-made climate change, whose booking drew criticism from members of the public.

“The one thing I can’t tell you for sure is the amount, because there’s going to be a tax that we have to pay. We’ve tried in the last couple of days to firm that up. We haven’t gotten a response from the National Speakers’ Bureau, but I’m guessing we’re talking another $500 or $600.”

When Moore was initially cut from the agenda, O’Donnell said the city may have still been on the hook for upwards of $10,000. The city was able to avoid extra fees due to a termination clause in the contract with Moore.

In the contract, Moore’s speech topic is listed as “energy and sustainability – debunk of climate change,” O’Donnell said.

“We had correspondence with the Speaker’s Bureau to make sure we were talking about a change in energy and how we move forward,” O’Donnell said.

“I want to be clear that the word debunk was also in there. We looked past that because that was not the topic we were looking for.”

However, O’Donnell acknowledged Moore would have had the right to talk about debunking climate change as it was in the contract.

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