Nigel Bankes, a resource law specialist at the University of Calgary, calls the provincial government’s handling of contentious coal mining on the eastern slopes “terrible, terrible public policymaking.”
“That’s the best way I can describe what’s going on,” Bankes told TheRockies Life. “It’s like making policy by way of news announcements.”
In late December, the UCP government announced that it would ask the coal industry to help fill in blanks in the Coal Industry Modernization Initiative, which conservationists and former government scientists said lacked essential details about allowable coal mining techniques, environmental standards and other factors.
Then, in mid-January, Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean announced lifting a moratorium on new coal leases, claiming that the government’s hand was forced by a pending lawsuit from five coal companies seeking $15 billion from the province in sunk costs and lost earnings. This greenlights the eastern slopes for future open pit coal mines before the province completes its work-in-progress modern coal policy.
“I was flabbergasted by the December announcement, and I was even more flabbergasted by the January announcement,” Bankes said. “They [government] keep talking about the coal industry and not, you know, civil society, not municipalities, not irrigators and not folks in agriculture.”
Intense Lobbying by the Coal Industry
While the public is left largely in the dark, documents show that cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats have been chatting behind closed doors with coal industry lobbyists and executives for years.
Those on the coal industry lobby payroll include a cast of government insiders, like Alastair Sanderson, who was assistant deputy minister at Alberta’s Department of Energy until 2016, Reise O’Hara, chief of staff to Alberta’s transportation minister until 2015, and Elan MacDonald, who served as acting chief of staff and advisor to Premier Alison Redford.
Publicly available documents reveal extensive coal industry lobbying leading up to a snap government announcement, made late on Friday, May 15, 2020, before a long weekend, that it was scrapping the 1976 Coal Policy.
Albertans Have Been Here Before
A swift public backlash forced then-energy minister Sonya Savage to reinstate the coal policy less than a year later, on Feb. 8, 2021. Savage followed this up in March 2022 with a ministerial order giving direction to the Alberta Energy Regulator to not consider coal development on Category 1 lands in line with the 1976 Coal Policy and to temporarily suspend development on Category 2 lands as well as on Category 3 and 4 lands, with an exception for “advanced coal projects.”
As part of this resource management reboot, the province formed a coal policy committee “to prepare a report to the Minister on the advice and perspectives of Albertans about the management of coal resources ….”
False Hope
That’s precisely what the committee did. Many people, including Bankes, hoped this would be a turning point. However, this public outreach exercise led to the Coal Industry Modernization Initiative, which promptly turned its back on one of the coal policy committee’s key recommendations – to complete land use plans for the eastern slope as a first step toward developing modern coal policy.
“The message was that we need to do land use planning to decide where we might even think about coal mining and then just put everything else off limits. I think that’s where people thought we were at,” Bankes said. “And then, of course, we get another shock announcement that we’re lifting the moratorium.”
Things Are Different Now
Nearly five years ago, citizens concerned about watershed protection on the eastern slopes of the Rockies were blindsided by the sudden decision to ditch the 1976 Coal Policy. Things are different today. According to Bankes, people are ready for a fight.
“We’re not talking about building a coalition of interests. It’s just about revitalizing the coalition, and it’s a broad coalition now,” Bankes said. “I think what’s changed this time is that they’re mobilizing the agri-food elements of the economy, which is irrigators and farmers and folks who typically are strongly supportive of the UCP.”
