Albertan country music icon Corb Lund showed up in Edmonton yesterday to drop off a citizen initiative application at the offices of Elections Alberta for a referendum petition seeking permanent protection of the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains from coal mining.
In other words, a situation much like what we had from 1976, when Peter Lougheed was the Progressive Conservative premier of Alberta, until the United Conservative Party Government came along with its weird MAGA-style obsession with burning coal, no matter what the cost to the environment or the people who live downstream from the pollution source.
The citizen initiative question Mr. Lund submitted, if it’s approved by Elections Alberta, would read: “The Government of Alberta shall prohibit by law any and all new coal mining activities, including new approvals and permits, within the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.”
And never mind which Australian billionaire wants to strip mine the stuff or whether they want it to burn to run a generator or to make steel, a distinction the UCP uses to imply strip mining metallurgical coal is somehow less environmentally destructive.
Mr. Lund expressed some surprise to find himself cast as a coal-skeptical environmental campaigner. He’s not opposed to all resources development, he said, as some of his songs indeed illustrate. But the Grassy Mountain Coal Project that the UCP is so determined to allow to proceed makes no sense from any perspective, he asserted.
“I understand wanting jobs, but that’s not a magical formula to, you know, abdicate all responsibility for other people who use the water,” Mr. Lund told a couple reporters outside the Alberta Legislature after his visit to Elections Alberta’s offices. “There’s 200,000 people using that water downstream, not only for drinking, but for multi-billion dollar food processing industry in Lethbridge. So the whole thing seems like a terrible idea!”
But why did the singer from Taber, who would really rather be writing songs and establishing an international reputation, decide to go the petition route? Well, after fighting Grassy Mountain for five and a half years and never managing to kill off the zombie plan despite strong public support for his position, that’s what Premier Danielle Smith advised coal mining opponents to do.
“I was at the town hall June 11 in Fort Macleod when the premier said, ‘If you guys don’t want to have coal, you should start a citizens initiative.’ So I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
And why now? Well, the answer to that one will surprise no one who follows Alberta politics. Mr. Lund said he got up at 3:45 a.m. yesterday to drive to Edmonton from Lethbridge because “there’s a lot of Zeitgeist in the air about more referendums and more recalls, and we’ve been hearing rumours that the government might pull the plug on the process entirely, or make it so egregiously difficult that it’s impossible.”
“We wanted to get our application in before they changed rules. That’s why I drove up here.”
The premier, of course, is feeling cornered by recall petitions filed by citizens angered by her government’s misuse of the Constitution’s Notwithstanding Clause and miscellaneous other UCP policies. If even one or two succeeded, it would chip away at her government’s majority in the Legislature, not to mention its already unravelling credibility.
If that really has become the spirit of the moment in Alberta, we can probably thank former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk’s demonstration that a determined band of volunteers could gather almost half a million verifiable signatures in three months in defence of Alberta remaining part of Canada.
So the threat of repeal of its once-vaunted citizen initiative legislation by Ms. Smith’s government is real, and that includes retroactive repeal just to make the whole thing stop, even though that would make the UCP look both foolish and incompetent.
So what will Ms. Smith do? Her MLAs, after all, have to be screaming at her to do something to make the threat and distraction of repeal petitions go away.
Well, that remains to be seen. But Mr. Lund is right to put the pedal to the metal.
Meanwhile, Ms. Smith has another choice to make with the announcement yesterday by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees that Licensed Practical Nurses, Health Care Aides and other health care support workers it represents will strike on Saturday morning at 8:30 sharp.
With essential services agreements required by NDP-era labour law forcing nearly 80 per cent of the AUPE members to stay at work, hospitals and other health care facilities are supposed to be able to operate during a strike. But with the health care system on its knees thanks to the UCP’s ideologically driven effort to dismantle Alberta Health Services, that is far from certain.
Already so-called elective surgeries in AHS and former AHS facilities – pretty essential for the people who’ve been waiting for them – are being cancelled.
“This is going to have an impact,” AUPE President Sandra Azocar told a news conference yesterday. “It’s not going to be business as usual. … Every single aspect of our health care system will be impacted by this.”
So having already used the Notwithstanding Clause four times to deprive groups of Albertans of their constitutionally protected fundamental rights, will the UCP Government dare to do it again?
Obviously, they’re feeling the heat and would like to avoid it. Finance Minister Nate Horner insisted it’s “highly unlikely” the government will use section 33 of the Constitution this time, The Canadian Press reported yesterday. But as he also said before forcing Alberta teachers back to work, Mr. Horner added, “it’s a tool that the government has, but it’s certainly not something that we’re focused on.”
Chances are good, though, that the government’s attitude will change when politicians realize how hard it is to run the health care system even with only 20 per cent of its striking LPNs and HCAs permitted to walk their picket lines.
As Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi observed of the UCP: “Albertans would be justified in asking themselves if they are engineering yet another strike so that they can use the Notwithstanding Clause again, now that they’ve gotten a taste of this power.”
Yet another Albertan has to resort to getting signatures on a petition, because Smith and the UCP seem to be deaf to the concerns of so many Albertans. If this keeps up, they might have to put in a revolving door at Elections Alberta for all the traffic, that is if they can find the money for it in their budget.
It is amazing how Smith and her UCP gang have managed to upset so many different people in such a fairly short period of time. The UCP was never that pleasant and fairly arrogant too, but at least they tried to pretend otherwise. Now its like the mask has dropped and they no longer care if people realize they don’t give a damn.
I suppose the opposition doesn’t need to do much now, other than get out of the way and let the UCP keep digging itself into a deeper hole. Someone like Lund has much more credibility and can get more respect than another politician can.
So all of this will continue to come to a boil. The UCP will likely have to change its legislation in order to try prevent this and preserve its power. This could generate even more anger from those who are and have been gathering signatures in good faith.
In the end the Social Credit’s Premier who also became a lighting rod for discontent and recall years ago departed due to natural causes and before that there was a world war to take Albertans attention away. What will the UCP do now with a problem like Smith and her gang?
Hi David,
Respect your writing, don’t normally post, but I believe it is possible you intended to use the word despite instead of dispute (paragraph 7 bottom).
It is also possible that I am wrong, and you used that word as intended and my lack of English pedigree (I have a political science major not an English/Journalism major and have not written an academic paper in some time) failed me and I stand to be corrected.
Keep up the good work.
FAB: Don’t apologize! You are quite right. That was a typo. It’s been fixed. DJC
And there’s a typo in your ‘type’ reply. LOL
Ron: It’s been fixed. So has the typo in the correction of the original typo. Typos are ubiquitous in my two-fingered typing … especially in the morning. DJC
It was despite. In other words, regardless of the support he had, against doing it.
My opinion on this whole thing is, any chance Danielle gets, to make the citizens take the rap for it, she loves it. It takes the onus off her, having to make a decision that’s very unpopular, with the maga supporters, and it turns the heat against the rest of us. She keeps us fighting each other. It’s exactly what Donald Trump is doing.
I’m so sick of this woman I wish she would just pack her bags and freaking move to the US. Only problem is, she’s nobody. Just like she is every time she goes there, trying to gain favor from Donald Trump. She’s just background noise to him. He doesn’t have respect for women. She continuously makes a fool out of herself by doing this. Even if she got down on her hands and knees he just walk over her.
And Saudi God that’s even worse no respect for women. She’s just way out of her league and she should just step down, before we take her down.
Marlaina has backed herself into a corner with the citizens initiatives. She probably thought they would only be used for book burnings and tormenting trans children. She won’t stand for unionized workers asserting their rights and the back to work legislation with the notwithstanding “get out of jail free” card has probably been drafted already. Once Albertans realize that she could not care less about their Charter rights, they might just reconsider their blind support for the UCP.
As long as it’s the “woke” that get hurt, Alberta’s blind support for the UCP will continue.
My hat is off, to all of the Albertans, that are taking the initiative and doing these petitions. The queen and her team are probably having a cardiac, behind closed doors. But Corb Lund is right, it won’t be long before she shuts it all down.
Thank you, Corb Lund, for your citizenship and community-mindedness. Your petition is what used to be reasonable, decent and written into government policy in this province.
The UCP has made it clear that they do not serve the people of Alberta. Clean drinking water is a basic right. Contaminating water permanently for 200,000+ downstream users including people, farms and agri-food businesses shows that they do not serve those groups, either. Only big money foreign interests get the attention of the UCP. What’s in it for Smith & Co.?
AUPE members led by Sandra Azocar are bound to trigger the notwithstanding clause with this trigger-happy government.
Soon we will all lose our rights and we’ll finally be able to call this it is: a dictatorship. Why do you think Danielle Smith removed the rights of parents of trans children? Now that trans children must be “protected” from their parents, how long until other children must be protected from their parents? Soon the kinder could be sent off to camp, for their own protection, where they might learn useful domestic skills like coal mining. Come to camp, kids, we have (pit) ponies! Every day is a (work) party!
I think we are already at the Dictatorship level. Dingy does not listen to anything anymore and the proof is trampling on so many people’s rights regardless of the backlash, protests, petitions and so on.
Props to Mr Lund for taking this on, but there has always been an easier way to drive change in government policy. It’s called elections, and voting the rascals out.
The real problem for people living downstream of the eastern slopes, is that none of the UCP MLAs for that area live in any fear of being defeated at the next election, since the residents there vote so metronomically conservative.
As I’ve said before, the only thing that really gets a politician’s attention is the prospect of being defeated at the next election and losing the best job they ever had. If Mr. Lund and the other Stop-the-Mining activists simply campaigned for, knocked on doors for, and made financial contributions to, the NDP, as a way to defeat those UCP MLAs in the next election, government policy would soon change — either because the government changed its mind, or because there’d be a change of government.
How about a petition to require a referendum prior to any use of the Notwithstanding Clause?
Thank you as always, David. You make an interesting point about the Lougheed commitment on the Eastern Slopes, and its abandonment by the UCP. One thing that’s definitely in the Zeitgeist this week is the UCP rolling back the Lougheed heritage, not just on coal, but also on the Alberta Bill of Rights. Your readers may recall that the Alberta Bill of Rights was the first Bill introduced by the newly elected Progressive Conservative government when Lougheed’s PCs defeated the tired and irrelevant Social Credit party in 1971. Lougheed believed that a Bill of Rights would mark a clear departure from the decades of Social Credit repression, and symbolize a new, youthful and civil libertarian approach to government. (After all it was just a decade after JFK’s election in the States). The UCP’s four recent invocations the Charter’s notwithstanding clause also contain statutory language insulating the new laws from the Alberta Bill of Rights. Is it just me or is there a whiff of Preston Manning’s anti-Lougheed animus in the way Danielle Smith has attempted to roll things back? Does she even sound like Manning when she’s at her most pompous? Manning, as you know, never joined the PCs, and continued for many years (perhaps continues) to carry the torch for Social Credit. It seems to be a torch that Premier Smith has picked up.
Thanks for this observation, Simon. I have always thought Ms. Smith’s connections to Social Credit and Mr. Manning were very strong. That said, the connection to the Alberta Bill of Rights and Mr. Manning’s likely feelings about it hadn’t occurred to me. I do believe Mr. Manning once thought he was owed the premiership of Alberta by merit of his bloodline. He may still feel that he was robbed. This is probably a line of thought that is worth further contemplation. DJC
Repeated use of the notwithstanding clause as a routine response is fascism – total disregard of democracy and the rule of law.
Manning owed the premiership by merit of his bloodline?
That is not just precious, it is true except not too many citizens thought so!!
Desperate Manning tried to elevate Daniella to the crown but it is not going very well either. For now they are on top but the fall is coming.
Carlos: I sense that the UCP are going to get some nasty blowback from Albertans. There are enough people to do it. Recalls are on the way.
Interesting, I do recall tales of Preston and his wife visiting Alliance Churches and being treated like royalty, so it is quite possible he developed some sense of divine right.
The article and comments are very insightful. Ms. Smith likes to invoke the sacred name of “Lougheed”, and I do agree she is trying her best to erase his progressive Conservative legacy here in Alberta while following, very closely, the Manning Social Credit ideology. I commend Mr. Lund on this initiative and am looking forward to signing it.
A suggested emendation here:
…even though that would make the UCP look both foolish and incompetent.
should perhaps be
…even though that would make the UCP look both even more foolish and even more</b) incompetent.
Probably, I’m a bit late to respond to Simon Renouf and your response to his post.
This is a bit of Inside Baseball, but Preston Manning abandoned Social Credit in the late 1970s and early 1980s when his father had to cast a wide net for a new leader after the resignation of Bob Clarke following an election debacle which left the Socreds with four seats.
That leader was the late Rod Sykes. Manning Sr. provided much more help than Manning Jr. I remember Manning Jr. suggesting he was too busy with his consulting company.
Self-interest may cloud my recollections, but, although it pushed some wacky policies, Social Credit did not promote meanness and authoritarianism as we see with UCP today.
I more likely see UCP roots going back to the Western Canada Concept party (nicely named WCC) whose candidate won a seat in an Olds-Didsbury byelection in the early 1980s. It’s that election that killed the Socreds. And, there aren’t many former Socreds around to vote these days,
Maybe Social Credit kept some meanness in check by kicking out the most rabid anti-semites. Nowadays Premier Smith likely sucks up to them.
Given the outstanding success of Mr. Thomas Lukaszuk at gathering petition signatures, maybe he needs to jump in and become a professional petition organizer, for things like stopping coal mining on the easter slopes and recall petitions for the UCP? His help could make a real difference.
Well done, and many thanks to Corb Lund! Here’s a related group, trying to save a bit of the Eastern Slopes from penny-stock coal miners:
https://saveourslopes.ca/directmessage
Another petition worth your attention is open for signatures. If you think public schools, and teachers, deserve better treatment from the UCP, consider this petition:
https://abfundspublicschools.ca/
It’s open for signatures now. I intend to sign on Saturday, at Millenium Place in Sherwood Park.
Mike J Danysh: If I come across them, I will gladly sign the petitions.
Lund just have to let me know where they will be gathering signatures. I will be the very first in line.
Enough of this crap and that idiot billionaire Australian that thinks we are as stupid as they are.
Carlos: Now, Danielle Smith has made a policy defending speech, and named it after Jordan Peterson. How out of touch can a premier be?
I am sorry anonymous but I think that it is time we say it the way it is. Danielle Smith is an idiot and just like her friend in the US will fall. Unfortunately she will leave quite a destruction behind.
She is useless and not just out of touch, she is pathologically sick.
Carlos: You certainly have it right.
Could this be another import from our ‘friends’ south of the 49th?
https://lisaremillard.substack.com/p/the-dismantling-of-dept-of-ed-happening?publication_id=3394151&post_id=179321928&isFreemail=true&r=d1t0e&triedRedirect=true
THE DISMANTLING OF DEPT. OF ED HAPPENING NOW. SHAKEY JOBS REPORT. IT’S NOT AN ALIEN. T.SWIFT INSPIRED WORD OF THE YEAR
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2025
Roger— look up Ryan Walters: former Oklahoma Secretary of Education. If you listen to his comments, they are a playbook for Marlaina (among the prerequisite controversies) .
I can’t wait for the UCP to get obliterated. They are such a bad government. When I thought a provincial government couldn’t get any worse in Alberta, they have. They show no regard for what Albertans actually want, and ram their agendas on through, like dictators, to appease their wealthy corporate masters.
Actually I’m wondering if their corporate masters aren’t telling them to shut up. I think the UCP might be bad for business…instability usually is.
Well said and I am so appreciative of everyone working on these petitions. I would love nothing more than to see Smith ousted, but I am also very concerned as to the fallout from her sheeple. As I say nearly every day, what a time to be alive…
Cannot wait to sign this petition. Just a thought. Why are the UCPs trying so hard to push this foreign coal deal through. Not even a Canadian firm. Job wise it involves so little and environmentally damages so much of what we is rightly our land not the UCP party. Also we expected this Premier to involve the surrounding East Slopes residents (“Ranchers and land owners”) most closely effected by this destructive foreign venture. Which they refuse. Instead they let outsiders in Blairmore townsite to vote for its go ahead. Strange UCP politics.