There was a time when being Alberta's man in Washington, D.C. involved golf rounds and cocktail circuits of non-stop fun.
As America's most reliable energy supplier, the province rated a red carpet reception in a national capital thirsting for secure oil.
Not anymore.
Gary Mar is not yet a political pariah, but he's running an Alberta office in the Canadian embassy that's fighting negative perception battles on multiple fronts.
Arguably the brightest cabinet minister to grace former premier Ralph Klein's front bench for more than a dozen years, he's been representing the province in the U.S. capital for less than a year and finds himself under increasing siege by an organized environmental backlash against the Alberta oilsands.
Mar's continuing to fight the threat from a U.S. energy bill that would prohibit federal agencies, including energy gobblers like the air force and post office, from buying oil produced by discharging above-normal emissions such as the oilsands.
He opened a Washington paper last week on the day Senator John McCain was visiting Ottawa to front page headlines that the Republican presidential nominee rates Middle East oil preferable to the "dirty" Alberta oilsands.
He watched this week as U.S. big city mayors pushed for a boycott of tarsands product as environmentally unacceptable energy.
Now the kicker that Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama is talking tough against importing oil that emits excessive greenhouse gases, presumably including oilsands product. (Continued)
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