It’s her burden to bear.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she essentially disbanded the infamous ‘war room’ because it’s her job to take Alberta’s energy fight to Ottawa on her own terms. And while the Canadian Energy Centre (CEC) has provided valuable research and data, at the end of the day she said it was essentially up to her and her government to deliver the message that Alberta will not take Ottawa’s punitive energy policies lying down..“Because when we have a really big battle that we have to fight… I'm the one leading it.”Premier Danielle Smith.On Tuesday the Energy and Mineral department announced the closure of the CEC, ironically on the occasion of Canada’s biggest oil and gas exposition.But Smith told reporters on Wednesday that it was her decision. Half of the existing staff and intellectual property will be rolled into the department of intergovernmental affairs, which is controlled directly by the Premier’s Office.“I can tell you why it's necessary,” she said. “Because when we have a really big battle that we have to fight… I'm the one leading it.”“I think having the moniker ‘war room’ is not is not what they should be doing. They really should be giving good credible research and data on the state of our industry, the state of our emissions reduction and they should leave the fight to me and I'm quite happy to keep that fight going.”The CEC — or ‘war room’ as it came to be known, was set up by former premier Jason Kenney to counter what he called ‘disinformation’ against Alberta’s energy industry.But the message got muddled after a series of controversies involving its logo and rhetorical battles with the New York Times and producers of a children’s cartoon that created misperceptions over its real role in driving the energy debate. In the end, it became a glorified ad agency that was run separate from the government.Critics accused it of being a propaganda vehicle..Smith said the issue came to a head with Bill C-59, which would outlaw ‘greenwashing’ in advertorial messaging. Although Alberta is vehemently opposed to the bill going through the Senate, Smith said it wasn’t clear if the CEC would pass the muster on its onerous terms.“Especially now that the federal government with Bill C-59 is trying to make it illegal for us to celebrate and talk about our industry,” she continued.“I don't even know if if the Canadian Energy Centre would be allowed to talk about some of these things. But fortunately, the Alberta government has an exemption so I'm going to use that exemption. And I'm going to be making sure that at every opportunity I celebrate the things that are going well in our industry.”
