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Alberta

OPINION: Marlin Schmidt on water allocation in the Bow River Basin

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Marlin Schmidt, MLA for Edmonton-Gold Bar, Environment and Parks Critic for Alberta’s Official NDP Opposition

The wise allocation of water in Alberta is essential to the sustainable development of an economy that works for all Albertans while preserving our precious natural heritage.

In 2007, Alberta recognized that limits for water allocation in the Bow River basin had been exceeded. No more new allocations of water have been allowed and Albertans have carefully managed the water resources in the basin since then. Fortress Mountain Holdings’ recent application to haul away and sell more than half of the 98 million litres a year it currently has the license to use threatens the careful management of water in the Bow River basin.

The original operators of Fortress Mountain were granted a license in 1968 to use 98 million litres of water per year from a tributary to Galatea Creek to prepare food and provide drinking water to skiers at the resort. The current owners claim that more than half of that allocation is not needed for those purposes and now want permission from Alberta Environment and Parks to haul 50 million litres of water per year away and sell it to the highest bidder. Allowing current license holders to subsidize their business operations with the sale of the unused portions of their licenses moves Alberta further away from the goal of sustainable development and would put the future of our river ecosystems at great risk.

Much has changed in the Bow River basin since 1968 – the demands on the river ecosystem have increased significantly with the twin pressures of population growth and climate change. Re-allocating 50 million litres of water would increase that pressure in a very ecologically sensitive area. It would also set a dangerous precedent for future allocations of water resources. If this application is approved, there’s nothing that will prevent future water license holders from selling their unused water allocations, and while the license holders may profit, our watersheds will pay the price.

Additionally, we must remember that this water allocation would be given priority over all other allocations granted after 1968 under Alberta’s “first-in-time first-in-right water” allocation system. This means that Fortress Mountain would receive priority for this use over a whole host of other users during times of extreme water shortage. Is selling bottled water really a higher priority for the people in the Bow River basin ahead of so many agricultural and municipal water uses? Most Albertans who have talked to me about this issue don’t think so.

Revenues from the sale of the water would apparently fund the goals that the owners have for the development of the resort, including environmentally sound development, living wages for staff, charitable and community activities, as well as reclamation of the site. I support those stated goals, but it should be the skiers who use the resort who pay for those activities. The other Bow River water users and the ecosystem should not be asked to pay for others’ enjoyment of a ski facility.

Alberta Environment and Parks must live up to its mandate of supporting sustainable development now and for future generations. Rejecting Fortress Mountain Holding’s water application would be a step in the right direction.

 

Marlin Schmidt

Environment & Parks Critic

Alberta’s Official NDP Opposition

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Alberta

Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.

A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.

H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.

School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.

In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.

The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”

In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”

The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”

Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”

He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”

Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.

According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.

Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”

Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.

Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

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Alberta

Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.

Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.

As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.

The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.

Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.

“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”

According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”

He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”

Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.

As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

The ban was to take effect on October 1.

The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.

The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

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