Kenney standing up for coal companies

By Letter to the Editor on March 25, 2021.

Editor:
Re: “Coal industry lobbied hard to change Coal Policy” – Lethbridge Herald, March 9.
In a March 15 pronouncement Jason Kenney, speaking from a lectern inscribed with the slogan “Standing Up for Albertans” made this statement: “At the end of the day ordinary Alberta voters are the boss in our democracy”.
But before that “end of the day” it appears that Jason Kenney, Jason Nixon, Travis Toews, Sonya Savage, Doug Schweitzer, et al are the “boss”, aided and abetted by UCP MLAs lacking the ethical backbone to stand up against things that are wrong.
And they care not a whit about democracy or the views of Albertans.
Instead they meet in the shadows with representatives of the coal industry and conspire to eliminate a decades old policy which protected Alberta’s sacred east slopes from destruction by open pit coal mines. They do this without even once telling Albertans what is happening.
Their meetings occur with no consultation with those who will be forever affected by their decisions, and who just happen to be the owners of the land; namely, the people of Alberta, including those “ordinary Alberta voters”. Such deceit.
The conspirators draft and impose this new policy with wording approved by the coal industry.
This new policy, rather than protecting the environment as did the original, essentially grants coal companies free reign to destroy mountains and foothills, streams and rivers, wildlife and vegetation, and to pollute watersheds with toxic residue so that every living thing that comes in contact with that water is placed at risk.
Within days of the policy being implemented coal companies were granted leases to begin exploration and the bulldozers began ripping apart our hills and mountains.
But up to that point in time Albertans still had not been told about the new policy. It is testimony to the devious way in which Kenney and his gang have given Alberta to the coal industry that not one of them made any kind of statement about the deal they had cooked.
Only after “ordinary Alberta voters” began asking questions did any of the conspirators say anything.
If this UCP-Coal Industry agreement was in any way a “fair deal” for Alberta and Albertans you can be certain that Jason Kenney would have called the press, stood behind his lectern, stabbed the air with his finger, and taken credit for the whole thing.
Curiously, that hasn’t happened.
Perhaps he’s waiting for a new lectern with the slogan “Standing Up for Coal Companies, not Albertans”.
Greg Hales
Lethbridge