Danielle Smith’s ‘New North American Initiative’ sounds a lot like War Room 3.0

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith sounded as if she were almost cackling with glee at a news conference Friday morning where she announced the creation of a “New North American Initiative” in cooperation with the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy to “foster a better understanding of the changing Canada-U.S. relationship.”

“This initiative will deepen academic and policy partnerships, and expand Alberta’s research capacity, to support and develop effective responses to shifts in Canada-U.S. relations,” Ms. Smith vowed in the canned quote included in the government’s press release. 

Never mind the ambiguity of the title – is this a new initiative or an initiative about a new North America? Despite the paltry $6.5 million over three years the Alberta government is ponying up, mainstream media treated it as if it is a serious academic effort to understand and ameliorate the ever-changing whims of Donald Trump, not merely a bit of grandstanding in the United Conservative Party’s never-ending quest to own the Libs in Ottawa. 

“Researchers will be tasked with developing a vision of what the continental relationship could become at a time of increasing trade uncertainty and geopolitical turmoil,” the CBC intoned, as if such a modest sum would buy much understanding of what’s going on in the great minds of the Trump Administration. 

For a government that seems to distrust and sometimes despise academic institutions and scholars, at least those not in the business and engineering departments, the UCP sure craves a gloss of academic respectability on its efforts to serve and protect the oil industry. 

Alert readers will recall that in 2019 when Alberta’s first UCP premier, Jason Kenney, announced his hobbyhorse Alberta Energy War Room, structured as a private company misleadingly called the Canadian Energy Centre, he boasted about how it would use its $30-million annual budget to pay for “data and research” that would provide “factual evidence for investors, researchers and policy makers.”

In the event, most of the money seems to have been spent on advertising in out-of-province cities that had little impact and writing ranty letters to editors about Bigfoot cartoons and the like. 

Premier Smith’s government sensibly dissolved War Room 1.0 last year and moved its remaining employees into the civil service under the Intergovernmental Relations Department. “Researchers will now be supporting IGR in order to seamlessly continue this important work,” the government said in a statement at the time. Call that one War Room 2.0.

Now we have something that sounds like more of the same announced by the UCP at the University of Calgary.

“Today marks an important step forward, not just for Alberta, but for Canada and our academic and policy communities across North America,” enthused Rajan Sawhney, who on Friday morning was still Ms. Smith’s minister of advanced education.

“Right now, most research and analysis on Canada-U.S. relations originates from east of the Prairies or from the U.S. itself,” complained Ms. Sawhney, who that afternoon was shuffled into a new portfolio. “This narrow focus too often fails to reflect the priorities, or even the realities, of Western Canada. If we are to respond effectively to these shifting dynamics all parts of Canada must be heard and reflected in our academic and policy thinking.”

That, it is said here, sounds like an unexpectedly frank admission the purpose of this modest expenditure is to provide justification for the ideology and policies of the UCP Government. 

Just how respectable the School of Public Policy is as a source of truly independent research has been subject of past debate, although media reporters reading Friday’s press release seem not to have picked up on it. 

In 2014, former Simon Fraser University professor Donald Gutstein described the School of Public Policy as “a neoliberal think tank embedded in a university” and “a marriage of business and ideology” in his then just-published book, Harperism.

Mr. Gutstein observed that it should come as no surprise that “the school emphasizes research supporting the oil industry, given the industry’s influence, at least at the administration level.”

Things may have changed in the intervening years, of course, but the likelihood is that we now have another ideologically correct War Room, with a little academic lustre provided by its association with the U of C. 

Let’s call it War Room 3.0.

Given what Mr. Kenney was prepared to spend on the first War Room, taxpayers should be relieved they’re only being asked to fork over $2.2 million a year. That should cover a few trips to the universities of Lethbridge, Colorado and Nebraska, which are said to be somehow involved in this effort.

Pollster publishes detailed information on survey mentioned by Postmedia

According to a column published by Postmedia on Thursday, a new survey by respected Alberta pollster Janet Brown indicates a majority of Albertans now support replacing the Canada Pension Plan with an Alberta pension plan. 

“Yes to replacing the CPP with an Alberta Pension Plan. 55 per cent,” wrote columnist Rick Bell. “No and keep the CPP. 45 per cent.” 

However, the column did not include any information about the sample size, methodology, or for whom the poll was done. 

Ms. Brown said in response to a query that the poll on a large number of federal-provincial issues of interest to the province was based on interviews with 900 Albertans aged 18 and over between April 29 and May 8. Respondents were randomly recruited by telephone. Ms. Brown gives the results a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 per cent, higher among subgroups.

The data was run two ways, Ms. Brown said: “Based on all those surveyed and on ‘decideds’ (i.e., excluding those who said ‘wanted more information’ and ‘don’t know’).” Mr. Bell reported only on the decideds.

Respondents were asked how they would vote if a provincial referendum were held on each topic. Questions also included respondents’ views on replacing the RCMP with a provincial force (the nays have it) and separating from Canada (the nays have it again, but not by a comfortable margin). Other topics included the province collecting its own taxes, taking over immigration, and various provincial demands of Ottawa. 

The poll was done for the Alberta government, and Ms. Brown had not expected it to be released to the public. Since it was, she told me, she has now posted it to her firm’s website in accordance with the guidelines of the Canadian Research Insights Council, which advocates for high standards and ethical conduct in polling. 

There is a lot of data here and it is extremely interesting – not just about what Albertans think, but also about what this government wants to know about.

While the Postmedia column accurately reported the significant number of respondents who said they would now support adoption of an APP, versus the number who oppose it, as noted it does not mention the number who indicated they didn’t know or would need more information to form an opinion. 

That said, no one should be shocked that the APP idea, as bad as it is, is doing as well as it is. Its advocates have had their eye on the ball, and its foes have not. 

The UCP and its allies have been beavering away for months, especially in rural Alberta, to persuade voters to back the scheme. For their own reasons, the NDP Opposition, the federal government, and the CPP Investment Board have all been acting as if Albertans would never be so foolish as to allow their government to pull out of the CPP.

Well, it’s time for them to wake up and smell the coffee. Ms. Brown is a serious pollster who knows Alberta and these results should send all those organizations to battle stations.