{"id":54647,"date":"2020-08-13T07:40:03","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T12:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54647"},"modified":"2020-08-13T07:40:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T12:40:03","slug":"albertas-environment-minister-cheered-on-coal-mining-in-new-areas-before-restrictions-were-dropped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54647","title":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s Environment Minister Cheered on Coal Mining in New Areas before Restrictions Were Dropped"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alberta\u2019s Environment Minister Cheered on Coal Mining in New Areas before Restrictions Were Dropped<\/h3>\n

Months before ending the Coal Policy, the Kenney government issued letters of support for open-pit projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Coal mining along Alberta\u2019s Rockies. Months before a large zone along the eastern slopes was opened to coal strip mining, two Alberta ministers endorsed an Australian firm\u2019s plans for the protected lands.\u00a0Photo via Shutterstock.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Half a year before the Alberta government abruptly\u00a0rescinded<\/a> a 44-year-old policy protecting its Rocky Mountain flanks from coal open-pit mining, its ministers were already sending \u201cletters of support\u201d to a new Australian coal mining corporation trying to raise capital on the open market.<\/p>\n

Valory Resources Inc. is just one of several Australian firms planning to excavate open-pit coal mines along the Rockies\u2019 eastern slopes, a key source of fresh water previously off limits to surface mining until last June.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the Kenney government\u00a0cancelled<\/a>\u00a0the protective Coal Policy established in 1976. Under the cover of the pandemic, it did so with no public consultation.<\/p>\n

The letters of support \u2014 one from Alberta\u2019s minister of tourism and the other from the minister of environment \u2014 indicate Valory\u2019s plans were already understood and favoured by the Kenney government well before it changed regulations to make them possible.<\/p>\n

Valory, a private company now\u00a0trying to raise capital<\/a>\u00a0for the project, displays the letters in its promotional materials (see page 24 in\u00a0this pdf<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In a presentation to the town of Rocky Mountain House in central Alberta last month, Valory Resources boasted that it had \u201crecently met with key members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and received strong statements of support… which indicates that the Alberta provincial government are \u2018pro-development and open for business.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alberta\u2019s Environment Minister Cheered on Coal Mining in New Areas before Restrictions Were Dropped Months before ending the Coal Policy, the Kenney government issued letters of support for open-pit projects. Coal mining along Alberta\u2019s Rockies. Months before a large zone along the eastern slopes was opened to coal strip mining, two Alberta ministers endorsed an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[1082,5549,103,1043,23884],"class_list":["post-54647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-alberta","tag-andrew-nikiforuk","tag-canada","tag-coal-mining","tag-thetyee-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54648,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54647\/revisions\/54648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}