Alberta government dissolves controversial energy 'war room'
CBC
The Alberta government is shutting down the Canadian Energy Centre — the controversial energy "war room" — and shuffling its duties into a government department.
The office of Brian Jean, minister of energy and minerals, confirmed to CBC that the centre will be integrated into the intergovernmental relations department.
The statement to CBC says that the centre "is an important advocate for Canada and Alberta's long-term position as a safe, clean and responsible energy supplier and will continue to increase the public's understanding of the role oil and gas plays globally in a secure energy future."
"After careful consideration, we will be integrating the mandate of the CEC into Intergovernmental Relations (IGR). Resources such as CEC assets, intellectual property, and researchers will now be supporting IGR in order to seamlessly continue this important work."
The CEC, also known as the "war room," was founded by the Jason Kenney government in 2019 to fight what it called misinformation about the province's energy industry.
Tom Olsen was the CEC's CEO from its founding. He has not yet responded to a request for comment from CBC News.
The centre was established to promote the energy industry and counter what it deemed to be misinformation. Among its actions that grabbed headlines were accusing the New York Times of bias and attacking the makers of a children's film featuring Bigfoot for what it felt was an anti-oil message.
The centre has published a series of articles on its website. Sources contacted for those stories have told media organizations, including The Canadian Press, that staff identified themselves on the phone as reporters.
The Canadian Association of Journalists' then-president Karyn Pugliese said in 2019 that members of the centre should stop calling themselves reporters and described the CEC as a government-hired PR firm.
The centre also had to change its initial logo in 2019 after it was revealed the logo already represents an American tech company.
While the centre was taxpayer-funded, it was designated as a private corporation and exempt from freedom of information legislation, including information regarding expenditures and awards contracts.
The centre operated on an initial $30-million-per-year budget, which was slashed by 90 per cent in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A portion of the centre's funding came from industry fees paid to the government's Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) program. The remaining funding came from money set aside for government advertising campaigns.
The centre's most recent annual report showed it signed a $22-million contract for a media campaign last fiscal year. That was about three times its entire government grant from the previous year.