Jeremy Klaszus

Liberal leader Kevin Taft learned the details of the royalty changes hours after reporters and industry reps did. “We were barred at the door,” he says

The leadership of Alberta’s Official Opposition is “incensed” after it was barred from one of the most important government announcements of the year.

The Liberals’ troubles began at 1 p.m. on October 25, when about 40 reporters giddily packed into a room on the third floor of the McDougall Centre for a technical briefing on complex changes to the province’s oil and gas royalty structure. Government staff gave the same briefing to industry reps in another room. As everyone upstairs tried to wrap their heads around the numbers, Liberal leader Kevin Taft and several of his staff were downstairs trying to get into the media meeting.

Taft knew reporters would want his comments on the new royalty regime, and he wanted time to look at the report beforehand. However, security wouldn’t let Taft or his staff upstairs. “We requested twice to be allowed in, and we were barred at the door,” says Taft.

When the briefing wrapped up at 2:45 p.m., before Premier Ed Stelmach’s 3 p.m. news conference, the Liberals still couldn’t go upstairs. “We were told we wouldn’t be allowed in because we weren’t on the invitation list,” says Taft.

After the press conference began, copies of the report were available to the public — at which point Taft got a copy and was allowed upstairs. “By then, the news conference was half over,” he says. “We were cut out of the entire process.”

Minutes after the press conference ended at about 3:30 p.m., Taft held a half-minute scrum on the front steps of the McDougall Centre — a building routinely used by the Conservative government for press conferences. (Opposition parties are forbidden from booking rooms, even though it’s a government facility.) Reporters were anxious to record Taft’s reaction to the royalty changes and get their stories ready for the evening newscasts. However, Taft had little to say. “We haven’t had an opportunity to study this at all,” Taft said. “We only got the information well after you folks did.” As Taft walked away from the scrum, he said: “We need time. It’s the only responsible thing to do.”

As disappointed reporters called after the fleeing Liberal leader, Taft’s chief of staff, Judy Wilson, fumed about the day’s events. She says her staff had called the premier’s office beforehand in both Calgary and Edmonton asking to be on the invite list for the technical briefing, but they were turned down. “It incenses me that we have to ask someone for a copy (of the report), and ask a reporter, ‘Can you brief us on what you just heard?’” Wilson says. “I feel like we’ve let down the people that elected these (Liberal) MLAs…. That’s not open government.”

David Heyman, a spokesperson for Stelmach’s Calgary office, says it was likely a miscommunication that kept the Liberals from being allowed into the news conference right away. “They certainly were welcome at the announcement at 3 p.m.,” says Heyman. Regarding the technical briefing, Heyman says the Official Opposition didn’t fit into either category of media or industry — the two groups allowed upstairs. “We were afraid of broadening the category,” says Heyman. “If you allow the Official Opposition, then why not, say, the Pembina Institute? Why not other various groups?” He says the media briefings are a “favour” to reporters who need to meet tight deadlines. “The Official Opposition doesn’t have an hourly deadline,” says Heyman, a former Calgary Herald reporter.

The Liberals also had trouble learning the details of the royalty review panel report after it was released September 18. “We were barred from the technical briefing and when the report itself was released to the public, they wouldn’t give us a copy of the report,” says Taft. “We actually initially had to borrow a copy from a reporter.”

David Stewart, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, says the Liberals’ complaint is legitimate. “They have members who are elected to represent Albertans,” he says. (The Liberals have 16 of 83 seats in the legislature.) “And if information is being shared with the media and not with elected members, that’s problematic.” Stewart notes that the Alberta government’s relationship with opposition parties is “less developed” than the relationships between government and opposition in other provinces. It was only recently — in April — that Stelmach decided to allow opposition members on legislature standing policy committees. “Prior to that, the opposition was shut out,” says Stewart.

Taft says the government’s hesitation to keep the Official Opposition in the know is “a shot at democracy” that gives the ruling party an unfair advantage. “It stifles the profile of the opposition in the public mind,” he says. “People wonder: ‘Where is the opposition?’ Well, the opposition is there, but the government through its many channels is able to block the message…. It just happens constantly.”