Larry Whan, owner of Trout Wrangler Lodge, a fishing lodge on the Crowsnest river, pleaded today with the Kenney government to withdraw its support for the Grassy Mtn coal strip mine. 1/n #abpoli#Alberta@JustinTrudeau@RachelNotley
"The short term gain of jobs and money for the province is not worth the loss of our natural environment, pollution of our headwaters and drinking water [and] endangering animal and fish species." 2/n
"[T]hinking of allowing Australian companies to ship our coal to China well into the 2050's and pollute the planet for another 30+ years is beyond comprehension!" 3/n
"The amount of water required [to] run an open pit mining operation is staggering and the loss of this much water at the headwaters of the Oldman and Crowsnest rivers will cause serious consequences to all users downstream of these operations." 4/n
Colton Vessey, who grew up in Okotoks and is doing a Ph.D. in environmental geochemistry, asks the govts of Alberta and Canada to "please do not allow new open pit coal mining operations in the Alberta Rockies or anywhere in Canada." 1/n @HMcPhersonMP@JonathanWNV@CBCFletch
He writes that "it is extremely likely that toxic contaminants will make their way downstream from Gold Creek into the Crowsnest River and into the Oldman River, which is considered a blue-ribbon fishing watershed, but also is a water resource for many communities." 2/n #abpoli
Vessey is an expert in "contaminant mobility, mainly trace metal(loid)s (such as arsenic, selenium, vanadium)," and cites peer-reviewed research on the coal mine contamination of water with Selenium and nitrate. 3/n
Strip mining Alberta's mountains for coal, polluting our waterways, extirpating endangered species, destroying recreational areas . . . All for what? 1/n #abpoli#ableg
The Grassy Mountain project (Riversdale Corp) promises 385 jobs over 23 years. That's fewer than the jobs lost at #UAlberta alone in the past year because of #UCP budget cuts to post-secondary education. Coal mining licenses are NOT about job creation. 2/n
In 2018-19, the coal royalty brought in $10 million in Alberta, and the cannabis tax brought in $30 million. And cannabis won't leave us with irremediably polluted watersheds and devastated landscapes. 3/n
Advanced Education minister, Demetrios Nicolaides, contracted a Calgary firm that specializes in the management of oil & gas companies to produce recommendations for the overhaul of the post-secondary education system. 1/n @CAUS@cafaab@CAUT_ACPPU#UAlberta@NoUofA42morrow
McKinsey is a US-based multinational, with an office in Calgary. The "winning vendor" for the RfP was reported as McKinsey & Co. Canada at the address of the Calgary office. vendor.purchasingconnection.ca/OpportunityAwa…
OK, let me see if I've got this straight. Some #UAlberta BoG members passed a motion today that includes a poorly written paragraph empowering themselves to create “metrics” by which the performance of the UofA’s (yet to be formed) colleges will be evaluated. 1/n @NoUofA42morrow
The President is supposed to report monthly on these performance metrics, which don’t yet exist, but will cover everything from 'clinical outcomes' to financial outcomes to ‘excellence in education’. 2/n
Never mind that none of the public board members is a health professional or an education expert and only one is a professor. 3/n
Essentially, the #UCP govt is going to liquidate our parks, watersheds, forests, and other public goods and transfer the proceeds to private interests. Then they'll all leave town. 1/n #abpoli#ableg
Those who are opposing this looting and pillaging of our province--which will leave future generations impoverished in every sense--are labelled "extremist agitators and malcontents" by #UCP flacks 2/n
like the MLA who roused well enough to read a speech in the #ableg today. Mr. "there is no climate crisis" calls for expanding the use of fossil fuels and petrochemicals. Oddly, he stopped short of demanding that #Alberta schools 3/n