Alberta's ethics commissioner is refusing to investigate a conflict of interest claim regarding an Alberta Energy Regulator board member who is also listed as a special adviser to the premier on the Government of Alberta website.--CP FILE PHOTO
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
The ethics commissioner has denied a request for investigation into an energy regulator board member and adviser to Premier Danielle Smith for possible conflicts of interest.
The Request for Investigation letter was issued July 22 by an Alberta landowner with an orphan well on his property.
The investigation was sought on the basis of concerns about whether David Yager breached sections of the Conflict of Interest Act that places obligations on senior officials and members of the premier’s staff. The request also requested consideration of whether sole-source contracts awarded to Yager violated the province’s procurement and sole-sourcing policy.
“David Yager wears many different hats,” said Susanne Calabrese, a lawyer at the firm Ecojustice, which represented the landowner in the RFI.
“We really feel those hats are a conflict of interest. In particular, we were really concerned about the way the mature asset strategy was created, which is meant to be in the public interest and solve something that affects so many people and could result in billions and billions of dollars in liability to Alberta taxpayers.”
Yager was a key architect of the mature asset strategy, a government report containing recommendations for dealing with costly abandoned oil and gas wells across the province. The report contains a suggestion to use taxpayer dollars to create an insurance program to cover liabilities related to closed wells, which is currently the legal obligation of the oil and gas companies themselves.
Yager is listed on Government of Alberta webpages as a “special adviser to the Premier of Alberta.” He sits on the board of the Alberta Energy Regulator, the province’s arm’s-length energy regulator.
Yager also has 50 years experience in the oil and gas industry. The website for his company, Yager Management Ltd., continues to advertise services that are “helping oil and gas companies achieve success.”
He has also been the recipient of four sole-source government contracts, amounting to a total of more than $400,000 in compensation, between 2023 and 2025.
Other of Yager’s former appointments include chair of a third-party panel reviewing the AER and chair of the Premier’s Advisory Council on Alberta’s Energy Future.
“It’s really troubling, you can at the same time represent the partisan interests of a government, the interest of an independent regulator, the private interests of industry and also be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do things in the public interest,” said Calabrese.
In his response to Calabrese, ethics commissioner Shawn McLeod said senior officials are defined in the act as the chair and chief executive officers of a public agency, as well as any other person identified by order in council as a senior official.
As a board member of the Alberta Energy Regulator, Yager does not meet the criteria to be described as a senior official. As such, McLeod says the Office of the Ethics Commissioner has no jurisdiction to investigate him.
Likewise, as Yager’s company was contracted by the Premier’s Office and Yager himself does not hold a position in the Office of the Premier, he does not qualify as an employee of the premier, thus falling outside the jurisdiction of the OEC.
Calabrese says to her knowledge, Yager’s consultancy company consists only of Yager himself. She says McLeod’s refusal to consider Yager an employee of the premier because his company rather than his person are under her employment sets a dangerous precedent.
“Now for all the premier’s staff members, can they just insulate themselves from public oversight by opening up a similar consultancy company?”
In September, Yager attended a town hall in Warburg to discuss the mature asset strategy alongside the Minister of Energy’s chief of staff.
“It’s deeply disturbing to me that Mr. Yager, who works directly with the premier, advertises as her special adviser, is paid with tax dollars, shows up to places like Warburg, is in those high-level meetings, is somehow just completely above the Conflict of Interest Act,” said Calabrese.
McLeod says the request that the OEC investigate whether the sole-source contracts awarded to Yager violate the government’s Procurement and Sole-Sourcing Policy also falls outside the jurisdiction of his office.
As a result, McLeod says the OEC will not conduct an investigation regarding the allegations outlined by Calaberese.
While Calabrese says she was not surprised by the outcome of her request, she was disappointed.
“It undermines public trust in government and accountability, and just our trust that the government is doing what’s best for us in general,” she said. “I think Albertans deserve a lot more than just a summary dismissal on a technicality.”
Neither Yager nor the Ministry of Energy and Minerals responded to requests for comment from the News in time for publication.
