Something I'm wondering about re: the #ableg war room. Let's take their mission at face value - assume they are looking for data-driven responses to false information. Great. That raises a HUGE efficiency question with respect to moving the office outside of government. 1/N
Suppose someone (say, me for example) publishes something with which they disagree. Perhaps they want to access some data to counter or test what I've written. Perhaps from Bloomberg? IHS? Other very expensive subscription services? 2/N
The GoA has access to many of these services (I get a lot of them on academic pricing or library access) but a private corp in a separate physical location can't access GoA subscriptions for these items without violating terms of service. So, you're duplicating. 3/N
This may seem like a small deal, but it quickly adds up. A Bloomberg terminal is about $25k per year. IHS subscriptions are pricey. It's going to add up and none of it is necessary. 4/N
Next, let's talk expertise. The Departments of Energy and the Environment have many experts on all things oil sands, energy, markets, etc. What will the relationship be between these depts and the war room? Will the war room hire it's own experts? Be able to call on govt? 5/N
The war room, one presumes, is not going to be issuing statements on behalf of the government, and so that's also going to have to happen in parallel. The government is not going to stop responding to campaigns and misinformation, is it? How will responses be coordinated?
Finally, why is it that we don't believe gov't can respond quickly to provide information? Gov't does this all the time in other areas: emergency, public health, etc. The ability to respond quickly is absolutely within the purview of gov't (political and bureaucratic). 7/N
So, perhaps there's a good reason for all the duplication, distance, and secrecy but it's not something I can see if we take their mission at face value. I suppose it's possible that my error was in that assumption? 8/8
