EDMONTON—The United Conservative Party has been criticizing Rachel Notley’s government for running ads it sees as partisan ahead of the official campaign period for this year’s election.

In a news release sent out this week, the UCP said the NDP’s advertising campaign promoting its Made in Alberta strategy for attracting investment has cost Albertans $1.1 million and said the ads amount to nothing more than a partisan campaign. The government has set aside about $1.5 million for the ads.

The provincial election is legislated to be sometime this year between March 1 and May 31, and the UCP and NDP are expected to be the two main contenders. Provincial law says government ads and announcements can’t take place while the official election campaign period is on, but that won’t start until Notley drops the writ, initiating the month-long time frame.

The NDP has been criticized by the UCP for the ads, which promote the government’s investment initiatives. The UCP argues that using taxpayer money for them effectively means public money is supporting partisan activities. However, political scientists are divided on the ads and the NDP says they aren’t partisan — they’re attracting investment for the province.

“If the NDP wants to campaign, the premier should call the election instead of wasting tax dollars on ads that don’t even promote a program or service Albertans can apply for,” said Leela Aheer, the UCP candidate for Chestermere-Strathmore, in the release.

One of the advertisement videos, posted to YouTube, talks about the province’s aspirations to boost the energy industry: “We are also going to refine more, process more, and create more of the oil- and gas-based products the world needs now.”

Read more:

Kenney tells Notley to call Alberta election and stop campaigning on public dime

Notley rejects sales tax, says detailed plan to come closer to Alberta election

Alberta anti-choice advocates secretly supporting UCP candidates to influence legislation

Jared Wesley, a political science professor at the University of Alberta, said it’s nothing new in politics, and governments will promote themselves leading up to an election campaign unless a law says they can’t.

“The reality is that every Opposition party does two things going into an election: they try to goad the government into calling an election right away because they want to seem like they’re ready, and they complain that the government’s spending taxpayer dollars to campaign.”

But Wesley said the government has good reason to promote the ads now, since recent protests in support of the oil and gas industry, like the truck caravan from Red Deer to Ottawa coming up this month, have called on politicians to do more.

“It really has opened up a space where the premier can legitimately say, ‘Well, we’ve got people at home who are saying we’re not doing anything, and as a government, we need to tell them that we’re doing something,’” Wesley said.

What do you think?

If the government did this a year ago in response to protests, Wesley said he wonders if the same debate would be happening.

However, Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University, said the NDP was outraged when the former Progressive Conservative government used to do it, and they didn’t legislate changes when they got into power in 2015.

“I think it’s wrong, especially then because we have a fixed election period,” Bratt said.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“In the years before the fixed election period, there was no indication when that election will be. But because we have that window, we know when that election will be, and so they should move these sorts of ads back.”

Even though the ads don’t have an NDP logo attached, they are still “for all intents and purposes” NDP ads, Bratt said.

“There’s nothing illegal about what they’ve done and it’s something that all previous governments have done, but the NDP was opposed to this when they were in Opposition and they didn’t make any changes.”

The UCP has proposed making changes to government advertising laws, with its first platform announcement being that the party would introduce legislation to “ban governments from advertising in the run-up to an election, and from using tax dollars for partisan ads at any time.”

If the UCP gets in to power, leader Jason Kenney has said he would review government contracts signed in the ongoing period, starting from the beginning of February to election day in the spring.

But Bratt said the UCP’s proposed piece of legislation has problems.

“It goes well beyond advertising and it starts talking about contracts and things like that,” he said. “A government still has to operate. In fact, the government still has to operate during a writ period.”

Mike McKinnon, a spokesperson for Alberta’s energy minister, said in a statement to Star Edmonton on Friday, that “there is nothing partisan about these ads.”

“By adding value to the resources owned by all Albertans (including members of the UCP), we’re putting economic diversification first and seizing opportunities to upgrade more resources right here at home.”

McKinnon said the initiative is expected to attract billions of dollars in investment and is worth the roughly $1-million investment the government has made so far.

“Overall, this program will attract up to $28 billion in investment to Alberta and create more than 26,000 jobs, making this campaign well worth the cost,” he said.

But Matt Solberg, a spokesperson for the UCP, said the ads represented the NDP’s “partisan election narrative.”

“Keep in mind that a party can only spend $2 million during the writ (period). A $1.5-million ad buy in advance of the campaign to lay the groundwork is substantial,” he said.

Read more about: