To: admin@heritagefest.ca

cc: info@edjfed.org

Re: Disqualify the Israel Pavilion from Heritage Days

To Whom It May Concern,

This Instagram video of the revisionist history being supported by Edmonton’s Heritage Days festival at the Israel pavilion is despicable in three ways:

1. The pavilion personnel, provided by the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, were chanting “There is no Palestine”, when Palestine (estimated to be more than 5,000 years old) predates Israel, created in 1948. These chants are no doubt intended to justify the ongoing occupation of Palestine and genocide of Palestinians being carried out by Israel and the United States. It is like singing there is no Iran, irony intended to relate to the second issue.

2. The T-shirts of the people chanting these degrading statements were also covered with lies. There is absolutely zero evidence that that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) massacred 40,000+ Iranians in the Mossad-led protests which erupted across Iran in January of 2026. Protests, no doubt, intended to provide cover for the illegal and unprovoked aggression carried out by the US-Israel war machine on February 28, 2026, officially resulted in 3,117 fatalities. Here’s an image of the January 2, 2026 Tweet by Former U.S. Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo—tagging President Trump, Marco Rubio, and the current CIA director—explaining his support for “every Mossad agent walking beside” the Iranians protesting.

1. The ongoing genocide in Palestine, expanded into Lebanon now, should not be supported by the City of Edmonton in any way. This pavilion should not have been included in the first place, for these reasons. The Jewish Federation of Edmonton proved this to you in the Instagram video capturing their lies and hate.

As a person born and raised in Edmonton, I remember Heritage Days being a place to celebrate cultures and feel a sense of shared love for humanity. Allowing hate speech, propaganda-lined clothing, and inviting institutions which provide ongoing cover for the genocide of Palestinian or Lebanese people, war crimes perpetrated in Iran, or the “Greater Israel” agenda in any form, is the last thing Heritage Days should be supporting today. It’s nearly three years since October 7, 2023, triggering calls from the majority, 2/3, of Canadians wanting a ceasefire and end to the moral outrage in Palestine: shame.

Make a public apology and withdraw your support for an Israeli Pavilion at Heritage Days.

Until the Greater Israel project is put to rest, the genocide and displacement stops, and reparations are agreed upon.

Sincerely,

Jenny Yeremiy, P. Geoph

Calgary, Alberta POSTAL CODE

Let’s begin with our 2022 understanding of the message in this clip (focusing on 0:53-1:18). Chris continued with, “you’re providing the opposite point of view, the one where 9 out of 9 oppose. But because you’re not even in the ‘the Council’ they don’t see you as the tenth person worth listening to.” When Chris is right, he is right. This was the crux of the issue at the time. My opinions—and those of anyone willing to look behind the curtain with me—were dismissed as unpopular and therefore not worth investing in. Differed maintenance was the majority rule and continues to be the industry rule today. More on this to follow.

My 2026 interpretation of this scene, however, begins at 0:00 and has much deeper meaning than either Chris or I understood at the time: the country of choice to survive the zombie apocalypse—in a US film—is Israel. Mossad agents relay threats to a 10-person council in Israel who decided—beginning in 1973—to make a change. If they all agree there isn’t a threat, they would create a threat and fight anyway. This 1973 decision—to not let other nations challenge Israel’s hegemony ever again—is coming to a head, and the majority rule is that Israel is the one to blame, not Iran, and certainly not Palestinians. And what is the Israeli council doing with this information?

It seems like they’re treating us like zombies, fighting us all with their: illegal wars (and genocide); AI data centres (pipelines, carbon capture and storage, oil and gas expansion); two-tier healthcare; private misleading education; private service and private agendas. Threating functioning societies and a livable planet. Anyway, back to, let’s call it, “The Tenth Person Principle” (TTPP).

In a world of a failing majority rule—where the economy no longer represent our reality—TTPP is a crucial counter-strategy. When the head of the system is the issue, the woke, not zombie majority, need to present—and act upon—a different way forward. It’s not enough to say “no” to their agenda. It’s not enough to present them with a different strategy. Instead, seeking out and providing alternative council is needed to combat the energy and water crisis. No longer relying on the corporate and political class who created this crisis to begin with. TTPP calls on us not only to present the risks but to take the reins in executing the alternative plans we know will lead us to safety: land stewardship enforcement while developing a clean, local food and public service system for the common good.

A great example of a failing majority rule, and need for TTPP to rein, is playing out with Alberta’s First In Time First In Right (FITFIR) freshwater licensing system. FITFIR is a priority-system based on when a water licence was issued. Meaning, the first person to have capitalize on water here won, and so on. Water for you and your family is NOT the priority, and First Nations communities come LAST. Further, the system includes a “use it or lose it” clause. Meaning, if you decide to conserve water, not make use of it but rather let it stay in the system, you stand to lose your share. The system does not distinguish between borrowing or removing. Water that reenters our sewage treatment system, for example, was borrowed water. But the 310 billion liters—added to the 1.7 trillion liter tailings ponds or injected into productive formations in 2024 alone—is never expected to return, at no cost to the user. TTPP calls on us to build and enforce a water system which aims to restore water quality and security for all. It is not enough to fight changes to the Water Act, imposed by this Alberta Government, that further exasperate its inequity.

A clip from Water In Southern Alberta, Episode 3, “The Laws and Market”, Arlene Kwasniak explains the gaps in Alberta’s Water Act and FITFIR system.

The second area to invoke TTPP is to oppose the mandate of the leaders in the fossil fuel industry. For decades they have demanded more and more from the taxpayer, while differing maintenance and causing mountains of environmental liabilities. Their plan includes a fantasy solution to expansion: carbon capture and storage will never be deployed at a meaningful scale, and even if it were it doesn’t address systemwide methane venting, flaring, and leakage.

What’s worse, these heads are now actively destroying the global refinery system. First, they have been reducing Russia’s refined capacity to the point where they have had to limit diesel exports and now banned gasoline exports through 2026. Then they closed the Strait of Hormuz, reducing refined products by another ~10%. And now, they are removing another ~10% by creating a blockade in the Red Sea. The USA has taken advantage of these restrictions, selling almost every last drop in the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) system, “If inventories slip below tank bottoms at enough facilities, the WTI delivery mechanism itself starts to come under strain. That is not a theoretical risk anymore. It is the reality sitting in the data right now, and the market is pricing accordingly.” Meanwhile, their expansion plans have more limits than ever before:

1. Reservoir quality and access is depreciating: more resources, like freshwater, are needed to extract less valuable reserves.

2. More sensitive habitats, causing greater environmental harm, are what’s next to be exploited.

3. Water bankruptcy is on the horizon.

4. Supply chain limits, such as a lack of gas turbines until 2030.

5. Private investment capital unavailable: the tech bros have joined the fossil fuel companies in being cashflow negative now!

6. Alberta oil companies themselves doubt their ability to deliver.

Where is the courage within our political and corporate class to call out these limits and invite alternative plans to redirect us accordingly? For decades, scientists like Dr. Brad Stelfox, have been showing the cumulative impacts on the landscape and expressing the need for land stewardship laws to be enforced, at scale, where it matters most. The corporate and political class have demonstrated their allegiance to the heads of our system, despite the majority rule or their inability to deliver, and are committed to denying these realities, it seems. It is up to you and I to have the courage to be a tenth person saying, “No thank you, AND here’s what we will do instead.” Work up your solution, find allies who will improve upon them and spread the word. Embrace your ability to rebel, never doubt your desire to be woke and not a zombie for system which serves no one, not even the Israeli council.

If you enjoyed this, please follow, like, and share it!

Follow the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society of Northern Alberta’s and the Yellowhead Institute’s lead in sending a letter to the Privy Council Office to stop the changes proposed in the “Getting Major Projects Built in Canada” paper.

Here’s my letter as a guide

To: engagement@pco-bcp.gc.ca

Cc: ministre-minister@ec.gc.ca, infonab@cpaws.org, infosab@cpaws.org

To whom it may concern,

Negatively impacting nature is not the way to “Nation Build”, especially for a country where nature is a core part of Canadian identity. Take CPAWS Northern and Southern Alberta advice for the Government of Canada:

1. Withdraw proposals to exempt projects from SARA jeopardy tests.

2. Reject the creation of “Economic Zones” that weaken federal oversight.

3. Maintain independent, transparent federal, or joint, impact assessment processes, which already provide a “one project, one review” process, without political interference.

4. Avoid increased reliance on offsetting for activities that would destroy fish habitat.

5. Strengthen, not reduce, public participation opportunities.

6. Ensure Indigenous Nations are treated as rights holders, not stakeholders.

7. Address real sources of delay: early engagement, baseline data, and proponent readiness.

8. Ensure that federal oversight remains strong in Alberta, where provincial regulatory systems have not demonstrated adequate protection of species, watersheds, or public interest.

It is now or never to decide what kind of Canada we are going to be. The one who takes responsibility for the climate crisis we’ve helped fuel or go down lying and scamming Canadians.

The only projects that are in the nation’s best interest are: 1) ecological restoration inline with SARA/land stewardship and 2) renewable, electric storage and transport system deployment.

Sincerely,

Jenny Yeremiy, P. Geoph

Calgary, Alberta POSTAL CODE

In case you missed it, Premier Smith, Gary Demasi (Vice President of data center development & strategy at Meta), Nate Glubish (Alberta's Minister of Technology and Innovation), RJ Sigurdson (Alberta's Minister of Affordability and Utilities), and Alanna Hnatiw Mayor of Sturgeon County) announced a new AI data Centre near my home town—St. Albert, in Sturgeon County—at a Calgary Stampede event this week: Danielle Smith announces deal with Meta to build new AI data centre in Alberta.

Thank you to for allowing me to share my concerns with resistors from all over the globe:

Here’s what Meta and Smith had to say—with some Truth Before Reconciliation!:

• Sturgeon County, Alberta is identified as home to Meta’s newest data center, their first in Canada and largest guinea pig facility outside of the US.

• A 2.9 million square foot facility (or 33 CFL football fields, hat tip to Brandi Morin) representing an investment of more than 13 billion Canadian dollars.

• Meta is hoping to toe in with an itty bitty 1 gW—like adding one million homes in terms of power usage to an area with 3500 residents—and expects future large-scale expansion.

• The Government of Alberta (GOA) announces SUBSIDIES, the annual Data Centre Community Action Grants program, via local nonprofits.

• Use of water-efficient closed loop liquid cooling system with dry cooling requiring no operational water for cooling. Here is a great article explaining this system is not truly closed, will use excess power to expel excess heat, and cause extreme evaporation. And this system just failed in Wyoming courtesy of Meta last week! Adding a bacteria to the water: Meta AI Data Center Linked To Rare Bacteria In City’s Water System.

• Goal to be water positive by 2030, restoring more water than consumed in local watersheds partnering with ALUS and local farmers to conserve 200 acres of grasslands, trees and wetlands in the North Saskatchewan River watershed. Conserving is not restoring water, rather ending fossil fuel expansion, cleaning up and restoring well, pipeline, and facility sites is.

• Suggests a very high number of jobs which will be mostly short-lived related to the construction phase.

Government of Alberta Commitments:

• New digital infrastructure connecting Alberta to broader North American networks via the Cloud Act. That’s right, your data will be completely accessible to the Trump Regime.

• Albertans could see a reduction of up to 6% on the transmission portion of their utility bill IF the Greenlight project proceeds. Meta is NOT responsible to making the Greenlight happen. And by the way Greenlight is simply a combined-cycle gas power plant. It’s not a new technology, it is how every natural gas power plant should have been designed in Alberta but wasn’t made mandatory. There is NOTHING innovative here.

Sturgeon County Council Commitments:

• The Sturgeon County Mayor claims she will continue to set high standards on power, water, environmental stewardship and land use. No data center has been required to carry out an environmental impact assessment yet—will Mayor Hnatiw insist? Will First Nations and residents’ consent be required?

Remember, if Meta was really in it for Alberta it would NOT be:

1. Running this facility on natural gas, they would be insisting it runs on renewables only, using the least amount of energy and water not the most.

2. Blocking Canadians from accessing news sources since August of 2023.

3. Allowing accounts, individuals, and groups to make money while misinformation Canadians. This excellent report by “What to Fix” shows how Meta’s Monetization Enforcement in Practice requires more than 30 complaints before removing channels caught misinforming. Meta reinstates accounts that mislead and channels money to these bad actors, including political parties, politicians, police, the military, and sanctioned groups in other jurisdictions.

4. Funding the fossil fuel industry and the far right’s agenda. Alberta’s own Geoff Dembicki—the founder of Desmog—Mapped Poilievre’s Inner Circle of Lobbyists and Right-wing Activists in March 2025. The mapping shows how Facebook supported Poilievres “Project 2025” agenda in last years’ Canadian election.

5. Geoff also wrote The Petroleum Papers which explains how crucial Alberta’s oil and gas industry is to the global climate misinformation machine.

But wait, there’s more… like a lot more!

Here is the current list of the Alberta Data Centers - Providers Map in Alberta, Canada, it lists 57 centers as of today. I HIGHLY recommend you visit The Real Knitty on Instagram. She does a deep dive on the Beacon AI Centres. I won’t do her investigative work justice so please view it here: 🫠🫠And a $13B meta one was just announced 🫠🫠 ya know, the company that just poisoned a bunch of people at a different data centre location.

To sum up Knitty’s findings:

• Beacon AI appears to point to a Lord from Northern Ireland.

• The company has ties to the Cayman Islands and Delaware—places known to hide fraud and ownership. Epstein file type sketchiness here.

• The changes to the Water Act made by R.J. Sigurdson, in his role as Minister of Agriculture, are clearly coming into play to support the AI data Centre assault on Albertans.

• And former CPC MP and Alberta PC MLA Ken Hughes is on the board of directors, aiding the navigation around the rules here.

Water Not Coal and the Referendum

If this news isn’t enough to make your heart stop, the inability of Elections Alberta to validate the Water Not Coal campaign is pointing to some serious concerns related to their ability to count ballots in the referendum. It will cost an estimated $130 million dollars. For reference, the 2023 election had 13,000 employees and 1.7 million ballots cast. This referendum requires 60,000 workers for potentially 45 million ballots! Even Braid is sounding the alarm: Corb Lund petition fiasco signals trouble for Oct. 19 referendum blitz.

UPDATES:

1. Something’s Gravely Wrong With How Elections Alberta Torpedoed Corb Lund’s Water-Not-Coal Citizen Initiative Petition courtesy of here: https://albertapolitics.ca/2026/07/somethings-gravely-wrong-with-how-elections-alberta-torpedoed-corb-lunds-water-not-coal-citizen-initiative-petition/.

2. Note the David and Goliath fight we are in for Alberta and for Canada, here is the list of 21 TPAs: 15 for separatism and racism, 5 for Alberta and Canada, and one group for the status quo, no matter what.

Refendum Registered Tpas

486KB ∙ PDF file

Download

List of the Third Party Advertisers registered in Alberta as of July 12, 2026. There are 15 TPAs working towards separation and 5 working towards saving Alberta and Canada.

Download

TAKE ACTIONS!

1. Tell Environment Minister Grant Hunter to BAN AI Datacenters:

Ban AI Data Centers in Alberta

2. Call or email Premier Smith to demand she cancel the referendum, stop the taxpayer waste and sure-to-fail validation process.

3. Join or donate your Dani Dollars to Public Interest Alberta’s “Together—NO!” campaign, stop Smith’s racist and divisive agenda!

albertareferendum2026.org

Truth Before Reconciliation!

Thanks Holly Standingready for the great t-shirt and assertion: we cannot reconcile when we’re being actively mislead by our governments. Support the Treaty Chiefs in their fight to uphold the treaties or your community may be the next environmental sacrifice zone as explained.

To: pm@pm.gc.ca, Premier@gov.ab.ca, premier@gov.bc.ca, premier@gov.sk.ca

Cc: info@chiefssteeringcommittee.net, pierre.poilievre@parl.gc.ca, contact@ndp.ca, ministre-minister@ec.gc.ca, info@pathwaysproject.ca

Dear Prime Minister and Premiers,

As an Alberta, Canadian, Geophysicist, oil and gas environmental liability expert, and mother, I am beyond belief. It seems we are living the darkest timeline. After decades of believing that Canada was a country to be proud of, I am disheartened to learn that the Canadian Government has abandoned our duty towards Truth and Reconciliation, for the public good.

It is clear that Canada’s political class are choosing a Canada who openly exploits communities to the point of genocide and/or ecocide, both at home and abroad. So-called Alberta, Canada is not only the home of the largest ongoing environmental catastrophe on the planet but you are now proposing we double the harm, abandoning Land Stewardship, International Treaty, and Natural Law. At Canadian taxpayer expense—Why?

The corporate leaders who led us here have proven their inability to deliver on climate for decades now. Back in the 1990s when it was clear that the oil and gas industry was NOT meeting its “world class” environmental regulations, my former “mentor” designed the orphan programs for the industry across British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, as well as the Mine Financial Security Program (MFSP) special for the oil sands companies—which contains a loophole: no backstop. These programs are like no other programs on the planet. They promise that no matter what happens, the companies standing will pay for the costs to clean up and restore the lands and waterways. Except for the oil sands, those operators need to time their exit perfectly by paying to clean up right when they know they can’t extract anymore before going broke. How is that going?

From 2020-2022, my role in the industry was to provide advice to your governments to mitigate insolvencies and orphans on behalf of the company I worked for—a company with a hefty stake in the orphan programs across all three provinces (BC ~40%, AB ~ 25%, and SK ~15%). Over those years it was very apparent that the costs to clean up and restore well, facility, and pipeline sites are way higher than what the public (investors) sees. Throughout those years, my employer kept telling me we could not know these costs. It wasn’t possible. I insisted this wasn’t true. It turns out the work had been completed by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) in 2018. And when this news reached the public, the work was thrown out and the team disbanded. Turns out the very same thing happened at the AER with respect to the oil sands.

After pleading constructive dismissal, a friend within the company took me for coffee to hear my story. I closed with, “I don’t understand why our company isn’t taking insolvency risk seriously, since we stand to lose the most when companies go under” (via the orphan programs). His responded with, “Oh the plan is separation, I just went for coffee with an industry President and he told me there are 10 oil and gas executives who have been working on a plan to separate for more than 10 years.”

I say this for the record, as I now see that there is no confusion as to:

• the size of the problem,

• who is responsible for it,

• how they plan to avoid paying for it,

• how to address it, and

• when it all needs to be done.

Federal Land Stewardship Laws provide the guidance, several databases are available to high-grade lands, waterways, and waterbodies for restoration. What is needed is federal water, biodiversity, and ecological ongoing monitoring of progress towards this. Instead, we are witnessing:

1. A rollback on carbon pricing targets and timelines.

2. Underreported emissions and increased freshwater consumption by companies in the provinces and no federal or provincial enforcement towards meaningful reductions. The world is facing freshwater bankruptcy, it is criminal to abandon this responsibility.

3. Provincial-Federal agreements void of Treaty Law.

4. A rollback of Environmental Impact Assessments.

5. A rollback of AER flaring limits.

6. The Notwithstanding Clause used to abuse our Charter Rights.

7. Canada’s Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) not being refunded.

8. The promotion of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology—proven to have failed time and time again—to justify continued oil and gas development.

9. The end of the Alberta Water Council.

10. The end of the Clean Air Alliance.

11. The industry is being rewarded for all of these rollbacks with:

    1. An obscene economic strategy of AI data surveillance to support natural gas and LNG development across the country, primarily in Alberta. Last count is 57 projects proposed.

    2. Another grand bargain: you want us to pay for another pipeline and a sure-fail CCS project.

12. Rollbacks in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans where water rights are upheld.

It is clear that the Government of Canada is abandoning your legal obligations to your people and the planet. Please let’s not pretend this is some kind of 4D chess. As an Albertan who cares deeply for this place and its people, please know that I see this for what it is and am deeply ashamed of you for misleading us here.

There is another path, instead of holding onto a system of exploitation and extinction, you can choose to be a hero. You can choose honesty and redemption. If I can do it, so can you. I will continue to do this work whether I am a free to do so or not.

Sincerely,

Jennifer D. Yeremiy, P. Geoph

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Your help is needed. 🙏 🤝

1) It seems clear that the "tool" the Centurion Project (the current name of the separatist movement) is using to "soldier" up is simply stolen data. You and your family's data from Alberta to Gaza is being shared with the United States for nefarious means.
2) To justify oil and gas demand, data centers that demand obscene amounts of freshwater are being proposed everywhere while the cheapest and cleanest barrels are being destroyed for dirty and distant American made fossil fuel products.
3) It seems our data will be used to target and erase us at will, as we're witnessing in real-time across the Middle East (Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon). No long-standing, untold story to deny a genocide in Lebanon.
4) The world is two weeks away from feeling the impacts of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz beginning on February 28, 2026. The best barrels and LNG have been taken off line. While the purchasers of our AI data center plans have zero income (think United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia).
5) Diesel and jet fuel supply are set to fall across Europe while the US is actively destroying cheap, clean Russian, Indian, and now Middle Eastern oil and gas supply since 2022. And, the US is depleting its own reserves and set to rely on Alberta and Venezuela to double the load in short order.

6) Again, for AI data centers to surveil you and further depletion of your food and water supply.
7) There is no end in sight as Trump and the thugs who surround him will not admit defeat, unless you join Mikayla and me in asking them to retreat.

Alberta does not need to look far for examples of where we are headed if we don't stop the doubling production lie; the City of Corpus Christi is headed for zero freshwater soon if the big six get their way.

The bigger issues we all face now is feeding ourselves as #PresidentDJT dismantles the world food & trade system.

Take Action:

1. Call for the Edmonton Chief of Police to be removed from his role with this Change.org petition:

Demand Warren Dreichel’s Removal from The Edmonton Police Service

While our city continues to mourn the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza, Police Chief Warren Driechel travelled to Israel to meet with the police force notorious for its human rights violations, with the Police Commission’s blessing. While the trip has been framed as an “educational” expedition, for Edmontonians this trip was a betrayal. Mayor, Andrew Knack rightly noted that this trip has damaged the social fabric of our city. Yet, in the face of this outcry, Chief Driechel has remained defiant, stating he “stands by his decision.”

Sign Here!

We, the signatories, demand:

• The immediate resignation of Police Chief Warren Driechel, on the grounds that his actions have undermined public trust and jeopardized community cohesion.

• An independent, transparent, and comprehensive investigation into the purpose, funding, itinerary, meetings, and outcomes of Police Chief Driechel’s travel to Occupied Palestine including full disclosure of any official or unofficial engagements undertaken during the visit.

• The immediate suspension and subsequent termination of any current or future institutional partnerships, training programs, exchanges, or collaborations between the Edmonton Police Service and zionist policing or security agencies, in accordance with municipal, commitments to human rights, international law, and ethical governance.

We know that human rights should never be taken for granted. We know that what Warren Dreichel did was wrong, and he must face the consequences of his actions.

2. Call for a Federal Investigation into Foreign Interference within the Separatist Movement

2. e-7340—Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament assembled

Whereas:

• The Alberta Prosperity Project, driving the current independence petition, has held three documented meetings with senior Trump administration officials and solicited a $500 billion US credit facility to fund a potential independent Alberta;

• The Trump administration’s documented pattern of resource-driven coercion — in Venezuela, Greenland, and Panama — is now credibly directed at Alberta, which holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves;

• Co-founder Dennis Modry, participant in the Washington meetings, was found by a BC Supreme Court judge to have misappropriated $1.3 million from elderly relatives;

• Canada’s Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner has confirmed foreign interference in Canadian political processes is already occurring and that the Washington meetings may fall within his mandate; and

• The Alberta government legislated around a court ruling declaring the original petition unconstitutional — conduct the presiding judge described as “disrespectful to the administration of justice.”

We, the undersigned, People of Canada, call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to invoke its authority under Section 53 of the Supreme Court Act to refer the constitutionality of Alberta’s Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 to the Supreme Court of Canada, and to direct the Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner to immediately investigate the meetings between the Alberta Prosperity Project and the Trump administration.

Sign this Petition

If you wish to sign this petition, please provide the required information in the fields below. Your personal information will not be made public.

Sign Petition e-7340!

#NWTpoli #bcpoli #abpoli #skpoli #mbpoli #Maritimes, #AtlanticCanada, #EastCoast #cdnpoli #canada #onpoli #ontario #toronto #alberta #abpoli #trudeaumustgo #politics #trudeau #bcpoli #ottawa #freedomconvoy #ableg #justintrudeau #calgary #conservative #canadianpolitics #skpoli #cpc #ndp #cdnpolitics #elxn #canadian #liberals #vancouver #canadavotes #covid #quebec #andrewscheer

I had the opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone with Claire Kraatz of For Our Kids Alberta and Dr. Joe Vipond of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) on Monday night to hear from the CPP Investments | Investissements RPC board (CPPIB).

I was expecting the room to be hyping a west coast pipeline, fossil fuel expansion, and further military investment. I was pleasantly surprised with the questions from my fellow Calgarians.

Joe led the questions by asking why the CPPIB removed it's net zero commitments. The response was "decarbonization" is good enough. I followed up by reminding Michel Leduc that the oil and gas industry has yet to commit ANY private dollars towards carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. They haven't accepted the toll rates which are necessary to address the 4x cost increase to the Trans Mountain expansion project. I reminded him that all of the Pathways Alliance members have scrubbed net zero commitments off their websites as they know CCS does not achieve this. Lastly, I reminded him why: because CCS will only reduce 15-20% of emissions and what is required instead is to stop developing new fossil fuels.

My question to him was: what is the CPPIB waiting for before they will stop investing in fossil fuels as the industry is operating in bad faith? I reminded him that I am a professional and member of The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) and that I am speaking from a place of public safety and environmental integrity.

Leduc explained that public investment is an important way to influence good practice in the fossil fuel industry. I beg to differ, I worked within for 22 years before I realized there is zero leadership within the fossil fuel industry. Only misleading. I dare them to prove me wrong.

Beyond the questions about further commitment from CPPIB to invest in renewables, a Calgary resident asked about their investment in the Ga7a genocide.

"According to research from Just Peace Advocates, the CPP invested $27 billion in companies complicit in Isra3l’s genocide in Ga7a and apartheid in the W3st Bank." (thanks for this figure from Just Peace Advocates in your article). Leduc acknowledged the concern and suggested he would look further into it.

The CPPIB was in Edmonton yesterday, too. Glad to know that the separatists weren't present there either and that Edmonton was also concerned about CPPIB's continued investment in fossil fuels and war.

Claire closed questioning by asking how the CPPIB can justify investment in Tiene Energy and other oil and gas producers who are actively lobbying against Federal emissions reduction regulations. Leduc’s final comments suggest he appreciates things are getting worse and not better, and that it is by the oil and gas industry’s design.

The message is clear, from the province who knows about the industry most, the CPPIB has a responsibility to divest from their position in war and fossil fuels. To maintain this position, when there is zero evidence of good faith, is misleading Canadians into the future. Change is needed, leaders are needed. What the CPPIB does next matters, they have been told from the horse's mouth.

#CPPIB #cdnpoli #abpoli #fossilfuel #divestment

First, I wholeheartedly agree that we shouldn’t have coal mining on the eastern slopes. That’s a no brainer. It makes no sense whatsoever to allow coal mining in our headwaters. That water is the lifeblood of everyone and everything that exists downstream. No clean water, no life.

But I also think that we — as environmentalists in Alberta — need to think about the issue of resource extraction more critically, because there’s a glaring inconsistency between the way that people react to the threat of coal mining in the Rockies, compared to other industrial impacts.

When coal mining threatens to destroy mountain hiking trails for white people, there’s outrage. But when Suncor proposes to build a 14-kilometre-long wall through one of Alberta’s largest wetlands for increased oil sands production, predominantly harming Indigenous Communities, there’s hardly a peep from most Albertans. At the same time, where is the public anger at Canadian mining companies that are digging up already over-exploited communities and ecosystems in the global south? Or is it only Alberta’s landscape that deserves protection?

If we can agree that our headwaters are really that important, then why are we alright with 75 percent of our water in southern Alberta going to a handful of industrial irrigators to produce cash crops for profit (during a drought), rather than feeding Albertans right here in our own province? If we don’t want coal in our headwaters, why do we tolerate tailings ponds leaking into the watershed further downstream? We want to protect the water at the source, but don’t seem to give a shit what happens to it afterwards. What kind of pollution are we willing to tolerate, and who is forced to bear the consequences of that pollution?

Sure, what the government of Alberta did by ending the moratorium on coal is objectively a bad thing for the environment. And maybe different political leadership would be marginally better. But we live in a world of global capitalism, which means that even if we ban extractive industries in certain parts of Alberta, it will push extraction to other jurisdictions, like the global south.

That’s why piecemeal regulations and reforms are always going to be insufficient. Regulations aren’t useless, but all they do is put limits on capital accumulation. If regulations are too stringent, then that can lead to “capital flight” where investments or businesses relocate. Advocating for stronger regulations in an isolated way without an international perspective means that our advocacy may push extraction to where labour and resources are cheaper — where it’s more profitable. It also risks causing economic hardship because of job losses when businesses cease operations in a particular area. And as we are currently witnessing — reforms can easily be undone. Protections under capitalism are never permanent.

They’re not permanent because capitalism doesn’t tolerate limits on growth — at least not for very long. Either the money moves elsewhere to where regulations are less stringent, or corporate lobbying weakens existing regulations, or the economy shrinks, which is called a recession, and millions of people are thrown out of work. This is why we can’t resolve environmental issues under capitalism. When the economy grows, the environment suffers. When the economy shrinks, people suffer.

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Some people are quick to blame these issues on ineffective or negligent regulators, like the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER). A regulator is like a sieve, and the stronger the regulations, the less projects go through. But in a world where our main goal is profit, then at some point the regulator is going to have to approve projects that put people and the environment in harms way. Regulations can’t get in the way of GDP going up. That’s how the system works.

One type of reform that environmental groups and activists often ask for is protected areas — like national parks (or similar). Protected areas are a reasonable tool in the near-term, because we don’t have many other tools available to set nature off limits to extraction, but they aren’t a solution. Protected areas reinforce this arbitrary (and settler-colonial) idea of “untouched” or “pristine” nature which is off-limits for meeting human needs (not even in a sustainable way). Kind of like how European colonizers removed Indigenous People from large tracts of land in the creation of national parks like Banff or Wood Buffalo. “Wilderness” is manufactured.

Unfortunately, we need protected areas under capitalism because it’s one of the few tools that limits destruction, but it also creates “sacrifice zones” everywhere else, where capital is allowed to extract and extract and extract. If we take the protected areas approach to its logical conclusion, we end up with 1) human no-use zones, and 2) sacrifice zones that are destined only for continued extraction. But how do those protected areas survive as little disconnected islands amongst an ocean of harm?

I’m not saying that we should give up the fight to protect Alberta’s ecosystems, or that reforms don’t matter, but rather, that we need to view resource extraction as part of the global system of capitalism and change our tactics accordingly. This means that we need to bring an anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and international perspective to the way that we fight against industrial development in Alberta.

What is it that we are fighting for? What is the end goal of environmental work? What is the world we are seeking to build?

In my view, we should be seeking to reestablish a sustainable relationship between human society and the non-human (or “more than human”) natural world that we depend on.

Human society will always use nature in some way to meet our needs, like we always have. But our relationship with nature can be more-or-less sustainable depending on the economic system at a given time. Right now, all our economic activities are geared towards turning nature into money for a privileged few — rather than meeting our needs — and we are running out of nature. Sustainability is impossible under capitalism, because capitalism requires never-ending growth.

Better regulations, moratoriums, and protected areas are decent band-aids for an economic system that keeps producing new wounds, but at some point, we have to force those in power to drop the knife. Real sustainability is only possible if we can respect that the earth has ecological limits or “planetary boundaries” and that all human activities need to be coordinated in a way that equitably meets our needs without stepping beyond those boundaries.

If you want to save Alberta’s Eastern Slopes for real, then you need to be anti-capitalist.

To: julie.dabrusin@parl.gc.ca
Cc: eleanor.olszewski@parl.gc.ca, audienceandengagement-audienceetmobilisation@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca,
nenshi@albertandp.ca

October 28, 2025

From: Calgary Citizens on Climate Change

Julie Dabrusin, Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Canada, Cc Liberal MP Erik St. Pierre, Cc Eleanor Olszewski, Minister for Emergency Management and Community Resilience, Cc Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Cc Naheed Nenshi, Leader of the Opposition in Alberta

Dear Honorable Julie Dabrusin,

Subject: Aligning Canada’s Economy with the Laws of Nature International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States with respect to Climate Change

It is incumbent upon Canadians, through their governments—federal, provincial, territorial and municipal—to transition, as soon as possible, from hydrocarbon energy, and a wasteful consumptive ethos to a circular economy founded upon the protection and restoration of natural ecosystems and water resources. By aligning the Canadian economy with the laws of nature, Canada would be abiding by the protocols issued on July 23rd, 2025, by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States with respect to Climate Change.

With the objective to mitigate climate breakdown, the ICJ decreed that nation states have an obligation to uphold the laws of nature through conservation and preservation of the planet’s functioning ecological systems. In order to abide by this ruling, the ICJ identified the following realignment requirements:

Duty to Prevent Significant Harm:

States must take all necessary measures to prevent or minimize environmental harm from climate change. This duty is based on customary international law and the principle of due diligence.

High Ambition in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs):

States must establish NDCs that reflect their highest possible ambition. As the planet has regrettably exceeded the 1.5℃ temperature increase target, collective actions must now aim for a limit of 1.6℃ of global warming over pre-industrial levels.

Cooperation and Information Sharing:

States are obligated to cooperate in good faith, including through information sharing and transparency, to address climate change.

Developed countries’ Responsibility to Support Developing Countries:

As the economies of developed nation states’ have disproportionately benefited from its wasteful and destructive historical emissions at the expense of undeveloped nations and the global commons, developed countries have a responsibility to provide financial and technological support to developing countries to assist in the latter’s mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Due Diligence:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) emphasized that the due diligence standard requires a high degree of vigilance and prevention, and states must use all means at their disposal to minimize harm.

Human rights considerations:

The ICJ ruling highlights the link between climate change and human rights, emphasizing that the enjoyment of human rights depends on environmental protection.

Potential Consequences for Non-compliance:

States that breach their obligations may incur legal responsibility and be required to cease wrongful conduct, offer guarantees of non-repetition, and make full reparation for damages.

In order for Canada to meet these obligations, the following activities must cease:

1. New fossil fuel development (wells, pipelines, facilities, or accessways)

2. New mineral resource mines or mine extensions (e.g. Eastern Slopes and Oil Sands mining)

3. New refineries or interprovincial pipelines for oil or LNG

4. Carbon capture and storage for fossil fuel development, natural gas hydrogen development, or data centers powered by fossil fuels.

5. Fossil fuel subsidies of any form.

6. Flaring exemptions (venting processes eliminated).

7. Freshwater use in industrial development operations, including data centers.

To implement the foregoing pivotal objectives, we recommend that the Canadian Government adopt and develop the following policies:

1. A high-grading audit of industrial site cleanup and restoration plans within each province and territory and the collection of deposits on new wells and facilities within brownfield assets;

2. Remediation, restoration and funding strategies from mine operators and fossil fuel companies (upholding of polluter pay laws: the orphan programs, integrate attribution science, e.g. Saul Luciano Lliuya v. RWE case);

3. Refining, facility, and pipeline consolidation plans from midstream companies (considering 1.);

4. Trans-national high voltage electrical grid and electric transport infrastructure considering 1;

5. Restoration and energy reduction subsidies, beyond polluter pay and climate harm compensation obligations;

6. Fossil fuel emission reduction plans consistent with the Paris Agreement;

7. Water and mineral resource circular system procedures.

We, the members of the Calgary Citizens on Climate Change, call upon the Government of Canada to adopt the foregoing protocols and in so doing to assume a climate leadership position consistent with the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States with respect to Climate Change.

Sincerely,

Jenny Yeremiy (Calgary), Gord Petersen (Okotoks), Barbara Janusz (Calgary), Dr. David Swann (Calgary), Michael Kerfoot (Cremona), Joan Wiseman (Calgary), Colin Smith (Calgary), and Colleen Rosenegger (Calgary).

To add your name:

Send the same email to the same email addresses, add your MP if you like, and Cc me at jenny@thegravitywell.net.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to attend SPOG day in Sundre, Alberta. My friend Susan joined me and circulated the Forever-Canadian.ca petition. The response to the petition was mixed but mostly positive, in fact, Susan and I will be returning to the area to collect signatures soon! Stay tuned for the day and time.

One man made his position perfectly clear, “Alberta needs to be independent”. “What does that mean?” I asked him. Does it mean that the Alberta oil and gas industry no longer receives the most subsidies of any G20 nation? Does it mean that no new pipelines will be built to Canadian coasts? Great! How about oil and gas site clean up and restoration, who will hold the industry to account?

I explained that, as a Geophysicist and oil and gas liability expert, I have always wanted the Federal government to intervene more. That the provincial government is not doing enough to hold the industry to account and I am certain the problem will get worse without other provinces countering the continued environmental harm with us. He simply explained that “Ottawa needs to get its grip off of Alberta, transfer payments are killing us.”

There is no question that the province of Alberta needs to shake foreign interference and take responsibility of our precious resources. Management decisions with respect to our lands and resources, especially clean freshwater, are NOT within Albertan or Indigenous control. On this point, I agree completely, our sovereignty is on the line. Let’s place the blame correctly, though. Alberta is not shipping four times what we use in fossil fuel, gravel, or lumber resources to Ottawa, these resources are going mostly to the United States or elsewhere.

Yes, we pay taxes to Ottawa but Alberta is a net benefactor of Ottawa’s investment today. We are not giving more than we are receiving. According to The Fraser Institute, a long-standing supporter of the foreign interference into Alberta’s oil and gas industry, Alberta paid $3 billion in transfer payments in 2024. Meanwhile, Alberta received $29.6 billion in fossil fuel subsidies last year. The largest investment into fossil fuels by Ottawa, ever!

I am currently listening to Albertan’s own, Geoff Dembicki’s book The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change—which is being made into a TV series, by the way! Geoff’s book explains how foreign investors (the Koch Brothers, Exxon Mobil, and Shell) sought to make money off Alberta’s oil sands. They were also made aware of the impacts on the climate that the extraction, development, refining, and burning of fossil fuel would have if it were to continue, in the 1950s. By the 1970s, these three were measuring the anticipated climate impacts from the extraction, development, refining, and burning of fossil fuels, internally. In 1977, they clearly outlined the expected detrimental impacts. Their models were proven accurate by climate scientists in 1988. And by 1995 an Alberta-led climate denial campaign was born and continues with worldwide coordination, even stronger today.

Why Alberta?

The question of “Why Alberta” is leading the world wide climate denial campaign has been plaguing me for a long time. Geoff’s research supports my understanding as an oil and gas geoscientist. The Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin’s oil and gas reserves, including bitumen, have been understood for a long time. The cover image for this article is a map from 1925 which outlines the pay contours of the oil sands deposits surrounding the Fort McMurray settlement and the Athabasca River. What these executives also well-understood is reserves, quality and quantity. Internal documents from within the companies of Suncor (Sun Oil/the Koch Bros.), Imperial (Exxon), and Shell explain their scientists and executives understood the quality of Alberta’s bitumen deposits meant it would suffer most severely from policies aimed to limit fossil fuel development. Policies required to limit catastrophic climate damages would hurt their Alberta bitumen investments most because they are the dirtiest deposits in the world. The shear quantity of Alberta’s oil sand deposits were simply too sweet for these executives to concede; they chose to take the lead in misleading, instead.

What now?

On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice ruled that states must honour international climate policy or be subject to litigation by climate impacted communities and nations. The actions of these executives are officially illegal. For Alberta to become a sovereign entity, in real life, the path forward is now clear. We follow International law, the laws of nature, or the laws of the Earth; take your pick. We achieve sovereignty within Canada or through the settlement of Treaties 6, 7, and 8. Either way, we are settling with these misleaders. The former, allows us to work with our neighbours, the latter aims to separate and divide us from fighting them.

Either way, we are beholden to what our location may provide as limits near and climate damages become more severe. Personally, I want more support in fighting back against these strong, misleading forces than less, and want to see the “most responsible industry” do right by Albertans, First Nations, Metis, my kids, and yours. Once and for all. The fight is upon us, of this there is no doubt. Do you seek to unite or separate and with who against what? Context matters. We are on the same team, either way.

It was never arbitrary and now it is has been made universal law. The limits to our stable environment which were modelled and set at COP21 in 2015 were officially outlined by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on June 23, 2025. “This is a victory for our planet for climate justice and for the power of young people to make a difference,” says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “So what?” says my spouse. “None of this matters with Trump in power. Look at what is happening in Gaza right now, the USA doesn’t care about International Law.” “You and I are both right”, I replied.

I cannot deny the atrocities and climate harms being perpetrated today. But 1.5 degrees warming and other biogeophysical limits will persist no matter our approach to it. There is only one way forward: staying within the ecological limits of the planet. If the ruling doesn’t stop perpetrators, the Earth will, and when it does the ICJ measuring stick (and others) will tell us who done it, to what degree, and how to calculate and assign damages.

A great summary of the ICJ ruling in outlined by Andrew Griffiths on LinkedIn. He explains it calls for the recognition of the science, outlines legal duties, explains where the responsibility lies, the rights of the affected, and what is at stake. The UN summary explains, “Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from GHG emissions — including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies — may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State.”

For Canada, who provided nearly $30 billion in fossil fuel subsidies in 2024 alone, continues to humour carbon capture and storage on fossil fuel production as a climate solution, and is promoting “decarbonization” rather than “net zero” efforts, this means we are in for a rude awakening. Trying to sell fossil fuel products to the nations who are experiencing climate harm is already proving fruitless, and this ruling justifies swifter fossil fuel retreat.

In response to President Trump’s tariffs, China has nearly ceased USA LNG imports and sees its current LNG-fueled heavy-duty vehicle market as local and short-lived. “LNG price volatility and increasingly competitive electric alternatives.” And other nations do NOT have the capability to receive LNG for transport, as the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) also explained in May, “Other Asian countries do not share China’s inherent qualities that enabled its LNG trucking surge. With costs declining, electric heavy-duty vehicles could emerge as Asia’s main displacer of diesel in road transport.” An unhealthy environment for LNG Canada’s expansion.

Both coal and oil supply are outpacing demand in 2025 with OPEC+ nations flooding the market with cheaper alternatives to Canadian heavy crude, lowering prices to critical levels. While the Canadian oil and gas industry was poised to provide record production levels in H1 2025, the limited capability of other-than-USA nations to process our product means we are mostly limited to the USA’s tariff ridden market before it may be resold by them at a premium price elsewhere.

The stellar economics and stability of renewable energy sovereignty has gripped the World’s imagination and the energy pathway is becoming crystal clear.

Ember, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research shows us that solar electricity generation growth is accelerating while natural gas power is losing significant momentum.

Meanwhile, climate damages and social injustices are at all time highs and there is real work to be done in our country (on site clean up and closure), and around the world (climate damages), to limit Canadian taxpayer liability. The ICJ ruling empowers Nation States to expect businesses to follow the laws of the land or pay up. The Government of Canada now needs to expect corporations to adopt genuine climate action towards staying within the physical constraints of the Earth. In other words, corporations, and professionals (like me) who work for them, can no longer wing it or lie, we must try.

What Should Canada do with the ICJ Ruling?

Read more

To seek answers on water quality concerns, Jenny attended the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation’s Town Hall with Premier Smith. An Okotoks local took his 30 seconds to ask the critical question: “Does [the Government of Alberta (GOA] support the science that climate change is primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels?” Their responses are instructive; they seek to obscure the urgency and severity of the climate crisis by focusing on a 1,000-year-scale rather than the fossil fuel-burning window of the last 150 years.

Let’s remind ourselves of what's up, both locally and globally.

Locally, there is evidence of harmful pollution in our air, water, snowpack, and most notably in aquatic species, which impacts human consumption. Alberta’s oilsands emissions show a 143% increase since 2005. Premier Smith omits the early warning signs that Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) expansion is not worth the risk, she fails to mention the seven fold underestimation of emission from idle wells across the producing province. She says nothing of the GOA lifting flaring regulations meant to safeguard Albertans, ensuring our resource revenue is maintained and oil and gas reserves are preserved. While Premier Smith harps on about federal overreach, the Alberta Energy Regulator’s central mandate is being violated, as is the rule of law.

Premier Smith demands new pipelines be built to double Alberta’s oil and gas production using her Rube Goldberg “decarbonization” machine which includes carbon capture and storage (CCS), direct air capture (DAC), and transport rail to pipeline emission offset fantasies. The $34.9 billion Canadian-taxpayer Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline investment is already facing a “very tight North American heavy market”. Even if annual cash flow were to exceed $1 billion, TMX would not pay out for more than 30 years. In 2024, it was $712 million.

Globally, fossil fuel markets are displaying fragility. The Indonesian coal industry is risking a tough transition as demand declines. The LNG shipping sector is under pressure as nearly 60 carriers sit idle. China is highlighting that LNG trucking may play a minimal role in driving LNG imports. Underperformance visible in the S&P500. Pakistan is selling excess LNG amid supply glut. And just this week, both oil and gas storage surprises in the United States signal a bearish dynamic in both markets.

What could Alberta do instead? Dr. Tricia Stadnyk of the University of Calgary says it best: clean water should be the central focus of all decision-making. Instead of increasing Alberta’s annual freshwater contamination at a rate of about 270 million m³ per year or 4.65 million barrels per day, we should be restoring it. A doubling of oil sands production would contaminate more than 9 million barrels of freshwater per day. Premier Smith, is it acceptable to pollute 9 million barrels a day of Alberta’s water on a going forward basis? It is not.

Focusing first on Alberta’s water would kickstart a multi-decadal $260+ billion restoration economy. It would clean up both the conventional and oilsands industries, supported by Polluter Pay, which was the foundational principle in the development of our regulatory framework, and which continues to be strengthened by the work of scientists and researchers.

In this scenario, rather than build out new developments, polluting industries clean-up and restore lands to meet Species at Risk objectives. In 2022, the GOA itself wrote these very objectives into provincial law with precedent-setting sub regional plans, enabled through land stewardship legislation.

A water focus would limit financial exposure and climate damages. It would also allow us to stop the malpractice of clearcut logging and reckless gravel mining of our vital waterways and natural water filtration systems.

Instead, the GOA and their business-as-usual backers are hurtling the province towards financial and ecological collapse. With all the data at their disposal, they are revising or, worse, abandoning our country’s goals and commitments by villainizing climate policies, rather than to suck it up and deal. They hobble the renewable energy industry by requiring the kind of financial deposits that legacy industries are not being asked for, and continue to bail out bad businesses at the expense of companies in good standing, by illegally prioritizing solvency ahead of liability.

In Okotoks, Jenny was brought to tears when a grandmother asked this question of the Premier and Minister: “What are we going to tell our kids and grandkids when we have no clean water left and cannot undo what you’ve done?” We know today that Albertans want genuine responsible development, yet to Premier Smith and her government, “responsible development” is just a sales pitch and a smokescreen for their single-minded devotion to the self-serving fossil fuel industry which is entering its sunset years, and refuses to go quietly.

What will we tell our grandkids, indeed.

Jenny Yeremiy is a Geophysicist and oil and gas liability expert who hosts The Gravity Well podcast to share the stories of the people looking out for our home.

Roger Gagne, founder of the Climate Plan Alberta initiative, has been working at fostering neglected conversations around climate change for over a decade.

Good Afternoon Minister Schulz, (To: epa.minister@gov.ab.ca, cc: minister.energy@gov.ab.ca, Banff.Kananaskis@assembly.ab.ca, Calgary.Buffalo@assembly.ab.ca, Livingstone.Macleod@assembly.ab.ca, Banff.Kananaskis@assembly.ab.ca, Calgary.Buffalo@assembly.ab.ca, Calgary.Glenmore@assembly.ab.ca, Nenshi@albertandp.ca, Premier@gov.ab.ca)

Thank you for facing the Southern Alberta community last week. For me, it is exhausting to have to stand up for your clean drinking water, hear you lie to us, and receive your anger when we are not buying it. Just because you say it, does not make it true.

If you proceed with allowing coal exploration or development in the Eastern Slopes you are going against the collective wishes and wellbeing of the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan. And you are going against all of the scientific and economic evidence that tells you NOT to proceed.

What you know, for the record:

1) There is NO way to mine which will not pollute our water: there is clear evidence that bioaccumulation of pollutants from legacy mining practices at Grassy have occurred, making fish toxic to eat. This likely is also why trout populations have decreased, too. Information from your office:

Fish remain high in selenium long after mountaintop coal mines close.

There is evidence coal contamination in the snow pack:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.4c02596

Evidence of its created atmospheric pollution:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.estlett.2c00677

Evidence its in the rivers:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749124000423

2) Even if closed pit mining works, it has been noted by Atrium in their statement of claim that "closed pit" mining is too expensive so they will simply sue us instead.

https://www.listcorp.com/asx/atu/atrum-coal-limited/news/atrum-coal-files-an-amended-statement-of-claim-3155111.html

3) You know there is evidence that the coal reserves at Grassy Mountain are grossly overstated, that there are likely only 2.5 years of economic reserves. These statements are on the record with the Alberta Energy Regulator. As one who took the Grassy site tour, I can tell you it is obvious there is no economic resource there. It was shut down for that reason. Clearly.

Cornelis Kolijn has made it perfectly clear that Teck left for economic reasons and Gina made a bad purchase. The lawsuits you keep pumping up are not what you claim they are. Your role is to MINIMIZE legal exposure for Albertans, not promote the plaintiff's claims. This exploration project will NOT delineate anything. The scope is too small to prove resource potential, if anything the new cores will prove how little resource there is. Again, the site was deemed uneconomical by both the provincial and federal government just 3 years ago. Cornelis is interviewed along with the former head of Science in Alberta Environment, explaining all the reasons NOT to invest in coal and to incorporate science into your decision-making processes.

4) There is no market for the coal, the quality is inadequate for metallurgical coal, and even if it were metallurgical coal quality, green hydrogen is the new form of steel making in major centers (China and India). https://www.ey.com/en_in/insights/mining-metals/how-green-hydrogen-is-transforming-india-s-steel-sector

5) Pro-coal supporters, such as Joseph Fournier, use the Western Standard to provide misinformation to the public. He points to studies carried out under laboratory conditions, which is the only way to contain toxicity: under lab conditions. It is dangerous for your office not to be broadcasting the (above) 4 papers, work carried out by government scientists, and instead allow lab condition studies to be the prevailing argument in the general discourse here. Your department would be wise to provide the public with the overwhelming evidence your office holds and make clear statements against the misleading statements by this organization.

6) The Milk River Irrigation District has been closed down FOR THE SUMMER. It's my understanding farmers are looking to the Old Man to make up for their lost volumes. The Old Man basin is not properly protected and over allocated. Proceeding with using any water for any kind of coal mining activity when our agriculture and beef sector is facing total losses is the most irresponsible action your government can take for us. Industry water should be cut off as much as possible right now, this is a recipe for disaster and you are the ones holding the bag as continued disasters strike. https://medicinehatnews.com/news/local-news/2025/06/18/were-in-really-tough-shape-milk-river-irrigation-area-shut-down-for-summer-at-midnight-monday/

Please do NOT proceed with Grassy or any other Eastern Slopes coal exploration, listen to Albertans who are looking out for you. Water is life! Not fossil fuels.

Sincerely,

Jenny Yeremiy, P. Geoph | Host & Public Activist | Mohkinstsis | Calgary, Alberta
The Gravity Well

Do you have any greenwashing or misinformation complaints to share with me?

Please share them to jenny@thegravitywell.net.

Onwards!

Jenny Yeremiy, P. Geoph, The Gravity Well Podcast Host and Public Activist

Understanding that over consumption the major driver of planetary breakdown, the top household consumption per capita spender was the United States of America at $43,931 in 2021. Knowing productivity, or Gross Domestic Product (GDP), can no longer be the measure of a nation’s success, the USA is second to Bermuda with the Cayman Islands taking the third spot in “individual consumption per share of (GDP)”. A rapid reduction of emissions, through either environmental disaster or climate regulation, means an end to the global military-industrial complex while “the United States spends more on the military than any other country, up to almost 40% of the total military expenditures worldwide.” If there is anything to take away from the outcome of the United States 2024 election is that this once great nation is no longer fit to lead.

My middle sister worked for victims services about eight years in my home town of St. Albert, Alberta. St. Albert is the epitome of US suburbia, extremely white and wealthy. I knew the only homeless person the city had in the 1990s by name, Louis. It was a shock to find out how overloaded victims services is in St. Albert. My sister would explain, often through tears, how difficult it was to see and hear the daily stories of abuse. We would discuss the circumstances at length, anonymous. I would ask over and over again, “How can someone stay in these abusive relationships?” After leaving the work, from the lack of support and an inability to continue to be witness to serial abuse, my sister and I concluded the victims cannot see another way. Fast forward to 2022, after twenty two years of trying to promote “responsible development” within the Alberta oil and gas industry I finally saw my abuser in full technicolour.

I am a Geophysicist by education and practice for 20 years but grew an interest liability management after going through the sale’s process at a start up company called Black Shire Energy. That is the clean up and restoration of Alberta’s 275,000 well, pipeline, and facility sites scattered across the province. These liabilities are estimated to be $260 billion while the industry is spending less than $1 billion annually to address them. $130 billion of these liabilities are attributed to the Athabasca oil sands, the world’s largest environmental disaster underway.

By 2020 I was working for Canada’s largest producer, Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL), when oil prices fell to zero during the global pandemic shutdown. In response, the Federal government provided a $1.7 billion economic stimulus package to rehabilitate sites across all three fossil fuel developing provinces British Columbia ($100 million), Alberta ($1.2 billion), and Saskatchewan ($400 million). My job was to review, recommend, and communicate the new policy and regulation improvements required by each province in order to be eligible for the federal funds, which was ultimately is Canadian taxpayer dollars.

BC, AB, and SK have a unique system, called the “Orphan Program” whereby the liabilities for any defunct company are the responsibility of the companies still standing. That responsibility is divvied up by per cent share of the existing liabilities. This meant that as companies became insolvent, CNRL was responsible for 22% of their liabilities. I would advise CNRL on the basis of what goes around, comes around. If company X goes bankrupt because the regulations are too lenient, CNRL would be on the hook for the costs. Their business model is to acquire, so they need to expect this problem to grow for them as they do. Example being the acquisition of Chevron, last month.

For example, the first task I was given was to review the financial health scoring system. Within a few months in the role, I was explaining that the ratios used to measure financial health were too forgiving. That to apply appropriate financial health scores would require tightening up the metrics and acting quicky while prices were suppressed. The problem was to accurately account for financial health meant putting two thirds of the companies into bankruptcy. An approach, I was told, was not popular within the Alberta Government or Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).

Month after month, I would show data as to how the liability issue was getting worse by not taking swift action. The AER allowed transfer after transfer of liabilities to companies that clearly did not have the financial wherewithal or technical capabilities. I would discuss at length with my mentor how none of this made sense. Why won’t the government act? Why doesn’t the AER use the tools they have to hold companies accountable. I was privy to exclusive or industry lobby group meetings with government and regulatory officials from every level of staff to executives. I was an industry lobbyist without fully understanding what a lobbyist was.

In early 2022, with a mission to “influence the legacy of our industry positively for all involved” I decided I would learn three things: 1) What does it cost to clean up and reclaim sites well? 2) How can we forecast the work better? and 3) What does “best in class” liability reduction look like? Fast forward to June 21, 2022, I was presenting the concept of “lifecycle management” to my Geophysicist and Geologist peers at the annual Calgary GeoConvention.

I explained to them how we are not seeing the problems we are creating and that the work to closedown the system is very similar to the work that built it up. That the real measure of success is sites removed off the land with the environment restored, and that the Alberta government finally put sites on timelines through brand new land stewardship laws! Instead of mapping reservoirs, we can map contamination plumes. Instead of picking drilling locations, we can ensure wells are safely put to bed. That there is feel-good work to employ us for decades to come!

A long time friend was in the audience, he asked, “Why are you sharing this with us? Isn’t this work already happening?” “Yes, the work is happening”, I replied, “but there is a lack of leadership.” Little did the audience know that I had a meeting scheduled the next morning with four CNRL executives in a boardroom I did not know existed.

I was given a disciplinary letter, told that: I do not communicate well; information required of me was not provided to the executive team with timely notice; that the three initiatives I set out for the year are no longer my responsibility; and all work I was to do needed to be cleared by my new boss with no scientific background and no understanding of the liability problems. I told them what I had learned from my sister, “Do you know why the abused stay in abusive relationships? Because they cannot see another way forward. You are in an abusive relationship with your leaders and you cannot see outside the abuse. I am not the problem.” I exclaimed, “Liability is the problem, I am trying to solve this problem and you do not even want to hear the solutions.” When I exited the room I nearly pulled the door off its hinges.

Here I am, more than two years later. And what have I learned?

1. Alberta is leading the oil and gas industry strategy for the Western World. What we do and don’t do sets the tone. Here are two examples: from 1975, “While Exxon is an American company, the document at issue here was stamped with the seal of the central library of Imperial Oil Limited, and included an article by Imperial Chairman and CEO W.O. Twaits. This article, called ‘The Environment: Whose Responsibility?’ is actually a transcript of a video that was made for Imperial employees, ‘to tell the people who work for Imperial what the company expects from them in the fight against pollution.' Twaits was clear that he was addressing ‘every Imperial oil person, from board room to service station,’ and that all of their participation was necessary for upholding the company’s commitment to ‘environmental protection as a way of life.’ This video and, later, its publication in written form, served the parallel purposes of proclaiming that Imperial was ‘a leader in the pollution fight’ and that this fight needed to be taken up by every individual employee in order to be effective.'“ And secondly, last weekend the Alberta government, supported by the Canadian Oil and Gas lobbyists, is abandoning it’s supposed Emission Reduction and Energy Development Plan. The platform it released and ran on just last spring in the 2023 provincial election.

2. The government and regulator only answers to corporations. I requested podcast participation from representatives within the Departments of Energy and Environment as wells as the Regulator (AER) on the “most important issue for Albertans, the $260 billion liability clean up and restoration”. My request was denied outright from all three branches, I informed the media contacts that I have met with these folks several times in the two years that I was in the industry, in liability management for CNRL. Meetings with the Assistant and Deputy Energy Ministers, the President and Directors within the AER, as well as several executives and directors within the Ministry of Environment. The reply was “no”. The advisor to the premier, who is also on the AER board, yes, that is a complete conflict of interest told me that he has signed too many NDAs to participate and that he is “working on a project that I’m hoping will change the channel” and later that not speaking with the public is “how we got into this mess”. The US oil and gas lobby is ready to follow Alberta’s lead.

3. The only future we have is the one where we citizens and stewards work together and stand up for our communities, water, and the living world. I attended a townhall last night, in Nanton, Alberta.

   

   A discussion about not polluting our headwaters, the headwaters that serve 40% of North America, with coal mining. A battle fought and won just three years prior only to return again because an Australian billionaire was duped into buying a mine that was closed decades ago due to “a lack of economic value”. The only tool used to drive decisions within the Regulator, Mandy Olsgard tells us from her experience there. It was extremely well intentioned and attended. Corb Lund, a country music star and Southern Alberta rancher, held the room together by singing a song and stating, “this is not about left or right but about right and wrong." As well as, “I do not care who you vote for as long as you hold them to account.”

There is no time to waste and no climate crisis leadership within the Alberta Government or our Corporate Executives, and the United States is about to unleash the Alberta playbook. Do not look away in defeat, hear the plea of the people of the United States of America. They don’t got this, if we don’t got this, and we do not have this. Seeing another way is up to you and me, or other countries, not the United States of America.

Here is what I am doing about it, should you wish to get involved in any capacity, please fill out this form.

Sincerely,

Jennifer D. Yeremiy, P. Geoph