Brett McKay
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Investigative Journalism Foundation
The chief of staff to Alberta’s minister of energy and minerals is also the head of the political third-party advertiser Alberta Resource Advocacy Foundation (ARAF). The group’s chief financial officer and former director is named in provincial lobbying records actively lobbying the energy ministry on more than two dozen accounts.
Vitor Marciano currently serves as Energy Minister Brian Jean’s chief of staff. In his decades of political activism, Marciano has held several positions with provincial and national conservative parties, as well as working for third-party advocacy groups, including Alberta Proud and Canada Strong and Proud, also known as Proud to be Canadian. He is currently listed as the primary contact for ARAF.
While there are some restrictions on political staff registering as political advertisers, it is only prohibited in cases where they are affiliated with a registered political party, such as the same person holding a “position on the governing body of a third party and the governing body of a registered party.”
Since the resource advocacy group was registered in 2021, Elections Alberta documents name only one other member of the political third party, its current CFO Travis Olson. Olson’s biography on the Alberta Counsel website says he previously served as the director of stakeholder management for ARAF.
In 2024, ARAF received $4,200 in donations, with $4,000 coming from Fort McKay Alcor Limited Partnership, a facilities maintenance and management company from the Wood Buffalo region.
Olson and Marciano’s paths have intersected throughout their political careers. Though never winning a seat in the legislature, Olson was selected as a candidate for Danielle Smith’s Wildrose Alliance while Marciano served as the party’s executive director.
Olson is now a lobbyist at the public relations firm Alberta Counsel. Provincial records list Olson among several politically connected consultant lobbyists trying to influence Alberta Energy and Minerals on behalf of 29 clients, including the Canadian Gas Association, Enbridge, Tourmaline Oil Corp., SLCJ Ltd.’s data centre subsidiary Juniper Canada, and the Municipal District of Greenview, home of the Greenview Industrial Gateway in which Kevin O’Leary plans to build the Wonder Valley AI data centre.
Working alongside Olson on the files is fellow Alberta Counsel consultant and former senior advisor to Premier Smith, Michaela Frey, and Shayne Saskiw, who succeeded Marciano as the executive director of the Wildrose party.
Many of the companies named in the lobbying records have been meeting with Alberta Energy and Minerals and other departments to discuss environmental and development regulations, including tax “competitiveness” for oil and gas companies, greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies, hydrogen policy, and carbon capture and storage incentives.
The records also show enthusiasm within the oil and gas sector for Alberta’s emerging data centre sector.
Tourmaline is looking to engage with the province “on the potential role of Alberta’s natural gas resources in supporting emerging energy-intensive industries, including data centers.” And is advocating for policies and regulations that will enable natural gas industry investment and development in this area.
Alberta’s data centre policy aims to attract $100 billion in investment within five years.
Marciano and Olson did not respond to requests for comment. Jean’s office sent the IJF a statement saying Marciano’s involvement with the third-party advertiser has been vetted by the ethics commissioner.
“The Alberta Resource Advocacy Foundation is currently dormant and has been dormant since before Mr. Olson took on a role with Alberta Counsel,” reads the statement. “Mr. Olson works agriculture and post-secondary files with Alberta Counsel and has not lobbied Vitor Marciano or the Energy and Minerals Minister’s office on energy files.”
