Ottawa is to receive a petition today asking the federal government to review the overall impact of expanding coal mining in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains.
The petition containing 18,000 names from across Canada was started by Latasha Calf Robe of the Niitsitapi Water Protectors from the Kainai band in the province’s southwest.
She says the approach of evaluating proposed mines one at a time doesn’t take into account their cumulative effects.
Nor does it look at those effects combined with existing mines just over the British Columbia boundary.
Calf Robe says coal mining affects areas of federal jurisdiction, including environment, fisheries, natural resources and Indigenous relations.
She says Ottawa has to step in because Alberta’s United Conservative government isn’t listening.
Several band councils in the area have already asked federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to join a provincial review of Montem Resource’s Tent Mountain project.
The Canadian Press
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