Premier Smith issues statement on rehabilitating orphan wells

Rehabilitating problematic oil and gas sites: Statement from Premier Smith

Premier Danielle Smith issued the following statement in response to inaccurate claims about the government’s ongoing efforts to rehabilitate Alberta’s oldest and most problematic oil and gas development sites, many of which have flare pits, sumps and other environmental hazards that must be cleaned up promptly:

“Of the approximately 83,000 inactive wells in Alberta, approximately 20,000 were drilled before 1980 and have been inactive for more than 20 years. The number and potential environmental problems posed by these older well sites worsen with time. For example, the number of orphaned wells surged from approximately 705 in 2015 to 5,279 in March 2019, a staggering increase of approximately 648 per cent during that time frame. This failure has led to an environmental hazard for which they provide no realistic solutions to address.

“In response to that failure, the government has introduced regulations mandating oil and gas companies spend a prescribed minimum amount on well site closure and reclamation work. The minimum amount to be spent by industry on this ongoing cleanup work has grown to about $740 million this year and will increase by nine per cent annually in the coming years. This action will fix the orphan well backlog that previous governments failed to address and continue to ignore today.

“In addition, Minister of Energy Peter Guthrie is consulting with landowners, Indigenous groups and industry to design a rehabilitation pilot program to expeditiously clean up these pre-1980 inactive well sites. This consultation process will take several months to complete, after which the cabinet and government caucus will consider the feedback provided and make a final decision on whether and how to proceed with the program.

“The pilot program under consideration would potentially provide a royalty credit on new oil and gas development for energy companies willing to also invest in cleaning up these problematic well sites. The amount spent on cleaning up these sites would have to be over and above the amount these same companies are legally required to spend on regular well site rehabilitation.

“While final decisions have not been made, the total amount of royalty credits proposed to be used for the pilot program is likely to be up to $100 million over three years – after which time, the government would assess the effectiveness of the program and consult again before deciding how best to proceed. It is hoped the pilot program will greatly accelerate the cleanup of the most unpredictable and challenging oil and gas sites in Alberta.

“Bluntly put, these problematic well sites must be promptly and properly cleaned up. The government is designing a pilot for a program that is good for the environment, respects landowners’ rights and the rights of Indigenous groups, and incentivizes industry to simultaneously invest more in both the cleanup of these well sites and new resource development.

“This is the first government to try to find solutions to this problem and we look forward to the results of the consultations.”

Government of Alberta

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Alberta Independence Seekers Take First Step: Citizen Initiative Application Approved, Notice of Initiative Petition Issued

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Alberta’s government is investing $5 million to help launch the world’s first direct air capture centre at Innisfail

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Alberta

Alberta judge sides with LGBT activists, allows ‘gender transitions’ for kids to continue

Published on June 30, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

‘I think the court was in error,’ Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has said. ‘There will be irreparable harm to children who get sterilized.’

LGBT activists have won an injunction that prevents the Alberta government from restricting “gender transitions” for children.

On June 27, Alberta King’s Court Justice Allison Kuntz granted a temporary injunction against legislation that prohibited minors under the age of 16 from undergoing irreversible sex-change surgeries or taking puberty blockers.

“The evidence shows that singling out health care for gender diverse youth and making it subject to government control will cause irreparable harm to gender diverse youth by reinforcing the discrimination and prejudice that they are already subjected to,” Kuntz claimed in her judgment.

Kuntz further said that the legislation poses serious Charter issues which need to be worked through in court before the legislation could be enforced. Court dates for the arguments have yet to be set.

READ: Support for traditional family values surges in Alberta

Alberta’s new legislation, which was passed in December, amends the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”

The legislation would also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 years of age and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”

Just days after the legislation was passed, an LGBT activist group called Egale Canada, along with many other LGBT organizations, filed an injunction to block the bill.

In her ruling, Kuntz argued that Alberta’s legislation “will signal that there is something wrong with or suspect about having a gender identity that is different than the sex you were assigned at birth.”

However, the province of Alberta argued that these damages are speculative and the process of gender-transitioning children is not supported by scientific evidence.

“I think the court was in error,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on her Saturday radio show. “That’s part of the reason why we’re taking it to court. The court had said there will be irreparable harm if the law goes ahead. I feel the reverse. I feel there will be irreparable harm to children who get sterilized at the age of 10 years old – and so we want those kids to have their day in court.”

READ: Canadian doctors claim ‘Charter right’ to mutilate gender-confused children in Alberta

Overwhelming evidence shows that persons who undergo so-called “gender transitioning” procedures are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given such irreversible surgeries. In addition to catering to a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, trans surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, and infertility.

Meanwhile, a recent study on the side effects of “sex change” surgeries discovered that 81 percent of those who have undergone them in the past five years reported experiencing pain simply from normal movements in the weeks and months that followed, among many other negative side effects.

Alberta

Alberta Independence Seekers Take First Step: Citizen Initiative Application Approved, Notice of Initiative Petition Issued

Published on June 30, 2025

Government of Alberta

Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer, Gordon McClure, has issued a Notice of Initiative Petition.

This confirms a Citizen Initiative application has been received and the Chief Electoral Officer has determined the requirements of section 2(3) of the Citizen Initiative Act have been met.

Approved Initiative Petition Information

The approved citizen initiative application is for a policy proposal with the following proposed question:

Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?

The Notice of Initiative Petition, application, and statement provided by the proponent are available on Elections Alberta’s website on the Current Initiatives Petition page.

As the application was received and approved prior to coming into force of Bill 54: Election Statutes Amendment Act, the Citizen Initiative process will follow requirements set out in the Citizen Initiative Act as of June 30, 2025.

Next Steps

The proponent must appoint a chief financial officer within 30 days (by July 30, 2025).
Once the 30-day publication period is complete and a chief financial officer has been appointed, Elections Alberta will:

issue the citizen initiative petition,
publish a notice on the Current Initiatives Petition page of our website indicating the petition has been issued, specifying the signing period dates, and the number of signatures required for a successful petition, and
issue the citizen initiative petition signature sheets and witness affidavits. Signatures collected on other forms will not be accepted.

More information on the process, the status of the citizen initiative petition, financing rules, third party advertising rules, and frequently asked questions may be found on the Elections Alberta website.

Elections Alberta is an independent, non-partisan office of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta responsible for administering provincial elections, by-elections, and referendums.