AB Today – Daily Report May 21, 2019

Quotation of the day

“This is not an editorial initiative but part of the commercial content part of the business.”

Postmedia spokesperson Phyllise Gelfand defends the media company’s move to hire the UCP’s former campaign director to lobby the new government for a contract to create content for its “energy war room” (via The Globe and Mail).

Today in AB

On the schedule The United Conservative Party’s 63-member caucus will be sworn in this morning at 9:30 a.m.

In the afternoon, MLAs will gather in the chamber to elect the 30th Parliament’s Speaker, deputy Speaker, chair of committees and deputy chair of committees. The vote will take place in a secret ballot in the chamber.

Second-term UCP MLA Nathan Cooper (Olds—Didsbury—Three Hills) is the presumed favourite for the Speaker gig.

On Wednesday afternoon, the session will officially commence with the UCP’s throne speech.

Committees this week

The government’s treasury board committee will meet behind closed doors in the cabinet room of the legislature on Thursday morning. On Thursday afternoon, its legislative review committee will also hold a closed-door meeting.

Premier Watch Premier Jason Kenney was at home in Calgary for the long weekend. He spoke at the Jewish National Fund Calgary on Friday and attended the city’s Serbian Fest on Saturday.

On Sunday, Kenney watched the National Junior A Championship final in Brooks. (The hometown team, the Brooks Bandits, won the tournament.)

Postmedia recruited Kenney’s former chief of staff to lobby for ‘energy war room’ contract Postmedia Network Inc. has hired Nick Koolsbergen to lobby the new UCP government to help the media company win a contract in relation to the planned $30-million “energy war room.”

Koolsbergen filed a registration on the Office of the Ethics Commissioner’s online lobbyist registry last week, outlining plans to meet with government officials “to discuss ways Postmedia could be involved in the government’s energy war room.”

Koolsbergen was Premier Jason Kenney’s chief of staff during his time as opposition leader and most recently served as the UCP’s campaign director. Post-election, he co-founded a new lobbying firm, Wellington Advocacy, with former prime minister Stephen Harper’s ex-policy director Rachel Curran. (Curran is also a consultant with Harper’s Calgary-based firm Harper & Associates.) Wellington Advocacy officially launched on May 6.

It is within the rules and not unusual for political staffers to jump into the lobbying game after the party they work for gets elected (after Doug Ford was elected Ontario premier last year his campaign war room director and spokesperson, Melissa Lantsman, was promptly hired by Hill+Knowlton Strategies and his campaign manager, Kory Teneycke, went on to found the firm Rubicon Strategies). However, Postmedia’s move to vye for a contract to potentially create partisan government content has raised questions about whether the company’s newspapers can maintain editorial independence while reporting on the new government.

Postmedia owns most of Alberta’s major newspapers, including the Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun — all of which separately endorsed Kenney during the final days of the spring election campaign — as well as several community newspapers.

By AB Today’s count, four of the Alberta’s Legislative Press Gallery’s 17 members are employed by Postmedia.

The media company is hoping to partner with the government via its Content Works division, which creates native advertising and is separate from its news division, but a contract could also include running “energy war room” ads in its newspapers.

“Postmedia has engaged Wellington Advocacy with respect to the commercial content area of the business and the previously announced Alberta government’s energy war room,” Postmedia’s spokesperson Phyllise Gelfand said in a statement to Canadaland Friday.

The UCP’s campaign pledge to create a $30-million “energy war room” to “respond in real time to the lies and myths told about Alberta’s energy industry through paid, earned, and social media” has been criticized by environmentalists as “political theatre.”

NDP democracy and ethics critic Heather Sweet questioned the company’s decision.

“Frankly, while a newspaper company hiring a partisan lobbyist to offer support for a government campaign promise is deeply troubling, we remain confident in the impartiality of the journalists in the Edmonton and Calgary newsrooms," Sweet said in a statement to The Globe and Mail.

In 2016, Postmedia’s Content Works ran a native advertising campaign in conjunction with the Edmonton Journal to promote the West Edmonton Mall. However, that campaign appeared in the newspaper’s style and fashion sections where the perception of editorial bias has lower stakes than in the political pages.

Koolsbergen’s registration on behalf of Postmedia was covered by several major news outlets this weekend, including the CBC, Globe, National Observer, Toronto Star, Narwhal and Canadaland, but not by any Postmedia-run outlets.

In his registration, Koolsbergen said he plans to lobby the Alberta Treasury Board, Ministry of Finance, Alberta Environment and Parks, the executive council, the Premier's Office, Alberta Energy and the Alberta Legislative Assembly.

Wellington Advocacy boasts about its ability to “win high stakes campaigns” and says its team is “uniquely positioned” to achieve the “best policy and political outcomes for its clients.”

Under the rules set out by the Office of the Ethics Commissioner, the cooling off period for former political staffers does not apply to Koolsbergen because the UCP was not in government when he worked for the party.

Kenney said last week an advertising campaign about the forthcoming energy war room is in the works and will be rolling out ahead of the establishment of the actual agency, which is expected by late summer.

The war room will receive $20 million of its funding from levies garnered from heavy emitting companies and $10 million from the government’s communications department, according to the UCP.

The UCP has also promised to boycott multinational corporations who boycott Alberta oil, such as HSBC, and committed to launching defamation lawsuits against environmental groups accused of promoting “anti-Alberta” interests.

Today’s events

May 21 at 8:30 a.m. — Edmonton Premier Jason Kenney will provide an update on the wildfire situation near the town of High Level in the legislature’s media room.

May 21 at 1:30 p.m. — Edmonton MLAs will elect a Speaker, deputy Speaker, chair of committees and deputy chair of committees by secret ballot in the legislative chamber.

Upcoming events

May 22 at 8:30 a.m. — Edmonton Premier Jason Kenney and his cabinet will meet at the legislature.

May 22 at 3 p.m. — Edmonton Lieutenant Governor Lois E. Mitchell will deliver the throne speech in the chamber.

May 23 at 7:30 a.m. — Sherwood Park Service Alberta Minister Nate Glubish will speak at the 2019 Student Skills Portfolio breakfast.

May 25 at 2 p.m. — Edmonton Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides will speak at the Concordia University convocation at the Edmonton Expo Centre.

Topics of conversation

● The United Conservative Party’s executive director, Janice Harrington, has resigned from her role effective June 1, CBC reports. ○ Harrington was formerly the executive director of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and prior to that spent five years as director of communications for the Government of Alberta.

○ Harrigton also served as the UCP’s spokesperson when it came to party matters. In recent months she was frequently tasked with defending the party against accusations of voter fraud during its 2017 leadership race.

● The UCP confirmed to the Edmonton Journal it will scrap the $3.7-billion crude-by-rail contracts the NDP government signed with rail companies in February. ○ The leases would have added 4,200 rail cars to ship an additional 120,000 barrels of oil per day out of Alberta, a mid-term solution designed to ease the oil price differential between Western Canadian Select and West Texas Intermediate as the province awaits additional pipeline capacity. ○ Premier Jason Kenney’s spokesperson Christine Myatt told the Journal the government is in talks with CN and CP to get out of the Notley-led deal, and teased its willingness to break contracts using legislation as a last resort. ○ “If these contracts cannot be transferred to the private sector on acceptable terms, our government will do what is necessary to protect Alberta taxpayers,” Myatt said.

● Provincial and federal governments are eyeing a rollback of regulations that govern liquid tailings from the oilsands, the Globe and Mail reports. ○ Under current rules the tailings wastewater — a mix of sand, silt, clay, bitumen and solvents — is held in ponds and cannot be released, but a potential change in rules could allow for the mixture to be discharged into the Athabasca river. ○ The federal government says it would introduce stringent environmental controls before allowing the discharge, which it hopes to have in place by 2022, but, as of now, no technology has been used to filter contaminants on this large a scale. ○ "It’s going to happen sooner or later. And it’s better it happens in a controlled and managed fashion than later on when nobody has the money,” University of Prince Edward Island professor Michael van den Heuvel told the Globe.

● As part of his ongoing campaign against Ottawa’s Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, Premier Jason Kenney has issued letters to each of Canada’s 105 senators “demanding fair treatment from Ottawa for [Alberta’s] economic interests” and calling on them to reject the passage of Bill C-48 and adopt the Senate energy committee’s substantial amendments to Bill C-69. ○ Each letter is signed by Kenney, as well as by NDP leader Rachel Notley, Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel and Liberal Leader David Khan. ○ In the letters, the leaders said they still reject the “spirit” of Bill C-69, but believe that in its amended form it “would be acceptable to the interests of Albertans.”

● Addressing the Alberta Teachers’ Association for the first time since the election, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange repeated promises to review the curriculum rewrite started by the NDP and to enact the Education Act.

○ The latter pledge, which reduces protections for students in gay-straight alliances, led some teachers to protest LaGrange’s speech by waving rainbow pride flags while the minister took to the stage. ○ LaGrange also promised to review class sizes and to ensure spending prioritizes frontline teachers rather than educational bureaucracy.

● Despite the escalation of interprovincial tensions following Premier Jason Kenney’s proclamation of Bill 12, the “turn off the taps” legislation, Alberta and B.C.’s economies need each other. ○ A report from the Business Council of British Columbia found Alberta and British Columbia’s economies are the most intertwined of all the provinces with $30 billion in trade exchanged, and the highest net in-migration between provinces. ○ Canadians are split over which province is in the right when it comes to their approach to pipeline development: 48 per cent back B.C., while 52 per cent say Alberta is in the right, according to a survey from Angus Reid. However, support for B.C. is concentrated in B.C. itself and Quebec, while all other provinces support Alberta. Ontario is the most divided province on the issue with 49 per cent supportive of B.C. and 51 per cent cheering on Alberta.

● The Court of Queen’s Bench ordered the Government of Alberta to pay $13 million to subcontractors working on the Grande Prairie hospital. The decision follows the government’s cancellation of its $763-million contract with Graham Construction last year after the company failed to meet timelines on the hospital build, Canadian Press reports. ○ Graham Construction has said the hospital could not be completed under the agreed upon budget. ○ The case is due back in court for another hearing in July.

News briefs — Governmental

New pediatric intensive care unit opens at Stollery Children’s Hospital Health Minister Tyler Shandro was on hand for the opening of the $11.7-million re-development of the pediatric intensive care unit at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton on Friday.

The new pediatric ICU is the second phase of a $64.5 million redevelopment and expansion at the Stollery, which began with the pediatric cardiac unit at the Mazankowski Heart Institute in December 2017. Phase three will be a neonatal intensive care unit scheduled to open in 2021.

In its 2015 budget, the NDP committed $17 million to expand the Stollery Children’s Hospital surgical suite, and $50 million to redevelop and expand the hospital’s critical care units.

The non-profit Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation contributed $5.5 million to the overall project, including $1.2 million for the pediatric ICU.

“There is such incredible dedication in the health system and in our communities,” Shandro said in a news release. “I’m looking forward to working with all our health professionals, the foundations and others to deliver on our commitment to build a health system focused on delivering outstanding results for Albertans.”

Appointments and employments

AB Today has compiled a list of the new ministers’ chiefs of staff. (As of May 21, the minister of advanced education had not yet appointed a chief of staff.)

● Office of the Premier — Jamie Huckabay ● Office of the Agriculture and Forestry Minister — Tim Schultz ● Office of the Children’s Services Minister — Steven Puhallo ● Office of the Community and Social Services Minister — Ryan Hastman ● Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women — Peter Dalla-Vicenza ● Economic Development and Trade — Katie Hasenbank ● Education — Nicole Williams ● Energy — Andrea Smotra ● Associate Minister of Natural Gas — Filip Palasz ● Environment and Parks — Brent Dancey ● Health — Alissa Brandt ● Indigenous Relations — Phil Johnson ● Infrastructure — Heather Mack ● Justice and Solicitor General — Brandon Stevens ● Labour — Janet MacEachern ● Municipal Affairs — Keith McLaughlin ● Seniors and Housing — Andrea Hasenbank ● Service Alberta — Jamie Mozeson ● Transportation — Mark Jacka ● Treasury Board and Finance — Laura Devaney ● Office of the Associate Minister Red Tape Reduction — TJ Keil

AB Today is written by Catherine Griwkowsky, reporting from Alberta's legislative press gallery.

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