EDMONTON—Alberta plans to spend $30 million a year to promote the province’s oilsands through its “energy war room.” But the corporation says it has no plans to tell taxpayers how their money is being spent.

Known as the Canadian Energy Centre since being incorporated by Alberta’s United Conservative government, but previously dubbed the “Energy War Room,” its budget is ostensibly used to promote the province’s oil and gas industry.

On Monday, the Star requested a breakdown of the operation’s expenses through its first month since launching in early December, but the breakdown wasn’t provided. Critics of the war room have said there are better uses for its $30 million annual budget, and that by not disclosing its expenses on the public dime, the corporation is undermining democracy.

“The Canadian Energy Centre has a strict budgeting process that involves the directors of the CEC, a business plan and expenditure reports that are in line with the Fiscal Planning and Transparency Act,” said Grady Semmens, a spokesperson for the war room.

As part of the Alberta government’s “fight back strategy,” the war room aims to dispel what it says are myths about the province’s energy sector spread by alleged foreign funded environmental activists. Officials say the war room also wants to advocate on behalf of the industry and correct what it calls misinformation in the media.

Kavi Bal, press secretary to Alberta’s Energy Minister Sonya Savage, told the Star in an emailed statement that the war room “will not be publicly posting their line-by-line expenses to ensure the effectiveness of our overall fightback strategy.”

Bal said that for years, there’s been an alleged effort to target the energy sector and stymie its growth.

While it is subject to a provincial Auditor General audit, the CEC is not open to freedom of information requests from the public.

Every year, the operation gets $20 million from a large emitter levy put in place by the government, as well as $10 million in public advertising spending. The Alberta government has also launched a separate $2.5 million public inquiry into what it says are foreign funded interest groups allegedly working to landlock the province’s resources.

When it comes to disclosing expenses, the CEC could “certainly do it,” said Duff Conacher, co-founder of the non-profit advocacy group Democracy Watch. He added that they’re undermining a principle of democracy by choosing not to disclose.

“I think they’re coming up with lame excuses and it smells very badly.”

The inner workings of the war room are shrouded in secrecy by design because the provincial government accepts the controversial theory that a foreign funded campaign of misinformation has been deployed in Canada specifically to landlock Alberta oil — hamstringing the economy.

That explanation doesn’t hold water with Conacher, who said that not informing taxpayers about how their money is spent, at least annually, is “dangerously undemocratic.”

“You’re essentially saying, ‘we want to hide what we’re doing with the money,’ and that smells, for obvious reasons,” he said.

Critics of the war room have also begun tallying recent missteps made by the CEC.

Last month, it had to replace its initial logo after it was revealed that it closely resembled another U.S. company’s logo.

Recent reports also suggest that CEC employees haven’t been up front about their government funding when interviewing people for articles they publish on their website.

After these instances were reported, the Canadian Association of Journalists released a statement, calling on the CEC to tell its writers to stop identifying themselves as journalists when speaking to the public.

“Government agency public relations staff are neither independent nor unbiased,” the statement said. “We ask that they end this misleading practice immediately.”

After keeping a tab of some of the war room blunders through December, the Opposition NDP held a press conference Monday, calling on the government to shut it down.

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

“Every Albertan can think of a better use for $82,000 a day,” said Irfan Sabir, the NDP’s energy critic. The opposition arrived at the daily number by dividing the CEC’s annual budget by 365 days.

“Before Premier (Jason) Kenney imposes any new fees, or cuts, or sneaky tax increases, he can find a quick $30 million saving for this year by scrapping this failed war room.”

With files from The Canadian Press

Read more about: