One of the last vestiges of the Kenney-era came to a quiet — and ignominious — end on Tuesday after the UCP government announced it is winding down the former premier’s much vaunted and controversial ’war room’ to counter ‘disinformation’ about Alberta’s oil and gas industry.Critics called it a propaganda tool.In any event, UCP officials confirmed it will be disbanding the Canadian Energy Centre (CEC) — otherwise known as the ‘War Room’ — and bringing it under the auspices of intergovernmental relations, which is overseen directly by Premier Danielle Smith.Ironically, word to fold the CEC tent came while the premier and the core of her energy team — environment and energy ministers Rebecca Schulz and Brian Jean — were delivering remarks to the Global Energy Show in Calgary, Canada’s largest gathering of oil and gas professionals..The premier’s office insisted the CEC will retain its original mandate to disseminate “unbiased” research on the social and economic merits of Alberta’s energy sector in real time.The centre's branding and website will remain the same. Three of six staffers will be retained.However, it will no longer be run as a stand-alone entity with a $30 million budget. Most of the agency's budget is devoted to advertising, of which it spent about $22 million in the 2022 fiscal year.According to a statement from the Energy department: “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 courted controversy almost almost from the get-go when it was established in 2019, first by inadvertently stealing a copyrighted corporate logo and then waging rhetorical battles with the New York Times and the Hollywood producers of the Netflix cartoon Big Foot Family.There was also controversy over whether CEC researchers were journalists or in fact, government employees. The fact that it was incorporated as a stand-alone corporation precluded it from releasing audited financial information like other government departments. .“Danielle Smith could have been focused on building more schools, hiring more doctors, and making life more affordable for Albertans. Instead, the government is wasting their time with an energy war room that’s most famous battle was with a children’s cartoon, and has not improved Alberta’s energy sector in any measurable way,” Al-Gundeid, NDP energy and climate critic.Predictably the opposition NDP crowed over the news.“Danielle Smith could have been focused on building more schools, hiring more doctors, and making life more affordable for Albertans. Instead, the government is wasting their time with an energy war room that’s most famous battle was with a children’s cartoon, and has not improved Alberta’s energy sector in any measurable way,” NagwanAl-Gundeid, the the NDP critic for energy and climate, said in a news release.“Since 2019, the UCP have wasted over $66 million of taxpayer money on this failed war room which could have been invested in more technology to reduce emissions, but instead the UCP funnelled these dollars directly into a partisan office and unmeasurable marketing stunts.”
