In Alberta, Heavyweight Lobbying by Australia’s Coal Baron

Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart and coal industry representatives are pressuring Alberta’s government to change a ministerial order that bans coal mining activities in the Rockies until land use planning has been completed.

The intense lobbying over the past two months accompanies an application by Rinehart’s Northback Holdings Corp. to conduct a large coal exploration program on private and Crown land on Grassy Mountain in the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, wants to resurrect an open-pit mining project for steel-making coal in the headwaters of the Oldman River that Albertans and regulators rejected a year ago.

One of the Rinehart’s lobbyists include Barbara Fox, CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national strategic communications firm based in Toronto. It has close ties to the Conservative Party of Canada.

According to Alberta’s Lobbyist Registry Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting engaged Enterprise Canada on Sept. 15 to represent its interests just as its subsidiary Northback approached the Alberta Energy Regulator for new coal exploration drilling permits.

Federal and provincial regulators rejected the Grassy Mountain project in 2021 as not in the public interest because it would threaten water quality and availability in southern Alberta.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith last year said she would be in favour of open-pit coal mining in the Rockies on already disturbed land if local Albertans approved the project in a referendum.

Meanwhile lawyers, ranchers, municipal districts and landowners are questioning the legality of Northback’s recent application to do exploratory coal drilling on Grassy Mountain.

The Livingstone Landowners Group, which played a central role in defeating Grassy Mountain’s first application, has asked citizens to put pressure on their MLAs to respect the law and the ministerial order. Read more https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/09/27/Australia-Coal-Baron-Gina-Rinehart-Lobby-Alberta-Grassy-Mountain/ thetyee.ca/News/2023/09/27/Aus…

#Gina-Rinehart #lobby #abpoli #coal #EasternSlopes #GrassyMountain

Beware: Substack newsletter links may contain spyware, malware and viruses

I’ve been getting this substack newsletter for a few weeks. Today I clicked on a link and my browser security, blocked me from the page with this notice.

The newsletter has links to five articles on Substack. Checking the other links gave me the same warning.

Chill Tracking has some more useful information about Peter Lowe’s Ad Tracking Service https://www.chilltracking.com/brand-tag/lowes_com/what-is-peter-lowe%27s-ad-tracking. It would seem this service can deliver malware, spyware and viruses.

#substackNewsletter #tracking #advertising #UserData #ForSale #malware #spyware #viruses

Alberta premier defends minister over possible conflict of interest concerns

Rebecca Schulz is the minister of Environment and Protected Areas. Her husband is Cole Schulz, a partner in the firm Garrison Strategies.

Alberta’s lobbyist registry records show the firm is trying to influence the government on how reclamation certificates for oil and gas sites are issued. It is also lobbying for the oil and gas industry to have more access to what is now protected caribou habitat, saying it seeks to “address the moratorium on tenure in caribou regions to allow better land access and investment.”

In 2013, the provincial government imposed a moratorium on granting new energy leases on the ranges of the Little Smoky and A La Peche herds in northwest Alberta.

At the time, at least 95 per cent of the Little Smoky herd’s range was classified as heavily damaged. Between 2009 and 2010, the province leased 84 per cent of the land in a relatively undisturbed two-township region of the Little Smoky range.

Smith said Wednesday the province’s ethics commissioner has reviewed the situation and approved it.

“The ethics commissioner has looked at it, given guidance and there’s no violation,” she said. |Read more https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-premier-defends-minister-over-possible-conflict-of-interest-concerns-1.6579849| calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-pre…

#ConflictOfInterest #RebeccaSchulz #environment #abpoli #endangered #protectedArea #caribou

Head of Alberta commission on Rocky Mountain coal mining concerned over new applications

At least two members of the group that recommended a pause on coal mining in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains are concerned the province’s regulator appears to have accepted applications to renew a project that has already been denied.

“It is very concerning that this application appears to have been accepted,” said Ron Wallace, who headed a nine-month public investigation into how Alberta should deal with proposals for open-pit coal mines on the eastern slopes of the Rockies — a commission that recommended a moratorium on such development the government quickly enacted.

Last week, the Australia-based company Northback Holdings — formerly known as Benga Mining Limited and part of Australian parent company Hancock Prospecting — resurrected a proposal for the Grassy Mountain steelmaking coal mine in southern Alberta, applying for three licences from the Alberta Energy Regulator allowing them to divert water, drill and run a coal exploration program.

That’s despite a ministerial order issued under former environment minister Sonya Savage.

That order says no new applications will be accepted until land use planning for the area is complete or until the regulator receives a letter from either the province’s energy or environment ministers authorizing it.

“The recommendations from the coal committee were very clear,” said Wallace.

Neither condition has been met. |Read more https://globalnews.ca/news/9983877/grassy-mountain-coal-mine-new-application/| globalnews.ca/news/9983877/gra…

#regulator #conditions #Benga #Crowsnest #coal #mining #abpoli #environment

Canada stumbles into a confrontation with its own Nazi complacency

With all the Nazi rehabilitation going on in Canada these days, I guess what happened on Friday was bound to happen.

Of the more than one million Ukrainians in Canada, the one person who had the honour of being introduced in front of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old who served with the SS ​​14th Waffen Division, or the First Ukrainian Division. House speaker Anthony Rota invited Hunka as he lives in North Bay, in Rota’s riding. Of the Ukrainian-born population in North Bay, there was a 1 in 40 chance that Rota would land on this former Nazi.

When Rota introduced Hunka, MPs from both sides of the aisle jumped to their feet. Applause was vigorous and longlasting. While the cameras in the House of Commons don’t show everyone, the majority of MPs who are on camera are all standing – not a single person looks to be sitting through the applause.

There is so much that can be said about this incident and indeed, I’m far from the only one typing through my anger at all of this. But what was, I think, most notable was that no one seemed to notice (aside from very online leftwing Twitter). Canadian news organizations didn’t name the man nor his military unit. No journalists online posted anything that resembled a “wait, what?” after the introduction which would have made any first-year history student pause and ask, “uhh was he a Nazi?” The decades-long process of whitewashing of Nazis in Canada has seemingly worked — it took the Associated Press to name the military division that Hunka fought with. |Read more https://noraloreto.substack.com/p/canada-stumbles-into-a-confrontation| noraloreto.substack.com/p/cana…

#politics #nazi #VolodymyrZelensky #YaroslavHunka #applause #crimminal #WarCrime