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…
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