1. CTV has a story on how the #ableg Privacy Commissioner is investigating the War Room’s hiring of Hamish Marshall’s PR/lobbying firm calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-s-priv… #cdnpoli
2. It all started with the War Room’s Netflix/Bigfoot petition alerting me to fact that @CDNEnergyCentre was running petitions. Why, I wondered, was a publicly-funded comms outfit gathering names & postal codes like a political party?
3. The War Room is funded thru tax revenues but was set up as a separate corporation with 3 UCP Cabinet ministers on board of directors to TRY to shield it from Freedom of Information requests (more on that later).
4. So I signed up to the War Room’s email list and submitted a request under AB’s Personal Info & Privacy Act to find out who they were sharing personal data with. The answer: One Persuasion aka Hamish Marshall’s PR / lobbying company
5. OP describes itself as a “national high-stakes strategy firm. We deliver wins for companies, governments, political parties, associations & major public & political figures.” It has deep ties to federal & AB Conservative parties, including
6. All of OP’s partners used to work as political staff for CPC politicians. 3 of 4 partners previously worked for a company that ran websites for federal Conservative politicians, including Jason Kenney.
7. Marshall was election campaign manager for both the federal Conservative party in the 2019 election & Brian Jean’s run for the UCP leadership. He is closely tied to Ezra Levant, having helped Eza set up Ethical Oil & Rebel News websites
8. As Scheer’s campaign manager, Marshall gave a presentation to joint @oilgascanada / @CPC_HQ 2019 election strategy session on using 3rd parties to “rally the base” for Conservative parties theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…
9. OP also appears to be the administrator for the UCP’s membership & fundraising website (see the URL) 
10. None of this is illegal, but it blurs the line between public & partisan purposes. Worth noting @erinotoole denounced Libs for using tax dollars to hire the same company that runs their election campaigns theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…
11. So I filed a request for an investigation with the Privacy Commissioner. That investigation, however, is currently on hold while the Commish gets an adjudicator to determine if the War Room actually is subject to #FOI legislation greenpeace.org/static/planet4…
12. If that ruling comes out in favour of transparency, it could be a race between FOI requests and the shredding machines over at @CDNEnergyCentre
13. Back to vacation-land for me. I really hope I have to switch my info request from Privacy Act to FOI...
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