Dear Editor,
There’s a timeless lyric from songwriter John Mellencamp: ‘I know there's a balance, I see it when (it) swings past.’ I am worried for several reasons as to where the Alberta pendulum will end up.
I attended the ‘Water 2.0’ event in Nanton a few weeks back and the expert speakers, one of them a toxicologist, warned of the dangers of selenium (and other toxins) in the watersheds downstream from the proposed Grassy Mountain open pit coal mine. It accumulates, not dissipates, and there is not a single filtering technology anywhere that can prevent levels surpassing existing public safety regulations.
Mayor Craig Snodgrass of High River has sent yet another letter of protest to Premier Danielle Smith. The Highwood River will be poisoned and thus every living creature that depends on it, including Okotokians, as our new water pipeline will use raw water that will be pumped from the Bow River where it meets the Highwood River.
The AER is holding public meetings to inform its upcoming decision. The first round has been completed and another round is planned for January. Okotoks must stand up in solidarity with High River.
Both our MLA, who is the minister of agriculture and irrigation, and our MP, who is the federal shadow minister of agriculture, have been resolutely silent in public on this issue. It boggles the mind as water is life for agriculture, for wildlife, for ranching, for everything.
I have perused through all 13 bills passed in the legislative session that just ended, and I cannot see a single reference to protecting our water, air or land. However, Bill 35, the All-Seasons Resorts Act, threatens to do the exact opposite.
I’m no lawyer and the average page count for those 13 bills is 45, so perhaps I missed some of the copious fine print. Therefore, I defer to the experts, including Alberta's information and privacy commissioner, who is ringing the alarm bells on Bill 34, the Access to Information Act.
Several media outlets, and the Official Opposition, are warning us, saying that “(Alberta) would become (the) most corrupt, secretive government in Canada.”
If the ongoing FOIP battle with the UCP government to obtain the results of the public survey (paid for by taxpayers) on pulling out of the Canada Pension Plan is any indication, we do indeed have much to worry about.
How far this pendulum swings is up to each and every Albertan who decides to speak up. Or not.
Gordon Petersen
Okotoks
