The Canadian Energy Centre (CEC), also known as Alberta’s 'war room', is shrinking its operating budget by 90 per cent for a term of three months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a news release on Monday afternoon, the government said the overwhelming majority of the CEC’s budget was intended for paid advertising campaigns that cannot proceed during the pandemic. As a result, the CEC has reduced its current spending to subsistence operations at this time.
If applied on an annual basis, this reflects a 90 per cent reduction in the organization's operating budget from $30 million to $2.84 million.
The spending that remains will be limited to functions such as continuing and preparing research, office infrastructure and administrative support.
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The CEC plans to maintain a reduced budget for a period of three months or until regular operations can resume. This includes taking steps to end all paid advertising campaigns, pausing work with outside contractors and ensuring it is well-positioned to resume operations when the time is right.
“Global energy demand is down dramatically because of reduced consumption due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Saudi-initiated price war. But in time, demand will recover. The world still needs reliable energy. While some would like to capitalize on this unprecedented crisis to permanently shut down Canadian oil and gas, we do not believe we should surrender the global energy market to these opponents. The CEC will continue to be required to promote and defend Canadian energy,” Alberta's Energy Minister Sonya Savage said.
Two-thirds of the CEC’s allocated budget is provided directly from industry via the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) levy. The remaining third consists of reallocated advertising funds from previous budgets.
