Alberta keeps decades-old coal policy in place, 4 advanced projects to continue regulatory process cbc.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cbc.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
How Alberta’s energy and environment ministers misled on open-pit mining plans.
Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist whose books and articles focus on epidemics, the energy industry, nature and more. SHARES Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage with Premier Jason Kenney at a 2019 press conference. Neither made a public appearance in the face of a public backlash against the government’s easing of coal mining.
Photo by Jason Franson, the Canadian Press.
Last week Alberta’s government tried to hide political reality by issuing statements implying the “passion” of citizens had convinced it to back off its efforts to bring open-pit coal mining to a vast, ecologically-vital portion of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
This case is not about an unlawful exercise of government power, she argued earlier Tuesday. This case is about the government s ability to create and dictate policy based on economic, social, political and other relevant factors.
Southern Alberta ranchers and area First Nations are attacking the government s decision to revoke a coal policy from 1976 that blocked development on some parts of the eastern slopes of the Rockies and tightly restricted it elsewhere. The policy was quietly revoked without consultation by Energy Minister Sonya Savage last May.
Burkett, saying there is nothing to review, argued the policy was not rooted in legislation or regulation.