In addition to the UCP’s attacks on our provincial parks, this week the AB government rescinded a decades old ban on open pit coal mines.
Initially it seemed that the UCP government was being transparent in their intentions for making this decision, to make it it easier to develop industry in environmentally sensitive area’s’. However, this statement appears to be at odds with their response to environment critics by insisting that the same environmental standards will apply before the ban was lifted.
The government also excluded the oil and gas sector from all environmental reporting.
The reasons given by the UCP government for abandoning environmental reporting, which by extension simultaneously abandons any environmental enforcement, was to the Covid pandemic and meant to eliminate ‘undo hardship’ for oil and gas. The government did not/could not/would not give any rationale or examples to make the connection between the Covid pandemic and environmental testing.
Prior to writing this letter I talked to a number of oil and gas sector workers. One of these people told me that the timing of the UCP government’s decision to abandon environmental reporting coincides with new Methane restrictions. That seems like an awfully big coincidence. Another worker who is an OH&S expert for the oil and gas industry stated that there is no connection between Covid safety measures and environmental testing.
The UCP has spent 10’s of millions of dollars, not counting the costs of copyright infringements/’independent’ studies/propaganda efforts of their own, on a ‘war room’ using our tax payer dollars without any transparency and/or accountability.
The purpose of this ‘war room’ is to try to prove that there is a foreign conspiracy directed at AB’s bitumen and to promote AB’s oil and gas extraction processes as the cleanest in the world.
Even if the UCP had a chance to convince the US on energy security, they now have NO chance on convincing the world about our commitment to the environment. As the world shifts to sustainable sources of energy, our government now sprints the other way.
The latest major loss of capital occurred when Norway’s largest pension fund pulled out of AB. I’m not arguing about the hypocrisy involved in this decision, I’m just stating fact. But now Saudi Arabia has partially replaced this capital, I wonder how many people know this? How does this help with AB’s image?
On March 17, 2020 the UCP government gave itself unprecedented powers due to the Covid pandemic. Although I doubted these powers were needed as I had faith that the NDP would have reacted in support of most of the immediate health needs of Albertans, I was willing to set aside my scepticism. As we start to transition out of the Covid Pandemic, these decisions and others like it, make me fear my trust was misplaced and these emergency powers are now being abused.
As always, I would have the same opinion for any government that acted like this.
Regards
Dan Cunin
