What was the province’s thought process on the Grassy Mountain coal deal?
By Lethbridge Herald on August 7, 2025.
Editor,
Who greased Grassy Mountain?
Most of the grease was applied by an Alberta cabinet minister who, after incongruously declaring Grassy Mountain’s rejected coal mine proposal an advanced project, used his acknowledged multiple failures to acquire a driver’s licence as rationale for giving Northback the keys to renewed opportunity.
What’s changed within Grassy Mountain’s heavily-researched and documented geological structure to suggest there’s an economically viable vision for coal mining life following joint-panel review death?
What’s happened to alter the written submissions made by an industry-respected mining engineer and a retired Alberta Geological Survey geologist—both come with decades of direct experience—reporting that Grassy Mountain’s coal seams will never be able to compete in quality or quantity with coking coal in British Columbia’s Elk Valley?
What is it other than lavish injections of marketing money and fanfare—add a lineup of lawyers—that gives life to a coal mining vision that died years ago in a judgement led by the Alberta Energy Regulator?
What is it that gives Grassy Mountain’s coal and its advocates the hype and hope of life-after-death descent into a black hole … and a flaming finale within the hellish molten core of a metallurgical furnace?
David McIntyre
Crowsnest Pass
10-9
I look forward to hearing who applied the grease and who got greased, and why Albertans had to pay hundreds of $millions for nothing … again. The full story won’t emerge until this secretive and authoritarian provincial government is voted out of office. If it did, the book would be banned …
Good points Sophie. Looking forward to who cancelled coal contracts without reading them in a hurry to be the environment poobah. Is anyone accountable for that 2.1 BILLION payout.
Can you explain why there were any contracts to cancel when there were regulations in place that would’ve prevented them like Lougheed wanted? Apparently that’s too obvious for you to understand isn’t it?
Lougheed’s protection was destroyed, contracts provided, and when the public voiced their disgust the contracts were cancelled all thanks to these damn Reformers with your help, so why don’t we hold you and them financially responsible, want to try?
Contracts terminated early. Require payouts, 2.1 billion. Just asking for accountability from people currently alive. You realize it is 2025 and not 1975
Once again no one agrees with you yet you aren’t smart enough to understand that are you, so how about we give you a chance in court to prove why you are so much smarter than everyone else, would you like to try?
you astound me in that your entries are ever so blindly “conservative”: money comes first, such that corruption, sustainability, fairness, the health of land and the big picture hardly mean a thing.
Nicely (and quite correctly) put biff.
We think there is a lot more to what these Reformers have gotten out of destroying Lougheed’s protection to protect our water supply and we had better not let them get away with it had we? What has a former lawyer hellbent on letting it go ahead pocketed is the big question isn’t it?
Northback must have breathed a sigh of relief when the UCP flip flopped on their mining policy. That opened the door for their lawsuit which will likely result in a settlement exceeding $500 million. The coal market is doing its regular tanking which means Northback will walk away with more profit then it would have gotten from any u/g mine that likely was never to happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of their spending to promote Grassy Mtn went to UCP members to influence the flip flop.
UCP is sickening, Danielle Smith is grifting,
Millions of our taxpayer dollars paid out to the foreign coal mining company headquartered in Australia. Read about the graft and corruption that this company has done in many many places around the world.
Shameful that a high number CNP people are really gullible. Choose clean tourism over selenium poisoned mountain water!
Sold out by the mining company who built a new golf course and clubhouse, and paved road into it.,
Good comments. She wastes $7 million of taxpayers money on helping her pal Pierre Poilievre get re-elected, likely paid the former MP to give up his seat so Poilievre would have a safe place to run ?
A shoe-in we are told by stupid people believing every lie these Reformers feed them, and who don’t care that the Convoy Truckers cost Canadians $6 billion that’s how stupid they are, aren’t they?