Alberta inquiry finds no anti-oil wrongdoing
Province spent $3.5M to explore allegations of foreign influence
EDMONTON—Premier Jason Kenney, flanked by steadfast members of his cabinet, stood at a podium in 2019 to announce that his government was launching a sweeping public inquiry into allegations that foreign-funded activists were targeting Alberta’s oil and gas sector, potentially illegally.
More than two years later, that controversial report was finally released Thursday, in the latest effort by Kenney’s United Conservative government to publicly frame the challenges facing Alberta as the result of external forces, be they in Ottawa or other countries.
The inquiry’s conclusion, however — after deadline extensions, and a $1-million increase to its original $2.5-million budget — is a report that says nothing illegal or wrong has been done.
The inquiry further stopped short of determining exactly how much foreign funding had been geared toward “anti-Alberta” energy activity.
Nonetheless, Alberta’s government said the final report showed clear evidence that groups opposed to the province’s oilsands have received large amounts of funding from U.S. philanthropic organizations in recent years.
“Was it illegal? No,” Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage told reporters during a news conference. “Was it wrong? I think the majority of Albertans would say it was wrong.”
About $15 billion of foreign funding flowed to registered Canadian charities between 2010 and 2018, the report found. About $925 million in foreign funding to Canadian charities was used for “environmental initiatives” between 2003 and 2019, the report said. Another $352 million in foreign funding for “Canadian-based environmental initiatives” remained in the U.S. during that time period, the report added.
Based on “word search criteria” the report found some $54.1 million in grant descriptions was specifically slated for “antiAlberta resource development activity,” but the head of the inquiry noted that getting an exact number was difficult.
The findings said the large amounts of foreign funding flowing into Canada have the “potential to influence matters of public interest to Albertans and Canadians.”
According to a “key findings” document provided to reporters by the provincial government, the final report establishes “the existence of well-funded foreign interests that have been waging a decade-long campaign of misinformation with the goal of landlocking Alberta’s oil and gas.”
However, inquiry head Steve Allan, a forensic accountant, specifically said he had not found “any suggestions of wrongdoing.” Allan said his final recommendations are not focused on “seeking retribution, attaching blame or seeking damages from anyone.”
“No individual or organization, in my view, has done anything illegal,” wrote Allan. “Indeed, they have exercised their rights of free speech.”
The inquiry’s launch was a drumbeating moment for Kenney’s newly elected United Conservative government in 2019 after it campaigned on a pledge to set up the inquiry in a broader “fight back” strategy aimed at oil industry detractors. Kenney had railed against foreign-funded environmental activists spreading misinformation to hamstring oil and gas projects and pipelines. Some of those include the Northern Gateway, Energy East and Keystone XL pipelines — all projects that have been scrapped in recent years.
The final report, totalling more than 600 pages, included six recommendations:
> Develop better transparency standards for charities and non-profits;
> Improve dialogue with Indigenous communities to work on reconciliation through economic development;
> Improve research and technology around the energy industry;
Work to better track and report greenhouse gas emissions data;
Work on a national campaign to develop natural resources; and
Create a new brand for Canadian energy.
The documents also included a report from Deloitte Forensic Inc., whose analysis comprised some 200,000 documents and 200 organizations. It found the U.S. philanthropic community “provides significant funds to Canadian charities, ENGOs, Envirolegals and Conservative/ Market Oriented Orgs.”
In 2018 alone, Deloitte found that Canadian charities — which receive a large chunk of their funding from various levels of government — received about $2.5 billion from foreign sources. In 2010, it was just $812 million, according to the documents released Thursday.
Savage acknowledged the difficulty in tracking this kind of funding, but said that, in the end, the actual amount doesn’t matter to everyday Albertans.
“If you’re somebody who lost your job and was hurt by it, you don’t care if it was $100 million or $10 million. You lost your job. You were harmed. Alberta was harmed,” she said.
Savage also admitted the report found no suggestion that an anti-oilsands campaign directly caused the downfall of any one energy project but said that shouldn’t detract from the tactics used in their campaigns.
“These groups were real,” she said. “They celebrated it when the projects were cancelled and I’m pretty convinced that they’re not the sole cause — they’re a pretty darn big cause of what happened to all our energy projects in Alberta.”