New AER boss vows to rid agency of ‘fear’

The new head of the Alberta Energy Regulator said there “is no place for fear” inside the organization, and Laurie Pushor vows to help build a workplace that is open, honest and transparent.

It's the right message for an embattled agency that's faced a series of controversies over the past year.

Pushor, who assumed the top job at the AER last month, has pledged to address a number of issues facing the organization, including a “culture of fear” identified last year by an Alberta auditor general report.

“It will take time. But as long as we are honest and open and transparent with folks as a leadership team, we will be able to move forward and rebuild that,” he said in an interview Friday.

“We only get better when people are able to be frank and honest with each other. There is no place for fear to be part of what drives us on a daily basis, at least not fear to speak the truth.”

A former deputy minister of energy in Saskatchewan, Pushor took over the chief executive's role in mid-april, replacing interim CEO Gordon Lambert.

He comes on board in the middle of a turbulent period with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

There are other significant issues to tackle.

The AER is one of the most powerful agencies in the province, responsible for overseeing the safe, orderly and environmentally responsible development of Alberta's energy resources.

It has been surrounded by turmoil recently.

A series of damning independent reports last fall identified numerous problems at the board and executive level. The creation of the International Centre of Regulatory Excellence (ICORE) in 2017 was at the centre of many troubles.

ICORE was intended to generate revenue by offering training and other services to international regulators.

Alberta's public interest commissioner said former CEO Jim Ellis “grossly mismanaged public funds” in establishing and supporting ICORE'S operations.

The province's ethics commissioner found Ellis breached the Conflicts of Interest Act, saying the primary motivation behind ICORE was to create future employment or remuneration for the former CEO, who left the AER in late 2018.

The auditor general determined the AER spent public money inappropriately on

ICORE, while board oversight was ineffective.

(Last year, the AER'S board was turfed by the UCP government. A new seven-member board committee, chaired by David Goldie, was appointed last month.)

The auditor general also said there was a “culture of fear” within the regulator and workers felt they were at risk of losing their job for speaking out.

Pushor, who read the reports, said it appeared the issues were “a performance matter, largely,” and he noted the new board and executive team are building a structure to ensure more accountability.

“I was worried about how deep it did permeate and I would say ... the vast majority of people came to work every day and did their work well,” said Pushor.

“We are a new team and will do our best to be open and honest and make room for a variety of opinions.”

Other issues have also been boiling at the AER.

Last September, the Kenney government began reviewing the mandate and governance of the regulator, and it has been critical of slow application approval times.

It has also been conducting a liabilities management review surrounding energy development in Alberta, a complicated issue for a province with more than 90,000 inactive oil and gas wells that need to be cleaned up.

The AER must manage all of this with less funding and staff than it had a year ago. In February, the AER completed an internal restructuring that saw 200 jobs eliminated.

Pushor noted of the 40,000 applications the regulator dealt with last year, the AER met its own timelines about 98 per cent of the time, but he wants to understand what led to about 800 applications falling outside the target.

There are other matters to manage in the coming months, including dealing with Alberta's liabilities management policies, once the Kenney government releases a new plan to deal with issues such as well licence transfers, abandonment and cleanup.

The industry, which is now enduring another major downturn, also wants to see improved application timelines and regulatory cost reductions to make Alberta more competitive with other jurisdictions, said Tristan Goodman of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada.

“What we are really looking for at the top level is a more modernized approach coming from the regulator,” Goodman said.

The Alberta NDP have questioned Pushor's appointment, telling the legislature last month there are “far more” qualified individuals for the job, citing his role in a controversial land development project in Saskatchewan.

But the biggest issue for the new CEO is to build trust across the organization and its employees, said Neil Mccrank, who chaired the predecessor Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board between 1998 and 2007.

“The staff has to feel some comfort they are part of an organization where they are all pulling in the same direction, and

I'm not sure that was the case for some time,” said Mccrank.

Aside from implementing solid management practices, it's critical the organization backs up the front-line employees who are responsible for making decisions about energy development.

And once any new policies are rolled out, it's important the government leave the independent regulator to make its own decisions and ensure the public's energy resources are being well managed, Mccrank added.