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House Hansard - 216

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 19, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 216 - Jun/19/23
Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)
  • Jun/19/23 8:36:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am standing today representing my constituents and the constituents of Alberta. I want to tell a bit of a story. In May 2020, amid COVID-19 shutdowns, on the Friday afternoon before the May long weekend, Alberta's United Conservative government quietly revealed that it was rescinding Alberta's coal policy that had protected the Rocky Mountains and the eastern slopes from exploration and mining since 1976. Albertans had no insight into this. They had no inkling that this change was going to happen, but the mining companies absolutely did. Within days, on 240,000 hectares of environmentally sensitive land on the eastern slopes, areas that included the headwaters of Alberta's major watershed serving Edmonton, Calgary and southern Alberta, thousands of trees were bulldozed and hundreds of kilometres of temporary roads were carved through the landscape by coal-mining companies. The outcry from Albertans and other Canadians was swift. It was overwhelming. Through various petitions and forms, hundreds of thousands of Canadians turned to the federal government for help. They asked that the government enforce federal laws, including the species at risk legislation and the Canada Water Act, and consult with first nations and other indigenous groups in keeping with the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is something that the provincial Conservative government had very clearly failed to do. I stood in this House and called on the government to close a loophole in the legislation. In fact, I brought a private member's bill forward to do that. The loophole was that in the past any mine that was under 5,000 tonnes per day did not trigger the Impact Assessment Act. What we were finding was that mining companies were building two mines side by side that were 4,950 tonnes or 4,925 tonnes to get under that 5,000 tonnes per day loophole. Therefore, I brought my private member's bill to the minister of the environment at the time, the now Minister of Natural Resources, and he agreed with me and he agreed in policy to change that loophole. It was the best day of my life as a parliamentarian because my legislation was put into policy, so we were delighted. It meant that all coal mines in the Rocky Mountains were going to trigger an environmental impact assessment. I am pleased to say that meant that some of the mines that were going to be most destructive in southern Alberta were shut down and the ones that were most destructive in the eastern slopes were shut down and did not go ahead. The investors pulled out, the mining companies pulled out and our water and our land was protected in Alberta. However, after that we got a new minister and the new minister has now rubber-stamped a coal mine that is going into the Grande Cache mountains. The minister has completely discarded the policy that his predecessor put in place. Either he is not paying attention or he does not care, and if that is the case it is a betrayal. Either the minister thinks that this mine does not have to be under the threshold of 5,000 tonnes or he thinks that selenium is not a risk. What I would like to know from the government is, which is it? Which reason is it that the government is betraying Albertans and not triggering an environmental impact assessment on a coal mine in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains?
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Context: House Hansard - 216 - Jun/19/23
Ms. Heather McPherson
  • Jun/19/23 8:43:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have three additional questions from that response. One is this: Does the minister not understand the damage coal mining does to the mountains, whether it is metallurgical or thermal? The minister before the current Minister of Environment and Climate Change promised they would assess every single coal mine. We also know that there is no way of him knowing what the selenium outcomes are going to be. We do not have that information because we have not tested and we have not looked at it yet. Selenium poisoning is what is going to kill the water, kill the fish and kill the land. Does the minister not understand how selenium poisoning works, and will he not listen to the indigenous groups in the community that have asked for this impact assessment and have asked him to close this loophole? He has the ability to do this. I beg of the minister to close this mine down and bring in an impact assessment, as was promised, now.
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