Among them, the Alberta Ministry of Affordability and Utilities, the Ministry of Energy and the Minerals, and Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas employ at least 16 qualified communications professionals easily earning more than a million and a half dollars a year in combined salary and benefits.
In addition, as professional politicians, each minister should know a thing or two about communicating controversial messages.
Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, who for a spell after Danielle Smith’s ascension to the leadership of the United Conservative Party was deputy premier, has been an MLA since 2019 but before that served on the boards of several construction industry associations.
Energy Minister Brian Jean is a veteran of federal and provincial politics and a member of the legal profession. He was a leading contender to lead the United Conservative Party in 2022.
Like Mr. Neudorf, Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz doesn’t have as much experience in politics as Mr. Jean, but she does have a graduate degree in communications from a respected U.S. university and has directed communications departments for the University of Calgary and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education. She also ran for the party leadership last year.
In addition, in case there are gaps in minister’s communications skills, each ministry employs a press secretary, a political appointee typically paid more than $100,000 a year in base salary, although normally less than the government’s $118,300 transparency threshold.
So how is it possible that the Alberta Government’s Aug. 3 announcement of the seven-month freeze on approvals for new renewable energy electricity-generation projects, a decision affecting all three ministries, was so pathetically shambolic?
The announcement, which appears to have surprised government officials almost as much as it shocked the renewable energy industry – which up until then had been going great guns – appears to have been made without a lick of basic communications work!
No key messages were developed. Key data to support the government’s position appears not to have been assembled and distributed. Government and political leaders likewise don’t seem to have been warned an announcement that was bound to provoke a backlash was coming down the pike.
How could this happen?
Examining the qualifications of the ministries’ staffers employed by the Alberta Public Service does little solve this mystery.
This is hardly necessary to say, since no unqualified person would be hired for a public service position in any Canadian province at this level. But if you’re a doubter, many of the communications managers and advisors in both the energy and environment ministries publish their resumes on the Linked-In career-related social media site, and those postings show a consistently well-educated and experienced group of professional communicators.
For the few who don’t post their qualifications on the Internet, a Google search of their past activities suggests they also know what they’re doing.
It’s very hard to believe that the director, assistant director and two communications advisors listed at the Utilities Ministry, the director, assistant director, and five communications advisors at the Energy Ministry, and the director, assistant director, two communications advisors (a third position is open at the moment), plus one digital content specialist at Environment all missed such obvious communications basics and best practices!
Nor is it likely this group of professionals so blindly supports the government’s agenda that they failed to understand that not everyone would share their enthusiasm.
The press secretaries may be a different story, as they are political appointees presumably hired as much for their loyalty to the UCP Government as their communications background.
Josh Aldrich, Mr. Neudorf’s press secretary at Utilities, seems like the best qualified of the lot. He is an experienced journalist last employed in that field by as a business reporter for the Calgary Herald. He has worked as an editor, columnist and reporter for several other news publications. So he certainly understands what other journalists are likely to think qualifies as news!
Ryan Fournier, press secretary at Environment has experience in communications, marketing, and publishing a political newsletter.
Gabrielle Symbalisty, press secretary at Energy, has a resume with no media or communications experience, and no matter how talented she may be, it seems highly unusual that the government would have appointed a person with no apparent relevant experience to such an important position in a key ministry. Still, that’s the call of the premier’s political staff and it shouldn’t have been a problem since there were many other more experienced hands around, most of them properly vetted public servants.
Clearly, if any of the ministries’ communications teams were consulted, whoever was making the decisions failed to listen to what they had to say.
But it seems much more likely from the limited evidence at hand that they found out what was going to happen not long before the rest of us did.
Indeed, that is the only explanation that makes sense: That no one, possibly excluding Mr. Neudorf and perhaps someone on his staff, had any idea this announcement was going to be made until immediately before it happened.
So who cooked up this hare-brained scheme? We can only speculate. But Premier Smith and her chief advisor Rob Anderson, probably.
Mr. Anderson is a lawyer and long-time associate of Ms. Smith going back to the days when she led the Wildrose Opposition and he was that party’s House leader. On Dec. 17, 2014, he joined his leader in the notorious mass floor-crossing to the Progressive Conservatives.
More recently, Mr. Anderson has played a key role in the so-called Free Alberta Strategy, a sovereignty-association manifesto, and is thought to be a key author of the UCP’s doubtless unconstitutional Alberta Sovereignty in a United Canada Act.
Party insiders say he and Ms. Smith bring out the worst in each other.
Both are known to have a long history of ideological opposition to renewable energy projects.
“Anyone who has paid close attention to now-Premier Danielle Smith’s newspaper and radio commentary knows she has not hidden her deeply critical and skeptical views of wind and solar power,” political commentator Dave Cournoyer wrote Saturday on Substack, backing that statement up with reams of evidence.
“Smith’s chief advisor Rob Anderson has also expressed deep skepticism about the aesthetics of wind powered energy, saying the turbines ‘ruin the landscape,’” Mr. Cournoyer added.
The simplest explanation is usually the right one, and the simplest explanation for the incompetent way this decision was suddenly introduced is that it was the brainchild of those two alone.
It hardly speaks well of either Mr. Jean and Ms. Schulz, both of whom may still have leadership ambitions, that they are now going along with this gong show.
NOTE: This story has been updated to include the Ministry of Affordability and Utilities, which is the lead ministry on this file.
These pseudo Conservatives and Reformers sure love to think that Albertans are fools. They most certainly are, because the UCP got re-elected. How much more damage can the UCP do in another four years? Lots. It will happen.
Obviously we are fools. I certainly didn’t vote for this mess, but I can believe that many Albertans fall for this because they are just believers.
So, Danielle and Rob are against wind renewables because they are avid bird enthusiasts, and don’t want all those dead Canada geese et all, scattered all over the province , and you can’t put solar panels up where the sun don’t shine…..?? Have I got that right ??
If the communications people are as competent as PP’s–then qualifications are:
—repeating the same lines over and over, no matter how nonsensical,
—being in the Con loop, ie going from one campaign to another,
—saying how much you love this country that took you in as an immigrant, but
campaigning on how broken it is,;
—taken at least one photo-op with ‘ol papa Harper;
—and having a dog named Bonnie that does free campaign work, is an added touch on the resume.
IMHO–Honor among thieves is a myth, competence amongst the United Calgary Party is as fleeting as those praire antelope.
Prime example? Take Back Alberta — from where ? or from whom. What do you mean you lost/ gave up a whole province?How do you ‘take back’ something that wasn’t yours to start with?
UCP communications strategy; the hippopotamus treatment– keep on spraying…..once those pesky birds are gone, back to wallowing in the river.
It’s our own fault for assuming that competence was a requirement for our politicians these days (if ever).
Loyalty rewards programs, (just sign here and we’ll keep the WEF out of Canada) . Now who is responsible for scrubbing my social media pages?? get them in here!!
Like any party, there are some smart and ambitious people in the UCP. Some who are smarter got out before the last election, because they knew this was how it might go if they won. Some who have more ambition have stuck around and for the time being power is their reward.
However, the problem remains – what do you do about a Premier who does unpredictable and unwise things? Even worse, what if her svengali like close advisor rather than keeping her out of trouble, gets her into more of it?
There are likely three ways this can end. The Premier can get rid of her advisor and get a better one, but she will also actually have to listen to them. The Premier can go in a few years. Perhaps after a number of missteps, the UCP will be down in the polls like it was with Kenney and she will either decide to go or be forced out. Lastly the remaining smart and ambitious people can leave in frustration. It is quite possible that the UCP is designed to be a party always dominated by its kooky and extreme side. So those supposed moderates hanging around hoping for something else perhaps should just go, get over their delusions as soon as possible and quit wasting their time.
Mission Accomplished! Smith and her Svengali, Anderson, have stalled wind and solar energy development most likely for years. It’s Miller time.
Good column, David. I guess the next question is who will Smith/Anderson blame when they realize they have to walk this bozo scheme backwards?
This has a whiff of the kind of “scribbled on a cocktail napkin” policy-making that characterized the Stelmach Government’s decision in 2008 to set up AHS … that was also announced with no preparatory communications groundwork.
As to,who wants this, my guess it isn’t the big integrated oil & gas companies, such as those in the Pathways Alliance. Apologists for fossil fuel extraction they may be, but I’ve seen no evidence they are actually opposed to renewable energy, as they see it is a potential source of new revenue.
I think this all comes from the “juniors” and the fossil fuel services industry based in rural Alberta and the small cities — those welding and pipefitting contractors, survey and seismic companies, well testing businesses, and so on and so on and so on. This is the UCP’s true “base”, not the majors’ corporate headquarters in Calgary or Houston office towers.
Well, now the CEO of Suncor has come out and said he wants to pivot his company away from investment in renewable energy and emissions reductions, and focus more on fossil fuels — so I guess I stand corrected …
As recently as last October, the Alberta Govt was crowing about the surge in investment in renewables, even contrasting UCP policy with the NDP’s approach:
“The revenue from the remaining REP contracts pale in comparison to the billions in investment that Alberta’s energy-only market has driven,’ said government spokesperson Gabrielle Symbalisty.
“‘With our free market approach, there is more than $13.8 billion in generation projects currently underway, without taxpayer subsidy or royalty – including more than $4.4 billion in utility-scale renewable projects.’
“Alberta made estimated $160M from Renewable Energy Program as power prices surged: U of C report” (Calgary Herald, 2022)”
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/alberta-made-estimated-160m-from-renewable-energy-program-as-power-prices-surged-u-of-c-report
How could this happen?
This was inevitable from the moment Smith and the ucp received their gigantic majority………… No key messages were developed because the sock puppet that belongs to Take Back Alberta and the Free Alberta Strategy gladly accepted her talking point – which is to encourage chaos. There is no data (key or otherwise) to support the moratorium on wind and solar energy. None is necessary because separation is the goal.
gigantic majority? A win by only 11 seats.
A classic case of folie à deux.
Talking of communications breakdowns, one of the most astonishing pieces of news that followed the announcement of this stoppage was the news from the renewables industry that no one in the government had talked to any of their businesses about the perceived hair-raising impacts that prompted the stoppage, or ways they might reduce them.
As someone who grew up surrounded by the visible detritus of oil development I have a bone to pick with Anders statement of wind turbines “ruining the landscape” buddy have you heard of a tailings pond ? You can see them from space.
Bird: I expect some well-heeled pal of Rob’s from southern Alberta – a church connection from the old days, perhaps – was mad about having his view spoiled by a recently approved wind farm and whispered a word in in his ear. Indeed, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what happened. DJC
See, tailings ponds and open pit excavations are okay because no one important has to live near them or see them from their window. But there’s a chance a view in southern Alberta might end up including a solar farm or wind turbine, and that’s a tragedy.
FWIW , I have seen said turbines, and I think they look much more majestic than the pump jacks and other detritus of oil development that have dotted the landscape of this fine province since I was born. Also FWIW I agree with you, these folks are captured by and fully invested in Christian patriarchy
https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/smith-in-calgary-to-discuss-trudeau-government-s-clean-energy-regulations-1.6518378
Smith has some ‘splaining to do. Perhaps we’ll hear some more fascinating excuses for her unilateral decision. Will we see more lip clenching or smug smirks this time? Hard to say.
To me, and perhaps other jaded cynics, regardless of the lack of communication and consultation on the subject, the moratorium put on new large, utility-scale renewable projects was to simply fulfill the prophecy of “We can’t get to net-zero energy distribution by 2035 – you’ll have to wait until 2050”.
Let’s see what happens in seven months – perhaps a new inquiry will be commissioned to justify the moratorium.
Don’t discount the secondary unstated motive of ensuring the profits of natural gas companies, an antiquated and dying technology
“So who cooked up this hare-brained scheme?”
The UCP Daffy Duck political party of Alberta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17ocaZb-bGg
“Dogmatism fallacy occurs when one doctrine is aggressively promoted as the only reasonable conclusion and as being unchallengeable. Dogmatists believe they are so right that they can’t even look at the evidence to the contrary and are unwilling to even consider an opposing argument. Some people even contend that it is incorrect to even consider challenging the position. Anyone who rejects the argument is either stupid or evil.”
Apparently a good number of dedicated confidence tricksters and magicians/illusionists acting as politicians wasted both their time and money pursuing the bragging rights of a university education, as it seems that nothing much of value was learned. Not all is lost, as the public in general loves their illusions, mythologies, and the overall entertainment of the political stage magic show: “Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close-up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means.”
Spoiling the landscape? Has anyone noticed all the pump jacks, above ground pipes, flares, industrial detritus from conventional oil, and open pit market mining and tailing ponds from tar sands.
Somehow I doubt tourists flock to the Paliser Triangle to gape at scrublands and dried up sloughs. Come and experience a prairie whirlwind and sandstorm like great granddad did! Tour Alberta
Anyway, nobody can justify this pause as the land involved is not arable for wind farms and solar panels, for the most part. And a gas plant back up is not needed to match rep sources, as other countries have discovered; rep is mainly used to cover peak demand periods. The current rep technology is good for that purpose. If clean up, and land use regulations are needed then these could be worked out in the background without this job destroying pause, which may also the rep sector in Alberta permanently. A foolish error.
Or does Mr. Anderson think Three Mile Island looks more attractive.
While we are naming atrocities how about the CNRL development on the Cold Lake bombing range that encompasses traditional burial territory the descendants of which are barred from accessing.
Shit almost like this country is slowly unfolding genocide huh?
The elephant in the room is of course the industry backers of these clowns who are the ones really driving the UCP government. Who benefits from sabotaging the renewable energy sector in Alberta? As you say, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.
Has she not noticed the weather? Its very likely too late to save the planet once the ice is gone from the Arctic. She was quoted as saying that Trudeau was not her Prime Minister and you can quote me saying she isn’t my premier.
Smith and Anderson’s disdain for government is legendary—and it shows, of course not only in this latest misadventure but, looking back, also in their disregard for public politics; their dubious achievements are what objective observers would recognize as extreme: because they ignore the normal routine of political action—that is, like-minded citizens cooperatively consider their ideas about any issue, debate and deliberate until a compromise proposal is developed, then vet it to ensure it doesn’t contradict the body and rule of law, thence the policy proposal is politically guided through parliamentary procedure where, if it passes muster, it gets done—they’ve been, for just one example, instrumental in destroying two parties of the right (the upstart Wildrose party Smith once led and the veteran ProgCon party to which she, Anderson, and other WR MLAs crossed the floor of the assembly). Because of them, the ProgCons’ 44-year dynasty was terminated, both it and WR were subsequently folded, and the UCP was created.
Did either of the dymanic duo learn anything from that (so far) unmitigated disaster? Apparently not and it’s no surprise. (Which always comes around to: why did Albertans elect this anti-government, apolitical party to administer the province during such challenging times?)
There’s a kind of nauseam in knowing the UCP is widely recognized as being composed of two distinct and, to a remarkable degree, diametrically opposed factions (again: knowing this, why did Albertans…?)—which kinda leads to asking if one of the reasons Smith and Anderson decided not to tell anybody about their surprise announcement was to avoid disturbing their divided caucus. It seems so ill-advised—but, then again, what can you expect from a leader who doesn’t do politics. Or much of government, either.
Heck, it looks like they didn’t even tell their own cabinet ministers, virtually ignoring every level of normal policy deliberation: the cabinet, the caucus, the party —and I’d include, at fundament, the electorate, too, since it’s a safe bet many free-enterprisers are taking exception to the apparently mean-spirited and spiteful hamstringing of a promising sector Alberta really needs in both energy and general diversification terms, the latter being as longstanding a problem as the former has been profitable (while bitumen dominates the province’s economy to the exclusion of—and, now it seems, to the detriment of diversification).
If politics isn’t welcome inside Smith and Anderson’s intellectual wagon laager, then surely it can only be seen as the enemy lurking outside of it. Indeed, the dumb-dumb duo have never made bones about their enmity towards the federal arrangement, limiting Alberta’s friendship to its two Prairie neighbours, Sask-Party-governed Saskatchewan (but only on condition that secession-like “sovereignty” is paid lip service to), ProgCon-governed Manitoba, now taking a (short?) break from its Dipper tradition, and to the distant seaboard province of seabed drillers, Newfoundland, whose capital has been known to reside with friendship in Fort Mac from time to time (which just might colour our Newfie compatriots’ attitudes about an independent Alberta—federal transfer, mobility rights, ‘n’ all).
The federal relationship is yet another level of politics Smith and Anderson seem to have conveniently omitted. I mean, unless the CPC’s PP was secretly notified (we haven’t heard his mind on the matter, but it would seem the meanness of the UCP’s mothballing of a booming alternative energy sector makes a poor fit with the CPC leader’s recent makeover to a kinder, gentler sort of pseudoCon).
How apolitical are the twoof-and-wreckonciliation twins? Well, taken to the level of independence the UCP repeatedly alludes to (or openly threatens), international diplomacy has to be taken into account. Let’s start with the USA, just across the Wild Rose Province’s southern border: we haven’t heard any blandishments from the UCP since President Biden shit-canned the Keystone pipeline, a longstanding Democratic Party position only temporarily interrupted by presidunce Donald F tRump. Biden wasn’t retaliating against former premier Jason Kenney’s accusation that American interests conspired to depress the market price for Alberta’s low-grade dilbit (was the president too busy to get a bang out of the Sasquatch Surprise?)—nor for the Coutt’s border-crossing blockade which both K-Boy and Smith openly sympathized with (even though it hurt both Alberta’s and the USA’s economies) which happen after Keystone got a tombstone. At least Smith and Anderson can say it doesn’t matter whatever US news-media has to say about their nonsensical announcement —just as long’s they’re being talked about.
No, Americans are bigger than that—waaaaaaay bigger. I rather doubt Smith has given much thought to the possibility of confederating with the USA if she makes good her threat to sever the federal arrangement with Canada. Perhaps “because
federal bad!” But it can get lonely in Locklandia—not that such would well-up tears of sympathy from the USA which would doubtlessly look at the dry reality of its rather comfortable Nearly-Always-Favours-The-Americans trade deal with fellow federalist Canada.
And what about further out on the political filed? Well, there’s always the much lauded “Asian Buyers” of the goo the UCP (and CPC) supposes unrealistically expect to get a premium price for. Besides, is selling supposedly “ethical dilbit” to totalitarian communist China really as principled as that premium dreamium dilbit price?
Politics is needed everywhere and some damn-sight difficult politics is needed right now—just to practice for even harder challenges ahead on the horizon. So how do Albertans feel now—or Canadians, or Americans, or the world—about the fact that Alberta, an important place in global terms, is being governed by a party that doesn’t do politics, that blatantly skirts it, the party members who are supposed to guide policy, and the citizens of the province and other parts of our federation? Good?
Good and mystified on a number of levels, I’d bet.
I always said: Danielle Smith doesn’t have a political bone in her head.
The UCP leadership isn’t worried. They are appealing to their financial backers, the petro industry, and their base. The rest of the province will soon forget about it, for it’s early in their term. And who cares if climate change burns communities to the ground, as long as it’s not mine, right? After all, I’ve got a job in the oil industry and that all that matters. Little do these luddites know that their industry is being replaced and there is nothing they can do about it. Ignorance combined with stubbornness is deadly.