Ta Heaps, from Oz
More than 200,000 Albertans who signed the petition might be wondering about your ethics, honesty, and trustworthiness.
Lorne Fitch, P. Biol.
G’Day Dani,
Crikey, that was a bloody ripper of a strategy, to have a secret drop dead date for the Water Not Coal petition one from Corb Lund. It was classic bait and switch, just like we coal companies play the suckers with on jobs, huge revenues, and environmental excellence.
Promising Albertans they could have some participatory democracy in the form of a referendum on blowing up the Eastern Slopes for coal. And then jerking the rug out from under them, with some made-up time limit. That was brilliant! More than 200,000 Albertans who signed the petition might be wondering about your ethics, honesty, and trustworthiness. Don’t worry, we’ve got your back.
We’ve been secretly funding ad campaigns, partisan experts, local coal citizen groups, messages from coal workers, lobbyists, and even a vote at a municipal level (that some have tried to paint as rigged). The “Myth Busting” website uses ingenious double speak to disguise the truth. You know we’ve been mouthing the words about protecting water and letting people know we have the most stringent environmental regulations anywhere.
But we appreciate the work done by your ministers to ensure we can elevate allowable selenium levels to the point it is economical to mine. It’s also great that you’ve secretly changed the rules for your regulator, the Alberta Energy Regulator, to keep a lot of loud-mouthed ranchers and environmentalists from participating in decision-making processes like hearings on coal mines. That will save us a lot of money and speed up mine approvals.
Australian coal companies thank you for ensuring Alberta doesn’t go coal free, like most Albertans want. Good on ya! She’ll be apples now for our mine applications and approvals. Maybe we’ll even drop our frivolous lawsuits. The barbie’s on whenever you and your ministers come south to Australia again. You’re our saviour and hero!
With gratitude to our Alberta toadies, from your Ozzie coal friends.
Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist and a former Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of Streams of Consequence, Travels Up the Creek, and Conservation Confidential.
I have not agreed with many things this government has done, and there have certainly been a lot in the past two terms of this UCP government, but these days I seem to get an immediate headache and nausea when yet another lie comes from this government, while they strip away another layer of democracy from the fascist nut at the centre of this party.