Inside Alberta's plan to build its own diplomacy in the U.S.
CBC
New documents reveal details of a multimillion-dollar plan from the province of Alberta to promote itself in the United States and expand its international diplomacy in an era of tension over energy policy.
The plans are laid out in two sets of documents filed last month on an American federal website that tracks foreign political activity in the U.S.
Alberta plans to open offices in several U.S. cities, and these filings offer details on a pair of concurrent projects: a $1.7-million American advertising campaign on energy, and a more wide-ranging $2-million public-relations program.
Alberta's enhanced diplomatic presence comes amid impassioned debates over oil and the future of energy production, which have pit Alberta against the national governments of both Canada and the U.S.
Premier Jason Kenney told a U.S. podcast this week that too many Americans seem unaware of the role Alberta plays, and can play, in supplying the U.S. with energy. He shared an anecdote from his last trip to Washington to illustrate a point: that his province's story isn't being heard in the corridors of federal power.
"I'm schlepping around in a yellow cab, I can barely get a meeting with a janitor in the State Department. But the emir of Oman blows into town … in a 40-car motorcade. And every door is open to him," Kenney told the conservative podcast Ruthless in an episode aired Tuesday.
"And Oman is responsible for less than five per cent of U.S. energy imports. It's a really strange situation."
He voiced exasperation with the federal governments in both the U.S. and Canada.
Kenney chided the Biden administration for cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, then scrambling, amid a surge in oil prices, to get more imports from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela.
"Why didn't they give us a call? We're your closest friends and neighbours," Kenney said. "It just makes absolutely no sense."
WATCH | Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says a Keystone XL successor project would benefit the province and Canada:
Kenney also offered details in the U.S. interview on his annoyance that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to push back against President Joe Biden. Just before Biden's inauguration, last year, Kenney said he got wind of Biden's plan to cancel Keystone XL and pleaded with the prime minister to call the incoming president and lobby against it.
"[Trudeau] wouldn't do it. … They just rolled over. It was abject surrender," Kenney said.
Those comments from the premier add context to the province's planned advocacy efforts, spelled out in newly published documents.
Mitchell Rose, 32, is now facing a third charge of attempted murder following a series of attacks in an apartment building on Anspach Street in St. John's last week.
Nova Scotia’s population dropped by nearly 1,400 people in the third quarter of 2025, marking the first decline since 2020 and the largest decline in a decade.
Horizon Health says it has a comprehensive surge plan for the holiday season but is asking people to consider other options to avoid crowding emergency rooms.
The four aerial ski lifts at Mont‑Sainte‑Anne are set to resume operations after Quebec’s building authority lifted an order that had shut them down last week over electrical safety concerns.
WARNING: This story contains profanity and details of racist language.
Blizzard conditions in Saskatoon will ease throughout the evening Wednesday, but the bad weather in Regina and southeastern Saskatchewan will last well into the night, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
Advocates, local politicians and a Toronto doctor are raising environmental concerns about the provincial government’s redevelopment of Ontario Place, with some warning the plans could involve dumping sewage in Lake Ontario.
The Yukon government said Monday it will not reopen the warming centre in the government administration building in downtown Whitehorse this winter.
Canada's legally binding climate target seems to be out of reach, new data released from Environment and Climate Change Canada suggests.
More than 30 people packed into the town hall in O'Leary after they were forced to evacuate when a fire broke out Tuesday morning in the attic of a building where they were living.
Flights in and out of Calgary International Airport have been put on hold temporarily as severe blizzard conditions sweep through the city and much of Alberta.
Ottawa and Ontario are set to sign a deal Thursday that will reduce the regulatory burden on large projects, including the road to the Ring of Fire, The Canadian Press has learned.
A Yellowknife daycare says it tested well below Health Canada's guidelines for drinking water. Now it says it would like to see the N.W.T. government provide more support to other daycares across the territory so they can also test their water.