EDMONTON—Alberta’s elections commissioner has dismissed a complaint filed by the United Conservative Party against Progress Alberta over allegations the political action group accepted foreign funding from an anti-oil-and-gas organization.

UCP MLA Nathan Cooper, who is now the speaker of the Alberta Legislature, filed the complaint with Elections Alberta in December. In it, he asked the independent political watchdog to investigate $80,000 donated by the U.S.-based Tides Foundation for the purpose of “research, education and organizing on dirty fuels and pipelines.”

“It is certainly troubling for an organization that purports to represent Albertans to take tens of thousands of dollars in foreign funding, apparently to attack Alberta’s resource sector,” Cooper wrote in the complaint, which labelled Progress Alberta an NDP-affiliated political group.

“It is clear that Progress Alberta interprets their foreign-funded objective to oppose ‘dirty fuels and pipelines’ as a mandate to oppose the UCP, a party that has publicly championed Alberta’s resource industry and the families and jobs that depend on it.”

While the complaint was before the commissioner, Premier Jason Kenney announced a $2.5-million public inquiry into foreign-funded charities trying to undermine Alberta resources.

In a Sept. 6 letter, the Office of the Elections Commissioner notified Progress Alberta that the complaint against it has been dismissed.

“There are insufficient grounds to warrant an investigation,” wrote Lorne Gibson, Alberta’s election commissioner.

The office declined to explain further.

Duncan Kinney, the executive director of Progress Alberta, said his group was “extremely happy” with the result.

“The complaint was spurious and had no actual bearing,” Kinney said. “It was purely just an attempt to smear Progress Alberta and really an attempt to smear all civil society if it disagrees with this government’s kind of extreme petro-nationalism.”

In response to the ruling, the UCP reiterated its concern with Progress Alberta receiving funding from a U.S.-based organization for the purposes of anti-pipeline research and education.

“We’ll leave it to Albertans to judge whether they trust an organization that has taken tens of thousands of dollars in foreign funds to work against Alberta jobs,” Christine Myatt, press secretary for Premier Jason Kenney, said in an email.

The December complaint also accused Progress Alberta of not being transparent about the funding it has received, with Cooper alleging the group uses foreign cash to pay for political advertising.

Progress Alberta, which describes itself as an “independent non-profit dedicated to building a more progressive Alberta,” received $38,559 in 2016 and $24,284 in 2017 from Tides, figures that Kinney said are public knowledge.

Kinney argued the complaint is a glimpse of future action by the UCP, pointing to the government’s $30-million energy war room that plans to fight misinformation related to oil-and-gas and its $2.5-million public inquiry. Both initiatives, dubbed the “fight back strategy,” were criticized by Amnesty International, which said they were in violation of Alberta’s human-rights obligations.

“It’s an indication of where they were going,” Kinney said. “They were happy and willing to use the power of the state to intimidate, harass and bully their political opponents.”

Lori Williams, a political scientist with Mount Royal University, said she believes the UCP was “simply making a complaint to an independent body and asking for an independent investigation.”

“It doesn’t look to me that this could be described in the way of intimidation or abuse of government power,” Williams said.

She argued, however, that Cooper’s complaint against Progress Alberta and the government’s concern with foreign-funding for environmental groups may not be an effective strategy in its quest to push pro-energy sentiments in the province.

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“The fact that the investigation has been declined suggests that it’s not on the scale of a foreign government interfering in a Canadian election,” Williams said.

A better strategy for the UCP, Williams said, would be to focus on countering misinformation about the oil-and-gas industry instead of fighting views the government disagrees with. She added it would be in Kenney’s benefit to acknowledge and respond to what many consider “legitimate environmental concerns.”

“I don’t know if this effort, this time and this money is going to change a lot of minds,” Williams said. “What the fight-back strategy is going to accomplish is still an open question.”

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