 Partially in an effort to counter-act negative publicity from oil sands-related issues — for example, the March 2009 edition of National Geographic Magazine contained a 20-page article portraying Alberta's oil sands operations as being highly environmentally damaging — in 2009 Stelmach's government spent $ 25 million on a rebranding campaign for the province. Among other things, it replaced the "Alberta Advantage" slogan that had long been in use with "Alberta: Freedom to create. Spirit to achieve." The campaign became the subject of some ridicule when the Edmonton Journal revealed that one of the photos used in it was not taken in Alberta, but at a North Sea beach in Northumberland. While the government initially claimed that it had intentionally used a foreign image to represent Alberta's engagement with the world, it later admitted that this was not the case, and that the photo had been used in error. Stelmach responded to the image, which showed two children running along a beach, by saying that "children, no matter where they are around the world, they are the next generation. And air quality, water quality, no matter where we live on this big globe, we're all responsible, and that's the message we're trying to portray."
