On June 11, more than 500 people showed up in Fort Macleod, near the site of the historic North West Mounted Police post about 170 kilometres south of Calgary, for a “Coal Town Hall” with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, three of her cabinet ministers, and the local UCP MLA.
Alberta’s deep south is conservative country. That may be why Ms. Smith, Energy Minister Brian Jean, Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, Agriculture Minister RJ Sigurdson, and Livingston Macleod MLA Chelsae Petrovic thought it would be easy to sell the idea of letting a billionaire Australian coal magnate dig a massive new coal mine upstream from their farms, ranches and homes. If so, that’s not the way it worked out.
The next day social media was full of clips of the raucous crowd heckling their visitors, holding up signs reading “lie” and “false” when the elected officials opened their mouths, and generally turning the UCP sales pitch into an embarrassing fiasco.
Bradley Lafortune, executive director of Public Interest Alberta was there, and he shares his takeaways on how the town hall went sideways for the UCP, and what remains to be done to stop Northback Holdings Corp.’s dangerous Grassy Mountain project.
DJC
Ten key takeaways from Danielle Smith’s disastrous June 11 ‘Coal Town Hall’
By Bradley Lafortune
I live in Edmonton, on the North Saskatchewan River Watershed. I went to Danielle Smith’s disastrous “Coal Town Hall” in Fort Macleod on June 11 alongside about 500 other Albertans, mostly residents of the area most likely to be harmed if an Australian coal company is allowed to go ahead and build a controversial new mine on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies. Here are 10 takeaways about why the town hall went off the rails:
1. Southern Albertans have lost trust in Danielle Smith’s reasoning for opening the Rockies back up for coal exploration and mining. They aren’t buying the economic, legal, or environmental arguments made by the premier and her ministers. The government has waited too long to attend to these issues and it’s too late for them to regain trust.
2. Albertans opposed to coal mining should not be underestimated. Despite Agriculture Minister, RJ Sigurdson telling the crowd it’s only “eco-activists” who are organizing opposition to coal mines in the region, my observation was that the room was full of ranchers, landowners, and authentically pissed off southern Albertans who didn’t take kindly to being insulted and mislabelled.
3. The UCP Government contradicts itself, and people can smell the bullshit. On one hand, the premier said she has no choice but to allow mining in our Rockies because the legal risk of stopping the project is too great. On the other, she said she wants to allow coal mining because it’s good for the economy, good for investor confidence, and environmental concerns are overblown. She said the company assured her pollution won’t be an issue as it has been with past coal mines. So which is it? They’re scrambling to land on winning talking points. In the meantime, southern Albertans are frustrated by the mixed messaging and being treated like they’re a focus group.
4. The premier of Alberta and her ministers don’t understand or care about water science that shows selenium levels are already dangerously high. An Alberta Government study in early June indicated old coal mines on the Eastern Slopes are already poisoning fish downstream, but Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz won’t let the scientists who wrote the report speak to the public or media. At the town hall, she said it’s not their job to speak publicly about their science. That’s too bad, because throughout the evening the premier and her ministers cited questionable claims about safe levels of selenium, safe consumption concentrations, and B.C.’s experience with mine cleanup. The premier herself implied southern Albertans could ingest more selenium in their diet and it would be the healthy thing to do. The thing is, people are rightly frightened and angry about the potential for poison in their water. The government did nothing to acknowledge or respond meaningfully to their concerns. Instead, it ridiculed them.
5. The premier didn’t just “get here,” but that’s what she told the town hall. “Hey guys, I just got here” was the most pathetic quote of the evening. Why? Because it shines a light on Premier Smith’s entire style of “leadership” and politics. Nothing is ever her responsibility. Someone else is always to blame. It’s my strong sense that regardless of political stripe in Alberta, this grates on people. If you can’t take responsibility for your job after you’ve been doing it for more than two years, then maybe it’s time to look for a new line of work. In southern Alberta, residents sure weren’t buying the “I’m new here” line from Danielle Smith.
6. We have an incredible challenge on our hands. It was abundantly clear the premier and her ministers didn’t come to hear from southern Albertans, they came to lecture them. If we’re going to stop coal mining from polluting our headwaters and watersheds, from the Oldman River to the North Saskatchewan and beyond, then we’re going to have to work together, find common cause, and stay focused. The premier thinks this mine is a done deal. We need to show her it’s not.
7. The UCP government really thinks it’s their job to sell specific corporate projects to the electorate. The premier wasn’t talking about the energy industry, or even a specific fuel, coal, at the town hall: she was talking about one particular project proposed by the richest woman in Australia, whose company has notoriously trampled on Indigenous rights for decades. On this particular evening we had not one, not two, but four members of cabinet, if you count the premier herself, trying to justify resurrecting an economically, socially, and environmentally disastrous project. Why? Do they work for the company? Or do they work for Albertans? Voters are now asking that question.
8. Brian Jean will say anything. From bragging about hanging out at the Legion in Fort Mac (good for you, buddy!) to asking the audience if they had snowmobiles in southern Alberta (seriously?), Energy Minister Brian Jean’s performance was a delirious trainwreck. The best moment came when he told the room that royalties on coal are way too low, that he’s got a detailed analysis saying that, and that he’ll “modernize” them. Sounds promising! But wait, he quickly went on in response to question to say he doesn’t know when or what that might mean for actual coal royalty rates. All he can say just now is that he thinks they should be “modernized.” OK then…
9. Danielle Smith loves picking cherries. Throughout the evening, Premier Smith and her ministers referred to the “citizen referendum” in the municipality of Crowsnest Pass that was held on Nov. 25, as if it were the trump card in the whole debate. But not only was this vote heavily swayed by two years of corporate lobbying by that massive Australian coal corporation, Northback, but the project in question will be built in an entirely different district than where the vote was held! Seriously, the bulk of the proposed project is located in the Municipal District of Ranchland, not Crowsnest Pass. But Danielle Smith doesn’t care about that, and she doesn’t care about the 200,000 other Albertans downstream who will be impacted by the project. A perfect cherry is too good not to pick, I guess.
10. We all know pitting one community against others is the UCP’s favourite strategy, but it’s not just Alberta versus Ottawa anymore! Now it’s even being applied to her party’s own southern Alberta base! Premier Smith’s bogus Crowsnest Pass referendum exposes her favourite dangerous game: she touts populism in general but is committed to exceptionalism in practice. This was nowhere more apparent than when she signalled her commitment to sacrificing the majority interests of regional governments, residents, ranchers, landowners, and farmers to a totally torqued referendum result. Simple populism won’t work here, but she wants to convince her base in the region that they actually really like coal. The problem for the premier is that the hundreds of folks I heard from and talked to in Fort Macleod really don’t like it, and they know why. They know that clean water and air are far more valuable than a coal bed.
So that’s 10 reasons why Premier Smith’s “Coal Town Hall” turned into a fiasco. But, wait … there’s one more thing!
11. Do a land acknowledgment, premier, and don’t pawn that job off on Brian Jean. Be our government leader and spokesperson. As one person told me, “you can’t meaningfully discuss the future of the land and water if you don’t begin by acknowledging it.” To have the premier and three other members of the provincial cabinet come to a community to talk about the future of the mountains, land and water, and fail to acknowledge the Blood, Siksika, Pikaani, and Stoney Nakoda Nations is unforgivable. Especially when members of all those communities have expressed legitimate concerns about the redevelopment of coal projects in the Eastern Slopes. Do better!
I am surprised our former libertarian and sort of former radio celebrity Premier did not burst out a rousing rendition of high hoe high hoe its off to work we go, to try get the crowd to buy into her Disneyesque view of coal mining in Silesia or Alberta.
In any event, the crowd was not buying it and they have concerns about water quality. I doubt Jean could have eased these concerns by telling them how great the water is downstream from all the industry near Fort Mac.
It is sort of ironic the supposed populist politicians seem to be starting to lose touch with the people they claim to represent. Perhaps Smith wasn’t paying attention when her predecessor Kenney tried to impose coal mining on the eastern slopes. No reason to expect this sequel will turn out any better than the original for the UCP. Both turn out to be horror movies based on fairy tales and the people who live in the areas affected already know it.
I personally believe that there are only so many lies that Danielle Smith and the UCP can tell, before those lies eat her and her party up. This isn’t the first time she has betrayed Albertans, or anyone who supported her (for the record, I never have supported the Wildrose, or the UCP). The rural contingency of Alberta who would vote for a fence post painted blue, has been stabbed in the back by politicians, such as Ralph Klein, the CPC, and now the UCP, and they just sit there and take it, time after time. Something had to give, and this coal mining issue is likely the straw that broke the camel’s (in Alberta’s case, the horse’s) back. Brian Jean was so unsupportive of Danielle Smith, and now he is all chummy with her. Who is he really concerned about? Himself.
Albertans made it abundantly clear that they opposed these coal mines, because of environmental concerns. Peter Lougheed’s 1976 Coal Policy was to be kept intact. The UCP doesn’t care about how much the environment gets ruined, they want to support their rich friends. This town hall was definitely rigged, from its location and with the venue size. A larger facility was close by, but the UCP didn’t want to use it. At the rate the UCP are going, there will be a lot more opposition to them in the not so distant future. After that, the UCP will be gone.
You say, I pray. But let’s be honest, the damage(s) forward, particularly health-care, will be beyond repair. The dark horse and private health. If the infrastructure, hospitals go into contract, how on earth can any government, break the contracts, of big money, much as this coal issue reveals. Unions will be dissolved and wages deteriorated, benefits, and professional excellence. The corruption is locked in (UCP), to the highest level, the Minister of Justice.
Its obvious that your political affiliations are prominent in your opinions well before this townhall.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
Great column!
Danielle Smith was able to convince one foreign reporter that she was brand new to politics at the time of the provincial election, but the rest of us remember her first job as an elected official in the 1990s, the firing of the entire board of school trustees in Calgary as a result of dysfunction, her further foray as leader of the Wildrose Party, the floor crossing which did not help Jim Prentice, etc. She isn’t new to any of this but she does need to do some healing work to deal with whatever in her past prevents her from taking responsibility for her own actions like a functional adult.
When can we look forward to Danielle Smith and these ministers taking up residence in cushy waterfront condos in Australia, far from Australian coal mines?
Until the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1983 in Australia, Aboriginal people did not have the same voting rights and obligations granted to other Australians nearly sixty years earlier.
Here’s a little stroll down Australia’s memory lane.
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/forgotten-struggle-australias-aboriginal-people
WOW let me guess what way you lean on the political spectrum!!
The 10 comments are right as rain but does anyone reading this column believe for a moment that come next general election these good rural folk won’t vote for the UCP? All Smith has to do is point off into the distance and say, “Look over there, socialists” and everyone will fall into line. The UCP will win the rural seats and enough of the city seats to form a majority. I hope I am wrong but I don’t think so. It is getting to be like the movie Groundhog Day around here.
Surely there will come a point when rural UCP voters will feel the pain of UCP policies: a family member unable to get timely medical care, a grandchild packed into an elementary classroom with over 30 kids, a child trained as a nurse/doctor/teacher choosing to leave the province to find work, a family friend struggling to pay for a vaccine or, as an AISH recipient, struggling just to get by. The list is long. Add to this a discussion of environmental degradation and pollution exacerbated by UCP policies. Albertans, not just rural Albertans, are worried about their own health and welfare and that of future generations.
But, as pointed out, who will rural Albertans vote for next election? How can they keep voting against their own best interests? How much does it have to hurt for them to rethink their voting practices?
you’re not wrong – regrettably. a province gerrymandered to guarantee rural minority rule, combined with a populace easily distracted by “cultural” factors, means that the ucp types will always wield power.
no surprise that the potentate and her henchpersons know it.
Jaundiced, 100% agreement here, considering the polling numbers that the UCP get. I do not know why, but ordinarily sensible Albertans seem to lose their minds when it comes to choosing their government.
Totally agree, Jaundiced. This is yet another example of the flawed Albertan approach to democracy.
The one thing most likely to get the attention of a politician is the prospect of being defeated in the next election. It’s how voters everywhere else in Canada make their wishes known to their elected representatives.
But here in Alberta, none of the MLAs for mid-sized cities and rural areas face any realistic prospect of being defeated. Voters here — at least outside the two big cities — instead prefer to vote reflexively, even metronomically for conservatives, then hope to influence their decisions in government, by sucking up to them.
Some of us here might recall the bad old days of the former PCs, when influencing the provincial government was even taken to the extreme of municipalities spending ratepayer dollars to send their councillors to PC Party fundraisers. But even then, there was never any talk of maybe just throwing the bums out instead.
Voters and businesses and municipalities feared the provincial government’s wrath if they challenged them on any policy or issue, when in a healthy democracy it is the politicians that fear the voters’ wrath.
These southern farmers and ranchers and other opponents of this plan need to just come right out and say, “if this project goes ahead, we’ll vote NDP next election”, and put their donation dollars where their mouths are. But we all know they won’t, because “socialism”. Like the moderate Alberta NDP is anywhere near resembling a socialism party. As if.
Rural Albertans got the government they deserve.
Oh yes the gathering,
I just worry about the families,children etc who has a lead voice in this ,
Just not safe ,repercussions are big in the opposing voice
Nasty stuff ,oppose wisely
Preach brother!
Thank you, DC, and Bradley thank you for attending (so we didn’t have to!). Excellent commentary. I strongly agree with your comment about the need for Land acknowledgments. Some conservatives seem embarrassed to do it. We all recall the Bolshevik rallying cry of “Peace, Land, Bread”. I remember the late former ANDP leader Pam Barrett telling me that she had studied with British socialist Tony Benn who taught that every good political speech is about “Peace, Land, Bread” adapted to the times. For our time “Peace” means opposing wars, wherever they occur, “Land” means environmental stewardship and I would add, in Canada, the importance of Land acknowledgments, and “Bread” means economic democracy. It was a good lesson.
Lets put it this way……….Corporate interests and money rule CON politicians…..your vote means very little or nothing at all when bankers and billionaires dictate the back door political landscape……which is to say the publicly funded upper echelon…..the UCP do not give two dumps about the environment…..never did…..and Becky is a joke….this is a fact….O&G want to double production….Excuse me?…..we all know this takes more water from aquafers, rivers and lakes……and water is evaporating quickly and not being replenished at the same rate……it will never recover unless we have biblical floods and a serious global temperature drop…..so some things should be just left alone……left to heal……the corporate clown party that is Alberta’s inebriated designated driver best start respecting the the ground that they walk on as well as the informed voter…..at the end of the day its all you have….NOW respect it ….
I hope Daniel Smith is stopped somehow of trying to destroy beautiful Alberta to enrich her friends. She’s the female version of Trump. Doesn’t give a dam about the environment, climate change or the people of Alberta. She has spread so many lies about the federal government that a group of people want to separate. All this for personal gain.
Elaine….you are correct…..and post media is that Judas that throws daggers at our backs…….
The UCP have backed itself into a corner. Coal Mining in this area was dead in 2021. Then typical UCP they quietly, slithering like a snake, changed the policy and signed a deal with an extremely rich Australian. Residents and most Albertans want no more part of this dangerous Selenium risk project. Cancelling the contract will result in Law suits in the $$$$Billions. Brings back memories of the Smothers Bros and the song “You Slithery D”
I still haven’t forgotten what some of the Klein supporters told me he did to them at one of these gatherings. At one in Calgary after feeding them a pack of lies, just like Smith does , a senior over heard him telling one of his MLAs that he could tell these idiots anything he wanted to and they would believe him.
On another occasion in Calgary a senior got up and asked him a simple question that Klein didn’t like and he “Asked him if he was another one of these Left Wing Nuts”.
The guy took out his PC Membership Card tore it up walked up to Klein and threw it at his feet and about 30 other seniors did also. They were all heckled by other senior idiots who thought Klein was wonderful as they walked out.
“7. The UCP government really thinks it’s their job to sell specific corporate projects to the electorate.”
How could it be possibly be any other way where it is the case that “Lobbyists seek to influence government to benefit clients instead of the public.”?
https://albertaviews.ca/our-lobbyist-premier/
And where being a good industry lobbyist (“Of course I’m going to take advice from CEOs. Who else am I going to take advice from?”) means that the stated ideal is that projects are fully built out first and only then, after the fact, should the negative consequences and public concerns be addressed, as has already been implicitly stated elsewhere by the lobbyist.
The desired model has always been unlimited economic growth at any cost to the public and public interests ensuring private profit backstopped by the state, a model that “goes against the core capitalist principle that private companies should take full responsibility for the liabilities they willingly accept”.
Well said!
So Smith is suggesting that poisoning the water with run off selenium would actually be good for people’s health and yet a quick Google search states that if you want to eat Brazil nuts, you should limit your intake to two or tree a day because of the high levels of selenium in that particular nut! She is dangerous to Albertan’s on so many levels and yet, there’s a continuous cacophony of praise for how hard she is working for Albertans! I cannot believe how myopic so many Albertans are.
Someone should have taken a pitcher of water in and asked them all to go ahead and have a glass. If it’s good for us, it’s good for you too.
Thanks for this summary of Smith’s latest raree show. Although it isn’t mentioned here, I particularly relished her foray into environmental toxicology, telling us that Brazil nuts contain selenium anyway, so there. I suppose upping the selenium content of the water in the Eastern Slopes watersheds will spare those who rely on it from having to spend money on these expensive imported nuts in order to get their recommended daily dose of the metal.
And once again, we’re seeing the muzzling of government scientists when they discover facts that a conservative government doesn’t like. These scientists work for Albertans and their salaries come from our taxes.
Danielle Smith is constantly telling us that her government faces a $15 billion payout to Northback if their project is not allowed to go forward. As I recall, though, the reason for this is that Jason Kenney’s UCP government went ahead and gave this company the green light without any public consultation.
So it’s the UCP’s fault that we might incur this financial loss. But, oddly enough, they never take responsibility for that. Instead they act as if this possibility is entirely some doleful act of God that they’re trying to protect us from, being the good fiscal stewards that they are.
Also worth mentioning that this is yet another gift to us from Kenney, who’s sitting pretty with his lucrative board positions and pension and suffers no consequences from his underhanded incompetence.
Lars: Thank you for the raree show reference. What a delight to encounter an amusing and useful word one has completely missed throughout the previous 73 years. You’ll probably see it crop up again in this space. As for Brazil nuts, I never liked them, even before that term sounded like something involving a depilatory product. Now I know why. DJC
DJC, if you dislike the current name of those nuts then I’m sure you really have no use for their former name. I remember what my grandmother (RIP) called them once, and only once. She was the sweetest most caring person you’d ever meet, and I’m sure her use of the racial trope was more of a historical lesson of how far we’ve come as a society. Or so we thought…
FoF: I have heard the racist name in question, now that you mention it, but I had purged it from my memory. It was nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Odd how it was right there to reoffend. DJC
*Hat-tip*
#1 The legal argument that traitor dan will have incurred a 15 billion dollar fine if she doesn’t push the mine thru. The rest is just the open fire she’s twisting on that she lay down on in her ignorance.
Every word here is true. Well-said! These incompetent buffoons think they know what the people want, more than themselves. It was a colossal mistake voting in these clowns. The next election cannot be soon enough. I wonder if they are thinking of upcoming generations, maybe their own, who will suffer. STOP the bastardization of the environment.
They don’t give a rats a$$ about future generations.
It looks like many of the items noted as assisting with things going sideways above tend to be Dingy Smith standard operating procedure. She certainly is following Trump with trying to always be in the news regardless if it is good or bad. As well she has no listening skills as a survey of going to an Alberta Pension plan has been resoundly rejected, but she will not let that one go. My bet is she will use that money to build a pipeline or two that no other province wants.
UCP IS EVIL! Get it?
On the other hand not negotiating with the First Nations maybe the legal block for further development on this initiative, as this will get tied up in the courts for a reasonable amount of time. Maybe long enough to see an economic change in the incentive for “metallurgical” coal. I have asked, and been told by CPAWS, that they don’t have a lawyer dedicated to ecology issues. They need someone with gravitas, political experience and dedicated to these issues. Passion and enthusiasm only go so far. Legal representation will help stymie this nonsense from our government if given enough money , time and runway to do the job.
More oil, more gas, more coal mining, no renewable energy, well Danielle the human race did not get out of the stone age because they ran out of stones, but the only thing that can save Alberta is an election and it can’t come soon enough.
So the UCP is afraid of a $15 billion+ lawsuit if they don’t go ahead with coal mining on the Eastern Slopes, but (and correct me if I am wrong), Section 9 of Bill 27 (one of the UCP’s anti-trans bills) contains provisions banning actions (assuming civil actions) against the Government for their acts “in good faith” to enforcing the anti-trans legislation. Quoting:
(5) No action lies against any of the following for anything done
or omitted to be done in good faith when acting or purporting to
act under this section:
(a) the Crown;
(b) a member or former member of the Executive Council;
(c) a board, trustee, Francophone regional authority,
operator of a charter school or person responsible for the
operation of a private school;
(d) any current or former employee of or individual
currently or formerly engaged for services by
(i) the Crown,
(ii) a board,
(iii) a Francophone regional authority,
(iv) the operator of a charter school, or
(v) the person responsible for the operation of a private
school.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me the Alberta Government has no quams banning trans minors and their supportive families from suing the gov’t over its actions, but balks at the same for coal mining companies and their billionaire owners?
I say let the case go to the courts. This is Alberta where we throw away billions on cancelled pipelines, phoney Tylenol, carbon capture, low O&G royalties, health care restructuring, and any other snake-oil corporate scheme that comes down the pipeline. Suddenly, Smith is worried about money?!
LAS I agree….Smith don’t care about Joe blows money…..because she is content to continually transfer it up to the top….always the same when ALBERTA CONS are involved…..Dani is no different……too bad people are asleep to the real destructors of Alberta…..the UCP……
At the meeting, Brian Jean looked like he’s just putting in time, waiting for the next election, so he can bail.
Does anyone have any evidence that the $15 billion dollar lawsuit that Fraulein Schmidt blathers about is a realy thing? Or at the very least, is an accurate number?
Kind of like the “$135 million” worth of wasted COVID vaccines. Are we expected to believe that’s a real number or just something that Schmidt pulled out of her arse?
FoF: This is a good question. I have never seen a clear explanation in the press of just what the basis of this claim is. Obviously, no such suit has been filed. Does the UCP mean it wouldn’t contest such a suit in court? After all, the party has a surprisingly good track record in the courts to date. Would there be no grounds on which this could be disputed? Are there no arguments on which the claimed (if indeed, they have been claimed) damages could be reduced? Inquiring minds want to know. DJC
For what it’s worth, this report by the CBC may be relevant.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/coal-alberta-nigel-bankes-montem-cabin-ridge-elan-alberta-1.7062763
There’s mention of claims for $10 billion in damages of the “we woulda made THIS much money!” variety. Since the article was published (23 Dec 2023), either inflation or Smith’s tendency to exaggerate for effect may be to blame for the increase.
I’m an old man who has lived in southern Ontario all his life and remember my grand mother not being able to hang her wash on the clothes line because they lived down wind of the local smoke stack. The Rockies are the most beautiful gift of nature that Canadians have and Smith or any other politician who wants to build a coal mine anywhere nearby is nuts and has to go. [ deport her to the US }