Recent leaks of toxic tailings from northern Alberta oilsands mines have revealed serious flaws in how Canada and Alberta look after the environment, observers say.
Some accuse the federal government of abandoning the province. Others point to what they call a captive provincial regulator. All agree that there's no way a leak from Imperial Oil's Kearl tailings ponds should have gone unreported for nine months to both Ottawa and Edmonton, as well as the people who live near it.
However, the Alberta Energy Regulator didn't update First Nations or inform federal and provincial environment ministers about the issue until Feb. 7, when it issued a protection order after a second Kearl release of 5.3 million litres of tailings from a catchment pond. Federal legislation requires Environment Canada to be notified of such leaks within 24 hours.
"This regulator has always thought of its relationship being bilateral, between itself and industry," said Nigel Bankes, a retired professor of resource law at the University of Calgary. "Never triangular, never a three-legged stool involving the public.That attitude is pervasive in the provincial government, Bankes said.
A survey conducted in 2021 for Alberta Environment found more than 85 per cent of Albertans had little confidence in the regulator's ability to govern industry, in that case coal. The survey also reported Albertans found the agency reluctant to release information and was not very transparent. He said the province and the regulator have already refused to tell him the scope and timeline for the investigation of the leak. Savage wouldn't commit to making the results of the investigation public, Schmidt said, nor would she promise to release results from an internal investigation into whether the regulator followed notification rules.
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