Alberta
Alberta Chiefs demand Ottawa return funding for orphan well clean up
News release from Dennis Burnside, VP & Indigenous Practice Lead, Political Intelligence
Alberta Chiefs and the IRC call on Federal Government to fulfill its environmental obligations and commitments by releasing funding to First Nations
Government of Canada seeking to return $135 million in previously committed funding to federal coffers to use as savings, instead of empowering First Nations to clean up inactive and orphan wells on their lands.
ENOCH CREE NATION, AB, March 11, 2024
Chief Cody Thomas, Enoch Cree Nation, Chief Roy Whitney, Tsuut’ina Nation, and Chief Ivan Sawan, Loon River First Nation, joined with Chiefs from across Alberta today to call on the Federal Government to release unspent funding committed to the Site Rehabilitation Program (SRP) – approximately $135 million –to be utilized by Indigenous people to reclaim additional inactive and orphan wells on their lands. These funds are still in Alberta, but Ottawa is demanding them back.
On December 12, 2023, Chiefs from Treaty 6, Treaty 7, and Treaty 8 territories wrote to Minister Jonathan Wilkinson appealing to the federal government to allow the government of Alberta to place unspent SRP monies into the FNSR Program, providing much needed funding to continue the successful work that has been accomplished by First Nations, for First Nations. Without these funds, governments and industry would be leaving over 2,000 sites to be abandoned or reclaimed on First Nations lands and territories.
Chief Thomas stated: “We still have many inactive wells on our lands that need to be reclaimed properly; we estimate nearly 2,000 sites which will cost over $225 million. We acknowledge the work that has been done under the SRP but there is more to be done. This is a liability of the lessees, and the Alberta Government is holding them accountable through the Well Closure Program. However, time is not on our side. We have a very limited land base and a growing population. We must do the necessary land stewardship immediately”.
Chief Ivan Sawan stated: “Many Alberta First Nations have felt the greatest impacts of natural resource developments which have swept through our lands and ancestral territories for generations, leaving behind environmental wreckage, while being deprived of the opportunity to meaningfully participate or benefit. We are calling on the federal government to do the right thing and release these funds for the environmental and economic purposes they were intended, so that First Nations can create meaningful job opportunities, clean up our lands, and create a healthier and more prosperous future for our people.”
Chief Roy Whitney stated: “Too many oil and gas companies have simply walked away from their obligation to remediate their well sites on First Nation Lands. The SRP was a way for First Nations to have abandoned sites reclaimed. Accordingly, it was with great disappointment when we learned that the Federal Government was not going to release the remaining funds for the SRP. We fully support the request for the remaining funds being held to be released to continue the work to clean up our Lands.”
Under the previous Alberta Site Rehabilitation Program (ASRP) $130 million was allocated to 32 Alberta First Nations and Metis communities to clean up 2,145 sites. First Nations were able to abandon 988 wells and 411 km of pipelines as well as complete 793 reclamations while working on 4,188 projects. The result was a reduction of over $123 million in liability on reserves in Alberta while creating jobs, business development and training, and improving Indigenous community engagement and capacity.
The Indian Resource Council, an advocacy group that negotiated the set aside funding for First Nations, has detailed data on inactive and orphan wells on Indigenous lands. Stephen Buffalo, President and CEO of the IRC stated that the Federal regulator, IOGC, dropped the ball by failing to hold companies liable for their liabilities. He stated that First Nations can no longer depend on IOGC to get this work done.
Mr. Buffalo added: “Under Alberta’s SRP program, the government allocated more than $130 million for cleanup projects for First Nations and the Metis. So, we are doing what we can to keep that program going to maintain the success of the initial FNSRP. About 350 community members received jobs and skills training. By removing the aging wells and pipelines we can free up land to use for housing and other purposes” This is why we need the surplus funds.
A sign, from Alberta’s Orphan Well Association (OWA), identifies a non-producing and abandoned oil well near Carseland, Alberta on Sunday, July 21, 2019. Orphan wells do not have parties responsible for decommissioning or reclamation activities. THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Larry MacDougal
When SRP funding was earmarked to support Indigenous-led projects in 2021, it was celebrated that this was an area where the federal and provincial governments were in “perfect alignment”. This spirit of collaboration was good news for the environment, for Canada’s fight against climate change, and for First Nations. Alberta Chiefs are continuing to call on the federal government to rekindle this spirit of collaboration, however, Minister Wilkinson has recently stated that the federal government has “no plans to provide additional funding for the clean-
up of inactive and orphan wells.”
From the Fraser Institute
By Matthew Lau
To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.
First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.
The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.
For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.
Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.
Consider these federally-subsidized projects.
A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.
When the Trudeau government announced all this corporate welfare and spending, it naturally claimed it create economic growth and good jobs. But corporate welfare doesn’t create growth and good jobs, it only directs resources (including labour) to subsidized sectors and businesses and away from sectors and businesses that must be more heavily taxed to support the subsidies. The effect of government initiatives that reduce private investment and replace it with government spending is a net economic loss.
As 20th-century business and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt put it, the case for government directing investment (instead of the private sector) relies on politicians and bureaucrats—who did not earn the money and to whom the money does not belong—investing that money wisely and with almost perfect foresight. Of course, that’s preposterous.
Alas, this replacement of private-sector investment with public spending is happening not only in Alberta but across Canada today due to the Trudeau government’s fiscal policies. Lower productivity and lower living standards, the data show, are the unhappy results.
Author:
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Ray McGinnis
Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.
Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.
Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”
On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”
One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”
Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.
Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.
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