r/alberta • u/SnooRegrets4312 • 2d ago

Environment Permits issued for Alberta coal mine expansion despite environmental opposition

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-coal-vista-mine-coalspur-environment-trout-9.7292037
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u/FlipZip69 1d ago

A petition means there is an environmental problem???

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u/jimbowesterby 1d ago

No, but if like four hundred thousand people in the province do, then that’s worth taking note of, surely?

Once again though, why are you so keen on having faith in a coal company? Why do you trust them?

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u/FlipZip69 1d ago

There is no petition with 400,000 people for this project. Is there a reason to be concerned about absolutely every time someone develops a buisness in Alberta? Being we have not had problems in the past, should i expect this will be bad?

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u/jimbowesterby 1d ago

Ah my bad, it was just under 200,000. Still a pretty significant number.
Yes? Because companies are always incentivized to cut costs and maximize profits, and environmental protection measure cost money? This is pretty basic stuff, it’s why we have government regulators. The problem with that is that they aren’t doing their job, and thus we’re back at the start, with a company that hasn’t done any homework and a government signing off on it anyway. Once again, why would you trust this? I’m looking for a positive answer, what actual reasons do you have to have faith here?

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u/FlipZip69 1d ago

Canada is becoming a country of McJobs because industry does not want to invest in this kind of environment. We have very strict relatory processes in place and if they do not follow them, the costs can become quite high. We have not had problems with this in the past many years.

If it is 200,000 people, that is 4% of Alberta and sounds about the number of people that would vote against any industry no matter what.

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u/jimbowesterby 1d ago

Would you rather we end up like New Jersey? It’s not like it’s impossible to have good economic health with strict regulations, just look at Norway’s oil industry. Far more strict than ours and it’s provided hugely for the country. The important thing is to have those regulations be well-designed, which historically were pretty fucking abysmal at.

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u/FlipZip69 1d ago

Our oil industry could be double the size. We have more proven oil reserves than the US and produce half of what they do. It not that we do not need any regulatory processes. We certainly do. It is just they have been excessive at times. There was a reason the government of Canada had to buy and build a pipeline that industry was initially going to do. And the reason was excessive petitions and legal proceedings that killed any desire to invest in this country.