Kory Teneycke, the vocal biofuels industry advocate who last year became Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s director of communications, is quitting his government post, according to news reports Tuesday from Parliament Hill.
Teneycke, who was a research director for the federal Conservatives before taking the communications job, was executive director of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association from 2003 to 2007.
The Ottawa-based CRFA has previously credited Teneycke with expanding the CRFA’s membership from “a handful of ethanol producers” to include the biodiesel industry and “key players in the petroleum industry.”
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He also “played a pivotal leadership role in the growth and acceptance of renewable fuels in Canada,” the CRFA said when Teneycke left the organization in September 2007.
Teneycke, the group said, helped put Canada’s first national renewable fuel standard in place, requiring five per cent renewable content in gasoline by 2010 and two per cent renewable content in diesel fuel by 2012.
That effort, CRFA said, led to over $2 billion in government incentives to encourage domestic production of ethanol and biodiesel.
Canwest News Service quoted Teneycke, who worked for then-Ontario premier Mike Harris and former federal Reform Party leader Preston Manning before joining the CRFA, as confirming that he “wants to spend more time with his family.”
Toronto’s Globe and Mail said Tuesday that he’s expected to remain with the PMO until a replacement can be found. The paper said his departure now would leave “a significant hole” if the minority Conservative government were forced into a fall election.
