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Alberta

Petrified Buffalo Hearts, Indian Maiden Breasts, Stalagmites and 70 Million Year Old Worm Poop

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25 minute read

photo of Rosselia Worm

I recently attended the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards in Maskwacis, Alberta. I was fortunate to meet Dr. Russ Schnell. He is the Deputy Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Global Monitoring Division, in the United States. He grew up in the Battle River region and shared a fascinating story about discovering 70 million year old “Rosselia Worm Fossils” in 1958 in the bed of Castor Creek at the confluence of the Battle River.  

Dr. Schnell was kind enough to allow me to publish a story he had written some years ago.  I shot the video of Dr. Schnell as he was telling the story of how the fossils were formed.  

The following story is adapted from the book “Stories from Life: Beauty Everyday As It happens”, 2016, Jane Ross ed., ISBN:978-0-9695841-2-4, Friesens Books, Altona, Manitoba, 325 pages (for a copy contact: Jane Ross <[email protected]>).

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Petrified Buffalo Hearts, Indian Maiden Breasts, Stalagmites and 70 Million Year Old Worm Poop

By Dr. Russ Schnell,  B.Sc., Ph.D., Dr.Sci. (Hons).

It was a Saturday in August 1958.  The summer day was hot up on the open prairie in east-central Alberta. The air was much cooler in the narrow valley, especially in the shadows.  And most of the valley was in shadows from trees growing on the rims above the sandstone cliffs.

The rock was stored in my parent’s garage for 50 years until I brought it to Colorado, USA, where I now live.

About 1:00 PM, the noon wiener roast was over and we had waited the obligatory one hour after eating before going swimming.  Everyone knew that you would get cramps and drown otherwise!  No matter that the water was only 4 feet deep at the deepest, and then only behind the beaver dams.   And that the water was to cold to do much other than dip a few times, dog paddle for 10 feet, then shout out that it was “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”1 and splash to shore and stand around a smoky campfire of poplar branches. It was too early in the day for mosquitoes, and even if they had been out, the eye-burning smoke would have kept them away from our tender, lily white bodies. Only our faces, necks and arms were tanned from spending every possible hour outside playing, hiking, swimming and riding bikes over the 20 square mile area of grasslands and creek valleys we considered our “territory”.

On this day, walking in the water bare footed on the bedrock, we would occasionally feel smooth, rounded, tapered stones under the water.   We recovered some of these “stones” which were very heavy for their size and that appeared to be composed of iron.  At least they looked the colour of rusted iron! 

No one seemed too concerned that the sparks from the fire could ignite the surrounding dry grass and possibly spread for miles.  Hey, we were six 9-12 years old boys, friends since toddlers, invincible, girls yet to be discovered, having another boy’s day out along the creek, 2 miles from Castor town.   We stood naked, dripping and shivering, occasionally stirring the fire back to life to keep warm while roasting (flaming) marshmallows on slender willow switches we had cut and peeled earlier on which to roast the wieners.

 1. “Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” is possibly an old naval saying. A monkey was a brass plate with holes in which iron cannon balls were stacked. When it got very cold the brass would contract more than the iron cannon balls and therefore the balls would pop out and roll off the brass monkey!  Of course we did not know that then.  We had heard older boys make the “brass monkey” statement when they were around girls who would giggle, so we thought it was “big” to talk like that. 

 Before roasting the wieners, we had played “stretch”, a game where two boys stand facing each other then throw a hunting knife to stick no more than 2 inches to the side of an opponent’s bare foot.  If the knife stuck in the ground and was not more than the allowed 2 inches away, the recipient of the thrown knife moved his foot to touch the blade and then took a turn throwing his hunting knife to stick near the foot of the first thrower.  The game ended when one person’s legs could no longer stretch further apart, and that person was declared the loser.  There were always losers, never winners!    All boys carried hunting knives in hip scabbards that summer.  It was the thing to do.

A more imaginative member of the group said they felt like fossil Indian maiden breasts.

Now, to a pivotal juncture in this story.  One reason we played in this particular part of the valley was that the creek had cut through to bedrock making it easy to cross on a solid rock footing.  In most other stretches of the creek, the bottom was soft mud into which you would sink up to your knees or deeper.   On this day, walking in the water bare footed on the bedrock, we would occasionally feel smooth, rounded, tapered stones under the water.   We recovered some of these “stones” which were very heavy for their size and that appeared to be composed of iron.  At least they looked the colour of rusted iron!  They were conical in shape and every one had a well formed, round indentation on the apex. On the broad end there was generally (but not always) a finger size hole near the centre.  The stones varied in size from a large potato to a small watermelon.

Since we found the heart shaped rocks at the base of a cliff we “knew” was an Indian buffalo jump, some of us thought they were petrified buffalo hearts. Supporting this supposition was the fact that one of the group had found a black, perfectly shaped, sharp, fluted arrowhead near the creek on a sandy path worn by deer coming down the valley wall to cross the creek.  A more imaginative member of the group said they felt like fossil Indian maiden breasts, not that any of us could confirm how a maiden’s breast felt. One such “petrified buffalo heart”, presented upside down, is shown below.

This “petrified buffalo heart” is 8 inches tall and weighs 8 pounds.  It appears to be made of iron but is not magnetic. These fossils wash out of 70 million year old seashore sediments and settle onto bedrock in a small creek in east-central Alberta.  Photo by Ed Ries, Castor, Alberta, 2009.

I took one of the “buffalo hearts” home in my backpack wondering, occasionally, over the hour hike back to town, why I was carrying a rock that was so heavy.  The rock was stored in my parent’s garage for 50 years until I brought it to Colorado, USA, where I now live.

But, I digress from the timeline.  On the hike back to town our ragtag group diverted to look at the body of a dead cow lying in a pasture.  We had discovered it a few days earlier and were interested in looking at it again.  On the discovery visit, the cow must have been dead for only a few days.  It was bloated like an overextended balloon, there were flies buzzing around the mouth, eyes and anus, but otherwise the cow was as if sleeping on its side like a horse.  On this second visit, the carcass was less bloated, but to our great surprise had been completely hollowed out from the rear.

There were no intestines, no lungs, no heart, no stomach, no blood. The interior cavity was dry as dust, the hide was intact and the “roasts” were still on the thighs.  We surmised that coyotes had devoured the soft insides by chewing from the butt end into the body cavity.

Within a few minutes, he printed out a copy of a scientific paper on ancient marine worms that made burrows in the seafloor and left imprints of their existence. 

Before leaving the carcass we convinced, cajoled or otherwise enticed the youngest boy, who wanted to be part of the “big boys” group, to play “coyote” and crawl into the interior of the cow.  He did so to our great amusement as we beat on the hide covered ribs stretched taut like a large reddish drum.  When we returned to the carcass a week or so later, it was picked apart and remnants were being pecked at by magpies. What meat remained was a seething mass of white maggots.

Fast forward 50 years to 2008.  By this time I knew that the conical rock was not a petrified buffalo heart or a maiden’s breast. I was a slow learner!  I was now convinced though that the rock was a stalagmite formed by iron rich water that had dripped onto a cave floor over thousands of years.  I looked on the Internet for similar stalagmites, but did not find any.  Still, sure of my analysis, I wrote a letter to the director of the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta enclosing photos, and described where these “stalagmites” were found and asking how old they were.   I wrote the letter on heavy, expensive looking stationary with an official U.S. government letterhead festooned with gold embossed logos, and signed with a number of titles.  I figured that might get his attention and a response.

A few weeks later I received an email thanking me for the letter and photos, and suggesting that the “stalagmite” was possibly a random iron accretion. Although not a paleontologist or geologist, I still believed that this rock was made by a deliberate, not random process.  After further correspondence, Dr. David Eberth, Senior Research Scientist, Royal Tyrrell Museum, agreed to meet in Castor, Alberta in late June, 2009, and to come to the valley to look at what I still believed were stalagmites.   I flew up from Colorado and David, myself, a sister and 5 friends from Castor proceeded out to the valley now owned by another friend from toddler days.  He took us to an area of the creek where there were many of the “stalagmites” and we each collected a few specimens.  David asked to see an exposed cliff so he could possibly find some of these iron rocks embedded in their natural habitat. Gary Dunkle, the land owner, duly took us to such an embankment and David found a few of the conical rocks imbedded in a loose, grey, alkaline soil in an exposed cliff face.

Then he told us that a world authority on such creatures was Professor Murray Gingras ’95 B.Sc., ’99 Ph.D., Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science, University of Alberta.

To my great surprise, the “stalagmites” were oriented conical point down in the cliff face.  This is not how stalagmites form!  David now lost some of his prior cool composure, as he convinced me that my earlier conjectures were incorrect, that we were looking at a 70 million year old seashore deposit, and these iron accretions had probably once been made by something related to the seashore.

In a humorous throwback to events 50 years earlier, one of the fossils that David had excavated became dislodged and rolled down the steep cliff splashing into the creek behind a beaver dam.  We convinced Eric Neilson ’88, B.Sc. Agriculture and ’09, B.Ed. and now a local school teacher, to wade into the water and retrieve the fossil.  The water was over four feet deep and Eric had to fully submerge to finally locate and recover the fossil that was embedded in silt.  There was no fire to get warm and dry beside this time!

We returned to the insurance and real-estate offices of Dale Emmett, one of the members on this current expedition, where David used a computer to begin looking up something called “Rosselia” on the Internet.  Within a few minutes, he printed out a copy of a scientific paper on ancient marine worms that made burrows in the seafloor and left imprints of their existence.  Then he told us that a world authority on such creatures was Professor Murray Gingras ’95 B.Sc., ’99 Ph.D., Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science, University of Alberta.  Small world!

We departed the office in triumph and sojourned to a nearby bar where Ed Ries, a local rancher and another member of the days’ expedition, bought us a round of beer to toast our success.  While at the bar, Brenda Scott ’73, B.Ed. (sister, also on the excursion) brought out some perfectly preserved fossil snails that she had collected the day prior in a nearby fossil bed. David was quite interested, as these were fresh water snails that rarely fossilize into such perfect iron accretions.  He wanted to know where they are found, but we declined to tell him as only a few members of our family know the location, and we do not want the location to be picked over.  Someday we might show him, but that will be another story.

So how did worms living in the sediment in a 70 million old marine seashore make 8 pound “petrified buffalo hearts?”  First, the worm is not like the garden variety earthworm one finds digging in Alberta garden soil. Instead it was thought be an elongated creature (let us say about one foot long) living vertically in seabed sediment with tentacles that could spread out over the seafloor to capture small organic particle or small creatures touching the tentacles.  A stylized depiction of the worm and its burrow is shown below.

Rosselia worms lived in a burrow at the bottom of ancient marine seashores and captured food with tentacles spread around the entrance to the hole.  They packed their poop into a bulbous structure within the hole.  Eventually the organic material in the poop was replaced with dissolved iron producing the conical imprint shown above.  (Drawing adapted from Masakazu Nara, Rosselia socialis: a dwelling structure of a probable terebellid polychaete,  Lethaia, vol. 28, pp.171-178, 1995.)

The fossilized worm burrow lay at the bottom of the ocean for eons becoming covered by many feet of sediment.

The worm would slide down into its burrow to digest its meals, to poop and to get away from predators.  To accommodate the poop, it would push out the sides of its vertical tube home which was probably easy to do as it was living is soft sediment.  Eventually the worm would die or move on to a new home leaving the organic evidence of its existence within its seabed home.

Now for the rare events that produced the “petrified buffalo hearts” and exposed them for observation today.  At some point 70 million years ago, the organic-rich waste in the worm hole was brought into sustained contact with a freshwater stream carrying dissolved iron compounds.  This iron slowly fossilized the poop and food detritus.  The fossilized worm burrow lay at the bottom of the ocean for eons becoming covered by many feet of sediment.

Eventually the land rose and the fossils were exposed by the Castor Creek that eroded through an uplifted area of the former beach.  Some of the exposed fossils settled on bedrock where they are found today.  Others are still slowly sinking in the muck at the bottom of the creek.

70 million year old fossilized poo from a Rosselia worm found in the Castor Creek near the confluence with the Battle River, September 18, 2019.

The Castor Rosselia fossils are rather rare in that they are well formed, well preserved iron accretions, and in the words of Dr. Gingras in an email to Dr. Eberth and copied to me, he states:  “Rosselia are normally much smaller than the cannon-balls you show”.

And so we come full circle in a small valley in East-Central Alberta; cannon-balls to cannon-balls.

Dr, Russ Schnell

Dr. Russ Schnell, Deputy Director, NOAA, Global Monitoring Division, Boulder, CO

Russ was born and raised in Alberta, Canada and educated at the Universities of Alberta; Newfoundland; Hawaii; Wales; Wyoming and Colorado. He holds degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Atmospheric Resources and Atmospheric Science.

Dr. Schnell discovered biological ice nuclei in 1970 now used in ski hill snowmaking worldwide, and by their removal on plants, prevention of frost damage to -3C. These nuclei are important in precipitation formation with papers from around the globe now being published on the topic.

His research, as Director of the Arctic Gas and Aerosol project in the 1980s, established that Arctic Haze was air pollution from Eastern Europe.  For 7 years he was director of the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, where the steady global increase in carbon dioxide that forms the backbone of the greenhouse gas atmospheric warming, was established.

He has conducted research on ozone destruction in the Arctic and Antarctic, ozone production from fossil fuel production and on the changing chemical composition of the atmosphere driving climate change.

He has published 125 scientific papers, nine of them in Nature, a premier scientific journal, and holds patents in plant science and biochemistry.

Russ has lived, traveled or worked in 92 countries, and on every continent including the North and South Poles.

In 2002, he received the NOAA Administrator’s Award for his work as director of the Mauna Loa Observatory.

In 2007, Dr. Schnell was recognized as one of the co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In 2008, he was awarded the U.S. Department of Commerce Silver Medal the highest honorary recognition the Department bestows and in 2011 both the NOAA Distinguished Career and the NOAA OAR Outstanding Science Communicator Awards.

Dr. Schnell’s non-work interests include building wooden trains for children, “Little Free Libraries” for donation and real-estate investing.

He grew up near the Battle River in East Central Alberta. I met him while attending the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards held in Maskwacis, AB on September 21, 2019.

President Todayville Inc., Honorary Colonel 41 Signal Regiment, Board Member Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award Foundation, Director Canadian Forces Liaison Council (Alberta) musician, photographer, former VP/GM CTV Edmonton.

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Alberta

‘Far too serious for such uninformed, careless journalism’: Complaint filed against Globe and Mail article challenging Alberta’s gender surgery law

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Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Macdonald Laurier Institute challenges Globe article on gender medicine

The complaint, now endorsed by 41 physicians, was filed in response to an article about Alberta’s law restricting gender surgery and hormones for minors.

On June 9, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute submitted a formal complaint to The Globe and Mail regarding its May 29 Morning Update by Danielle Groen, which reported on the Canadian Medical Association’s legal challenge to Alberta’s Bill 26.

Written by MLI Senior Fellow Mia Hughes and signed by 34 Canadian medical professionals at the time of submission to the Globe, the complaint stated that the Morning Update was misleading, ideologically slanted, and in violation the Globe’s own editorial standards of accuracy, fairness, and balance. It objected to the article’s repetition of discredited claims—that puberty blockers are reversible, that they “buy time to think,” and that denying access could lead to suicide—all assertions that have been thoroughly debunked in recent years.

Given the article’s reliance on the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the complaint detailed the collapse of WPATH’s credibility, citing unsealed discovery documents from an Alabama court case and the Cass Review’s conclusion that WPATH’s guidelines—and those based on them—lack developmental rigour. It also noted the newsletter’s failure to mention the growing international shift away from paediatric medical transition in countries such as the UK, Sweden, and Finland. MLI called for the article to be corrected and urged the Globe to uphold its commitment to balanced, evidence-based journalism on this critical issue.

On June 18, Globe and Mail Standards Editor Sandra Martin responded, defending the article as a brief summary that provided a variety of links to offer further context. However, the three Globe and Mail news stories linked to in the article likewise lacked the necessary balance and context. Martin also pointed to a Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) statement linked to in the newsletter. She argued it provided “sufficient context and qualification”—despite the fact that the CPS itself relies on WPATH’s discredited guidelines. Notwithstanding, Martin claimed the article met editorial standards and that brevity justified the lack of balance.

MLI responded that brevity does not excuse misinformation, particularly on a matter as serious as paediatric medical care, and reiterated the need for the Globe to address the scientific inaccuracies directly. MLI again called for the article to be corrected and for the unsupported suicide claim to be removed. As of this writing, the Globe has not responded.

Letter of complaint

June 9, 2025

To: The Globe and Mail
Attn: Sandra Martin, standards editor
CC: Caroline Alphonso, health editor; Mark Iype, deputy national editor and Alberta bureau chief

To the editors;

Your May 29 Morning Update: The Politics of Care by Danielle Groen, covering the Canadian Medical Association’s legal challenge to Alberta’s Bill 26, was misleading and ideologically slanted. It is journalistically irresponsible to report on contested medical claims as undisputed fact.

This issue is far too serious for such uninformed, careless journalism lacking vital perspectives and scientific context. At stake is the health and future of vulnerable children, and your reporting risks misleading parents into consenting to irreversible interventions based on misinformation.

According to The Globe and Mail’s own Journalistic Principles outlined in its Editorial Code of Conduct, the credibility of your reporting rests on “solid research, clear, intelligent writing, and maintaining a reputation for honesty, accuracy, fairness, balance and transparency.” Moreover, your principles go on to state that The Globe will “seek to provide reasonable accounts of competing views in any controversy.” The May 29 update violated these principles. There is, as I will show, a widely available body of scientific information that directly contests the claims and perspectives presented in your article. Yet this information is completely absent from your reporting.

The collapse of WPATH’s credibility

The article’s claim that Alberta’s law “falls well outside established medical practice” and could pose the “greatest threat” to transgender youth is both false and inflammatory. There is no global medical consensus on how to treat gender-distressed young people. In fact, in North America, guidelines are based on the Standards of Care developed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)—an organization now indisputably shown to place ideology above evidence.

For example, in a U.S. legal case over Alabama’s youth transition ban, WPATH was forced to disclose over two million internal emails. These revealed the organization commissioned independent evidence reviews for its latest Standards of Care (SOC8)—then suppressed those reviews when they found overwhelmingly low-quality evidence. Yet WPATH proceeded to publish the SOC8 as if it were evidence-based. This is not science. It is fraudulent and unethical conduct.

These emails also showed Admiral Rachel Levine—then-assistant secretary for Health in the Biden administration—pressured WPATH to remove all lower age recommendations from the guidelines—not on scientific grounds, but to avoid undermining ongoing legal cases at the state level. This is politics, not sound medical practice.

The U.K.’s Cass Review, a major multi-year investigation, included a systematic review of the guidelines in gender medicine. A systematic review is considered the gold standard because it assesses and synthesizes all the available research in a field, thereby reducing bias and providing a large comprehensive set of data upon which to reach findings. The systematic review of gender medicine guidelines concluded that WPATH’s standards of care “lack developmental rigour” and should not be used as a basis for clinical practice. The Cass Review also exposed citation laundering where medical associations endlessly recycled weak evidence across interlocking guidelines to fabricate a false consensus. This led Cass to suggest that “the circularity of this approach may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor.”

Countries like SwedenFinland, and the U.K. have now abandoned WPATH and limited or halted medicalized youth transitions in favour of a therapy-first approach. In Norway, UKOM, an independent government health agency, has made similar recommendations. This shows the direction of global practice is moving away from WPATH’s medicalized approach—not toward it. As part of any serious effort to “provide reasonable accounts of competing views,” your reporting should acknowledge these developments.

Any journalist who cites WPATH as a credible authority on paediatric gender medicine—especially in the absence of contextualizing or competing views—signals a lack of due diligence and a fundamental misunderstanding of the field. It demonstrates that either no independent research was undertaken, or it was ignored despite your editorial standards.

Puberty blockers don’t ‘buy time’ and are not reversible

Your article repeats a widely debunked claim: that puberty blockers are a harmless pause to allow young people time to explore their identity. In fact, studies have consistently shown that between 98 per cent and 100 per cent of children placed on puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones. Before puberty blockers, most children desisted and reconciled with their birth sex during or after puberty. Now, virtually none do.

This strongly suggests that blocking puberty in fact prevents the natural resolution of gender distress. Therefore, the most accurate and up-to-date understanding is that puberty blockers function not as a pause, but as the first step in a treatment continuum involving irreversible cross-sex hormones. Indeed, a 2022 paper found that while puberty suppression had been “justified by claims that it was reversible … these claims are increasingly implausible.” Again, adherence to the Globe’s own editorial guidelines would require, at minimum, the acknowledgement of the above findings alongside the claims your May 29 article makes.

Moreover, it is categorically false to describe puberty blockers as “completely reversible.” Besides locking youth into a pathway of further medicalization, puberty blockers pose serious physical risks: loss of bone densityimpaired sexual developmentstunted fertility, and psychosocial harm from being developmentally out of sync with peers. There are no long-term safety studies. These drugs are being prescribed to children despite glaring gaps in our understanding of their long-term effects.

Given the Globe’s stated editorial commitment to principles such as “accuracy,” the crucial information from the studies linked above should be provided in any article discussing puberty blockers. At a bare minimum, in adherence to the Globe’s commitment to “balance,” this information should be included alongside the contentious and disputed claims the article makes that these treatments are reversible.

No proof of suicide prevention

The most irresponsible and dangerous claim in your article is that denying access to puberty blockers could lead to “depression, self-harm and suicide.” There is no robust evidence supporting this transition-or-suicide narrative, and in fact, the findings of the highest-quality study conducted to date found no evidence that puberty suppression reduces suicide risk.

Suicide is complex and attributing it to a single cause is not only false—it violates all established suicide reporting guidelines. Sensationalized claims like this risk creating contagion effects and fuelling panic. In the public interest, reporting on the topic of suicide must be held to the most rigorous standards, and provide the most high-quality and accurate information.

Euphemism hides medical harm

Your use of euphemistic language obscures the extreme nature of the medical interventions being performed in gender clinics. Calling double mastectomies for teenage girls “paediatric breast surgeries for gender-affirming reasons” sanitizes the medically unnecessary removal of a child’s healthy organs. Referring to phalloplasty and vaginoplasty as “gender-affirming surgeries on lower body parts” conceals the fact that these are extreme operations involving permanent disfigurement, high complication rates, and often requiring multiple revisions.

Honest journalism should not hide these facts behind comforting language. Your reporting denies youth, their parents, and the general public the necessary information to understand the nature of these interventions. Members of the general public rely greatly on the news media to equip them with such information, and your own editorial standards claim you will fulfill this core responsibility.

Your responsibility to the public

As a flagship Canadian news outlet, your responsibility is not to amplify activist messaging, but to report the truth with integrity. On a subject as medically and ethically fraught as paediatric gender medicine, accuracy is not optional. The public depends on you to scrutinize claims, not echo ideology. Parents may make irreversible decisions on behalf of their children based on the narratives you promote. When reporting is false or ideologically distorted, the cost is measured in real-world harm to some of our society’s most vulnerable young people.

I encourage the Globe and Mail to publish an updated version on this article in order to correct the public record with the relevant information discussed above, and to modify your reporting practices on this matter going forward—by meeting your own journalistic standards—so that the public receives balanced, correct, and reliable information on this vital topic.

Trustworthy journalism is a cornerstone of public health—and on the issue of paediatric gender medicine, the stakes could not be higher.

Sincerely,

Mia Hughes
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
Author of The WPATH Files

The following 41 physicians have signed to endorse this letter:
Dr. Mike Ackermann, MD
Dr. Duncan Veasey, Psy MD
Dr. Rick Gibson, MD
Dr. Benjamin Turner, MD, FRCSC
Dr. J.N. Mahy, MD, FRCSC, FACS
Dr. Khai T. Phan, MD, CCFP
Dr. Martha Fulford, MD
Dr. J. Edward Les, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Darrell Palmer, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Jane Cassie, MD, FRCPC
Dr. David Lowen, MD, FCFP
Dr. Shawn Whatley, MD, FCFP (EM)
Dr. David Zitner, MD
Dr. Leonora Regenstreif, MD, CCFP(AM), FCFP
Dr. Gregory Chan, MD
Dr. Alanna Fitzpatrick, MD, FRCSC
Dr. Chris Millburn, MD, CCFP
Dr. Julie Curwin, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Roy Eappen, MD, MDCM, FRCP (c)
Dr. York N. Hsiang, MD, FRCSC
Dr. Dion Davidson, MD, FRCSC, FACS
Dr. Kevin Sclater, MD, CCFP (PC)
Dr. Theresa Szezepaniak, MB, ChB, DRCOG
Dr. Sofia Bayfield, MD, CCFP
Dr. Elizabeth Henry, MD, CCFP
Dr. Stephen Malthouse, MD
Dr. Darrell Hamm, MD, CCFP
Dr. Dale Classen, MD, FRCSC
Dr. Adam T. Gorner, MD, CCFP
Dr. Wesley B. Steed, MD
Dr. Timothy Ehmann, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Ryan Torrie, MD
Dr. Zachary Heinricks, MD, CCFP
Dr. Jessica Shintani, MD, CCFP
Dr. Mark D’Souza, MD, CCFP(EM), FCFP*
Dr. Joanne Sinai, MD, FRCPC*
Dr. Jane Batt, MD*
Dr. Brent McGrath, MD, FRCPC*
Dr. Leslie MacMillan MD FRCPC (emeritus)*
Dr. Ian Mitchell, MD, FRCPC*
Dr. John Cunnington, MD

*Indicates physician who signed following the letter’s June 9 submission to the Globe and Mail, but in advance of this letter being published on the MLI website.

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Alberta

COWBOY UP! Pierre Poilievre Promises to Fight for Oil and Gas, a Stronger Military and the Interests of Western Canada

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Fr0m Energy Now

By Maureen McCall

As Calgarians take a break from the incessant news of tariff threat deadlines and global economic challenges to celebrate the annual Stampede, Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre gave them even more to celebrate.

Poilievre returned to Calgary, his hometown, to outline his plan to amplify the legitimate demands of Western Canada and not only fight for oil and gas, but also fight for the interests of farmers, for low taxes, for decentralization, a stronger military and a smaller federal government.

Speaking at the annual Conservative party BBQ at Heritage Park in Calgary (a place Poilievre often visited on school trips growing up), he was reminded of the challenges his family experienced during the years when Trudeau senior was Prime Minister and the disastrous effect of his economic policies.

“I was born in ’79,” Poilievre said. “and only a few years later, Pierre Elliott Trudeau would attack our province with the National Energy Program. There are still a few that remember it. At the same time, he hammered the entire country with money printing deficits that gave us the worst inflation and interest rates in our history. Our family actually lost our home, and we had to scrimp and save and get help from extended family in order to get our little place in Shaughnessy, which my mother still lives in.”

This very personal story resonated with many in the crowd who are now experiencing an affordability crisis that leaves families struggling and young adults unable to afford their first house or condo. Poilievre said that the experience was a powerful motivator for his entry into politics. He wasted no time in proposing a solution – build alliances with other provinces with mutual interests, and he emphasized the importance of advocating for provincial needs.

“Let’s build an alliance with British Columbians who want to ship liquefied natural gas out of the Pacific Coast to Asia, and with Saskatchewanians, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who want to develop their oil and gas and aren’t interested in having anyone in Ottawa cap how much they can produce. Let’s build alliances with Manitobans who want to ship oil in the port of Churchill… with Quebec and other provinces that want to decentralize our country and get Ottawa out of our business so that provinces and people can make their own decisions.”

Poilievre heavily criticized the federal government’s spending and policies of the last decade, including the increase in government costs, and he highlighted the negative impact of those policies on economic stability and warned of the dangers of high inflation and debt. He advocated strongly for a free-market economy, advocating for less government intervention, where businesses compete to impress customers rather than impress politicians. He also addressed the decade-long practice of blocking and then subsidizing certain industries. Poilievre referred to a famous quote from Ronald Reagan as the modus operandi of the current federal regime.

“The Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases. If anything moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

The practice of blocking and then subsidizing is merely a ploy to grab power, according to Poilievre, making industry far too reliant on government control.

“By blocking you from doing something and then making you ask the government to help you do it, it makes you reliant. It puts them at the center of all power, and that is their mission…a full government takeover of our economy. There’s a core difference between an economy controlled by the government and one controlled by the free market. Businesses have to clamour to please politicians and bureaucrats. In a free market (which we favour), businesses clamour to impress customers. The idea is to put people in charge of their economic lives by letting them have free exchange of work for wages, product for payment and investment for interest.”

Poilievre also said he plans to oppose any ban on gas-powered vehicles, saying, “You should be in the driver’s seat and have the freedom to decide.” This is in reference to the Trudeau-era plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, which the Carney government has said they have no intention to change, even though automakers are indicating that the targets cannot be met. He also intends to oppose the Industrial Carbon tax, Bill C-69 the Impact Assessment Act, Bill C-48 the Oil tanker ban, the proposed emissions cap which will cap energy production, as well as the single-use plastics ban and Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act and the proposed “Online Harms Act,” also known as Bill C-63. Poilievre closed with rallying thoughts that had a distinctive Western flavour.

“Fighting for these values is never easy. Change, as we’ve seen, is not easy. Nothing worth doing is easy… Making Alberta was hard. Making Canada, the country we love, was even harder. But we don’t back down, and we don’t run away. When things get hard, we dust ourselves off, we get back in the saddle, and we gallop forward to the fight.”

Cowboy up, Mr. Poilievre.

Maureen McCall is an energy professional who writes on issues affecting the energy industry.

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