Battle River-Crowfoot has an oil well cleanup problem. Several candidates have spoken up about the issue ahead of tonight’s candidates’ debate in Camrose.
Scattered across the riding are more than 40,000 abandoned and orphaned wells. The cleanup for this mess is at least $1.5 billion, according to research done by TheRockies.Life. Even if cleanup starts now, it will take years to solve the problem.
According to Alberta law, the companies that built the wells in the first place are responsible to pay for cleanup.
But as the numbers show, many companies are shirking their responsibility.
Some companies go bankrupt or sell their assets before cleanup can happen. Other companies, such as Canadian Natural Resources Ltd (CNRL), continue to operate but are slow to clean up inactive wells.
In the first quarter of 2025 alone, CNRL reported net earnings of $2.4 billion. The company has 8,417 abandoned and suspended oil wells in Battle River-Crowfoot, and as of 2023 had just over $3 million in inactive liabilities across the province.
Rather than strengthening regulations that might force polluters to pay for cleanup, in 2020, the federal government gave $1.7 billion to BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan for oil cleanup.
TheRockies.Life reached out to byelection candidates across the political spectrum to hear what they had to say about orphan well cleanup, and how the federal government should intervene.
Responses from candidates
Jonathan Bridges is the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) candidate. The PPC’s platform is pro-life, pro-immigration caps, and fiscally conservative.
Bridges spoke of a need for updated firearm use laws across the riding, stating that farmers need to protect their livestock and hunters need to feed their families.
When asked about the issue of abandoned wells in the riding, he said, “It isn’t proper for a well to just be abandoned and never dealt with. That’s not the way our industry is supposed to run and people need to be held accountable.”
Sarah Spanier is running as an independent in the upcoming byelection. She’s campaigning on affordable healthcare and better access to transit in the riding.
She worked in Pearl Lake in Northern Alberta for a time, and has first-hand experience as to how industry works. Of the well cleanup, she said, “These big companies should be the ones to pay for [cleanup]. They have the money to spend on everything up on the site, they should have the money to clean it as well.”
Katherine Swampy, the NDP candidate, said in an email that while she is pro-oil and gas, she was “disappointed to see so many oil companies have created such a problem for the rest of us to clean up.”
“This is yet again, another example of the liberal government choosing to pass the buck onto hardworking Canadians, while making life easier for large profitable oil and gas corporations,” she said of the 2020 government spending.
Pierre Poilievre’s campaign office did not respond to TheRockies.Life’s request for comment on the 2020 government oil cleanup money, nor about how Poilievre would use federal influence to ensure polluters pay for oil well cleanup.
What can be done?
One of the boldest ways of dealing with the energy industry’s well cleanup problem would be for the government to take over ownership of the industry, says Philip Meintzer, co-founder of the Coalition for Responsible Energy.
This way, “the money will go into government revenue and we can make the active decision of setting aside money for cleanup,” he told TheRockies.Life.
This used to be part of the public discussion years ago, he said, but the idea has fallen off most people’s radar.
Still, there’s some recent precedent – in 2018, the Trudeau government purchased the Trans Mountain Pipeline “to keep the project alive.”
By nationalizing the energy industry, citizens rather than corporations could benefit from industry revenue.
As Kara Westerlund, president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, told TheRockies.Life, “oil and gas is something that belongs to all Albertans. Not to the company, not to the provincial government, it’s something that belongs to all of us.”
“The representation they deserve”
Both Sarah Spanier and Jonathan Bridges spoke of the need to elect someone who is familiar with the riding and the issues facing it.
Spanier said she is “stepping up for the people here who feel that they haven’t gotten the representation that they deserve.”
She reported that many in the riding were frustrated that Damien Kurek, the Conservative MP elected to Parliament in April, had stepped aside, and that many believe Pierre Poilievre won’t represent the riding in Parliament.
Bridges said the riding has historically been an unruly one. In 2022, voters in the riding helped remove Jason Kenney from office.
“We definitely have a political attitude in the area of, when we’re unhappy, we will see changes made,” he said.
