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For decades, Albertans have heard often from people outside of Alberta that they put too much faith in oil and gas.  The world won't need it forever, after all, as newer and cleaner sources of energy become increasingly viable.  For the time being, the industry is becoming less reliant on human labour, turning instead to advanced machinery and the people who know how to operate it, dimming job prospects for humble tradespeople.  And energy is still a boom-and-bust commodity, which makes resource royalties a poor substitute for more consistent sources of government revenue than, say, a provincial sales tax.  All this would not matter as much if Alberta's government had started pursuing a more diversified economy long ago.

In response, a common refrain is that a province can't simply decide to diversify its economy.  We all know what happens when governments try to plan economies from the top down.  Just create the ideal conditions to do business, and diversification will happen naturally.  Sure, some of those conditions are far beyond anyone's control, such as Alberta's distance from seaports, which makes manufacturing more difficult.  But geography matters less to service-based industries, and service is the direction in which the global economy has been heading for years.

Given this very reasonable rebuttal, you would think Alberta's politicians would do everything possible to attract investment from non-manufacturing sectors or, at least, to avoid actively repelling it.  Yet, in the past week, two major Canadian companies have signaled that increased pro-Wexit sentiment in the province is becoming a major push factor.  The first is Calgary-based airline WestJet, helmed by CEO Ed Sims, who says talk of separation and firewalls feeds into a perception of uncertainty that investors, naturally, prefer to avoid.  The second is Toronto-based online writing platform Wattpad, which chose Halifax over Calgary for its newest office, citing Wexit as a concern in a written statement.

Reactions from Alberta politicians were indignant. Striking back at the British-born Sims, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel released an eight-minute video accusing him of being "super tone-deaf" to the concerns of Alberta energy workers, rejecting his parallels to the economic impact of Brexit and his contention that provincial politics, not just Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is to blame for investor reluctance.  Meanwhile, the office of Alberta Economic Development Minister Tanya Fir struck back at Wattpad, glossing over the company's Wexit comments and accusing them of "looking for government handouts" of the type that the Alberta government previously cancelled, and that the Nova Scotia government was happier to provide.

It is worth noting here that, for all their talk of the greater efficiency of lowering corporate taxes, the government has been happy to offer and extend targeted relief to the energy sector, not to mention targeted promotion.  Fears of an Alberta firewall may be speculative.  The government's blatant favouritism toward one industry is reality.

In both Rempel and the provincial government's view, the best way to support struggling energy workers is threefold: by letting every bit of anti-federal resentment fester without recourse, by disavowing the Alberta government's responsibility for Alberta's market attractiveness, and by doing whatever it takes to restore the oilpatch to its most recent boom state which, somehow, is in their power while diversification is not.  They treat the economy as a zero-sum proposition between energy and everything else, ignoring the possibilities that "everything else" may offer to the underemployed.  And in musing about creating their own versions of programs already offered by Ottawa, they contribute to a reputation for political instability among investors, including those in the very oil and gas industry whose confidence they crave the most.

But I suspect these pols would rather not hear this from me, a Winnipeg-born columnist who now lives in a community that prefers whales to oil.  Let's hear it from the Calgary Herald's Rob Breckenridge:

According to Statistics Canada, 18,000 jobs were lost in Alberta last month.  It's safe to say — depending on how loosely we're defining this term, I suppose — that a "fair deal" with Ottawa would not have saved a single one of them. . . . It would be unfair to blame [Premier Jason] Kenney for the latest jobless numbers, but, at some point, he will and should be held accountable for the state of the economy. . . . let's not let the push for a so-called "fair deal" distract us from what's really needed at the moment: jobs and economic growth.

Photo Credit: Edmonton Journal

Written by Jess Morgan

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


The Canadian Energy Centre, or Jason Kenney's war room, as it is more popularly known, is already a tough institution to define.

Is it a marketing arm of the government?  Is it an attack dog bent on destroying environmental objections to fossil fuel development?  Is it a research institute bent on rooting out inaccuracies in characterization of the Alberta's energy industry?

Premier Kenney assured reporters at the Centre's official launch this week that the CEC will not trample on free speech as it counters what he calls the misinformation campaign promulgated by international forces determined to landlock Alberta's oil and gas.

But it will react quickly to set the record straight with its rapid response unit, using social media and conventional advertising among other platforms.

"The CEC will do it with respect, civility and professionalism," said the premier.

Tom Olsen, the CEC's chief executive officer, says the centre will refute and rebut falsehoods and create a new energy narrative backed up by research and analysis.

He said it will be part new media organization and part think tank research hub.

The messaging, said Olsen, will be positive and uplifting.

Certainly the first YouTube video produced by the CEC is filled with glossy visuals and marketing rhetoric about how clean and responsibly produced Alberta energy is, fuelling prosperity and happiness not just in Canada but around the globe.

Energy Minister Sonya Savage provided a glimpse of the other side of the equation during the press conference, outlining the campaign born 10 years ago in New York City to prevent pipeline progress for Alberta and boasting that she called out National Geographic over a "simply inexcusable" article misrepresenting the industry.

So apparently the tone will be energy industry happy talk mixed with a dash of polarizing conspiracy theory.

Defining the centre has also proved to be challenging even for its own staff.  The just-launched website for the CEC initially called it a Crown corporation.  Twitter jumped immediately on that inaccuracy which yielded a correction reading "In fact, it is a provincial government corporation."

The distinction is important because the government is walking into controversial and mirky territory by constituting the centre as a private institution so it won't be subject to the accountability of freedom of information requests.

According to a CTV report, Savage earlier in the week said the centre would be open to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, but was quickly contradicted by the premier's press secretary on that point.

Funding of the centre seems relatively clear.  Kenney says $10 million of the $30 million annual price tag is actually repurposing of existing government marketing money.  The other $20 million will come for the government's levy on heavy greenhouse gas emitters, called TIER.

The CEC website says: "The CEC is a provincial corporation under the financial administration act that will largely be funded by Alberta's energy industry, through the new Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) fund."

Technically the industry may be providing that funding, but it feels like a bit of a blurring of industry and government in terms of who is actually responsible for the centre.

How will the government know if the centre is doing its job?  Kenney told reporters public opinion will be polled from time to time, presumably on whether attitudes are changing to the oil sands and Alberta's oil and gas in general.

He admitted the outcome of some of the centre's mission will be difficult to measure.  In any case, the government has committed to the CEC at least four years into the future in the provincial budget.

Olsen says the centre will ramp up its hiring as time goes on but didn't hazard an estimate on how many staff it will eventually have.

The war room isn't Alberta's first attempt at spinning its version of resource development.  Ten years ago the Ed Stelmach government also launched a lower key program to correct what it considered unfair or incorrect media stories about the province.  The NDP government under Rachel Notley launched a wide ranging media and billboard campaign across Canada about how much Alberta's resources contribute to Canada's economy and job growth.

Kenney says none of the efforts to date have been as sustained, well resourced or ambitious as the Canadian Energy Centre.

However it is defined, the centre, fuelled with $30 million of industry and individual taxpayers' money, will fairly quickly be advertising, amplifying and tweeting the government line on the virtues of Alberta's resource industry.

And that will raise the really big question in the entire exercise — will the intended audience believe the message?

Photo Credit: jwnenergy.com

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.