Kinnear's LinkedIn profile also lists him as Smith's campaign co-ordinator. "Alberta First!" was one of Smith's campaign slogans. Only Danielle Smith has shown a willingness to stand up to Ottawa." "Alberta has a rare opportunity to select a premier who will put Alberta First. "Hi! This is Ann from Alberta First Initiative," reads one Aug. Text messages sent by someone saying they represent the Initiative, captured by the NDP, suggest the group was active in Smith's campaign.
An analysis by The Canadian Press using public websites as well as corporate records searched by the NDP suggest about two-thirds of that came from energy sector firms or firms providing services to them. However, the Initiative supports Smith and Smith supports RStar.Įlections Alberta public reports show the Initiative received donations of $37,500 in the third quarter of 2022, which would have arrived during Smith's UCP leadership campaign. "RStar is not a policy that Alberta First has ever or will ever advocate," he said. The Initiative does not promote RStar, he said. Lee said he left the Network in late 2021 and hasn't spoken regularly with Kinnear since last spring. Lee is also the co-founder with Kris Kinnear of Sustaining Alberta's Energy Network, which has long pushed RStar. The Alberta First Initiative was incorporated six days later, timing Lee called "coincidental." On May 19, 2022, Smith announced she would leave her job as president of the Alberta Enterprise Group and run for the UCP leadership. She also wrote a supportive letter that July as group president to then-energy minister Sonya Savage. “I love it,” Smith said on a 2021 YouTube broadcast, when she was a lobbyist for the Alberta Enterprise Group. It's been called a violation of the polluter pay principle, an incentive for companies to not fulfil their obligations and a reward for those who haven't.įor more than a year, Smith and her cabinet have been outspoken advocates of the plan, which would enable companies to use reclamation spending to gain credits against future royalty payments, despite that reclamation being a condition of their original drilling licence. The RStar proposal, developed by an industry group, has been criticized by legal experts, energy economists and some of the province’s own internal analysts.
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"(Alberta First) has a mission to promote policies, educate activists and engage Albertans to participate in democracy," Mackenzie Lee said in an emailed response to a series of questions from The Canadian Press. The founder of Alberta First said the group is exercising its rights. "To the extent that oil and gas gets seen as putting their finger on the scale in this election, the UCP runs the risk of losing votes." "Entitlement is kind of the Conservatives' kryptonite in Alberta," he said.
It's an index of how close the governing party is to the province's dominant industry - a relationship that also carries risks, said University of Alberta political science professor Jared Wesley. "Danielle Smith will make Alberta better for me and my family," says another. "Alberta, we can't afford the NDP," says one of the ads on the Initiative's website.
The Initiative is now funding attack ads against the New Democrat Opposition and supporting Smith as the province gears up for a spring election. The Initiative also appears to have participated in Smith's successful campaign to win the United Conservative Party leadership, which she sought after leaving Alberta Enterprise Group, a business group that lobbied in favour of RStar. While the Initiative says it does not support RStar, its founder previously worked with a group that promoted it. Oilpatch support for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's agenda ballooned after she won her party's leadership and put the so-called RStar program - a plan to give tax breaks to energy companies for fulfilling cleanup work they are already obliged to do - high on the government agenda.Įlections Alberta records and an analysis by The Canadian Press suggest donations to the Alberta First Initiative, a pro-Smith advocacy group, increased eightfold from companies associated with the energy industry after Smith became premier.
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