No, in double-speak, it is “protection of life and property from problem wildlife.”

According to Todd Loewen, minister of silly stuff, the government is “taking a proactive approach to help Albertans co-exist with wildlife” by shooting some of them. Just the bad grizzlies and elk, though, not the good ones.

It is doing this by providing “rapid conflict response times.” You might think this will be accomplished by deployment of trained Fish and Wildlife officers. No, the minister will draw the name of a hunter from a hat and that person will rush out to protect a threatened species like a grizzly by shooting it.

What could go wrong?

Given the hype of unrelenting danger promoted in the press release, you might think it unsafe to go out in the woods today, for fear of encountering a rogue bear or a belligerent elk. Fear is a powerful motivator, except when the facts don’t support the contention and you propose something incredibly silly instead of thinking about rational ways to co-exist with wildlife.

Adults in the room, like the Waterton Biosphere Reserve’s Carnivores and Communities Program and local Bear Smart groups, are showing the way.

Yes, bears can be dangerous. But so too is failing to monitor and control greenhouse gas emissions, allowing unsustainable levels of logging in our headwaters, not adequately monitoring our essential water supplies and considering more coal mining.

Statistically, you are more likely to be injured or killed on your drive to grizzly habitat than from being attacked by one. Neither the minister nor the Alberta government have suggested any rapid response for that risk.

Since closure of a hunting season for grizzly bears in 2006, a small but vocal group of trophy hunters has agitated for a chance to shoot a bear. The minister seems to support this, without input from conservation groups or from experts in grizzly bear management.

This has become one of those backward initiatives: “The answer is a grizzly hunt; what was the question?” Before this hunt was made public, the minister’s office solicited input from selected people to provide letters of concern about bear (and presumably elk) conflicts. How do you spell “disingenuous?”

If the government were serious about wildlife coexistence — and it should be — it would take a deep dive into why conflicts occur. With our expanding and unsustainable land-use footprint in the Eastern Slopes, grizzlies are running out of room, out of quiet space and out of connectivity to essential habitats.

All of the 19 recent cumulative effects assessments done in the Eastern Slopes say so, including ones provided by the government. As a result, a few bears (very few) run afoul and lethal actions undertaken by wildlife professionals might be required.

A serious initiative to limit the scope and scale of logging, of off-highway vehicle activity, of random camping, of proposed coal mining and of reclaiming the hundreds of kilometres of roads and trails that bisect grizzly habitat would be a rational step to giving wildlife secure habitat.

This is wildlife coexistence, not sport hunting a few “bad” animals. “Problem” wildlife are ones of our own creation and of our inability to share the landscape.

“Where should I go?” asked Alice. “That depends on where you want to end up,” replied the Cheshire Cat. It seems to me we need to protect wildlife from problem ministers.

In fact, it provides the answer — more dams and reservoirs — instead of dealing with foundational issues.

When facing drought that experts say may persist, moving from supply side management of water and dealing with water demand seems prudent. The real question is how to adapt to less water when supply diminishes.

Adaptation doesn’t happen by building more reservoirs. If this is viable, we may be the first in history to outrun the impacts of a shrinking water supply. No one else has been able to perfect this magic.

Our rivers already have less flow and flows are expected to decline. Reservoirs don’t create water, they just store what is available.

When stuck in an irrigation growth paradigm, it doesn’t register that there is a limit to such growth. The proposed result of this “study” is a classic case of “running faster and faster to stay in the same place.”

There are already 56 reservoirs in southern Alberta dedicated almost wholly to irrigation. Will building eight more be the answer? The irrigation lobby says yes because that’s the perennial answer.

No matter how much lobbying is done and how many new dams and reservoirs are built, climate change cannot be outrun. Even if we bankrupt the province with all the suggested engineering hubris, to the suggested tune of $5 billion taxpayer dollars, this adaptation roadmap could lead to a dead end.

Instead of more holes that may or may not be filled with water, a different path is required.

Proceeding with the exuberance of dam building, without a better understanding of climate change variances, may create enormous engineering white elephants. This also ignores where the water comes from. Our future is likely to be more rain but less snow, but it is slow snow melt that keeps our rivers flowing.

Headwater forests capture that snow, retaining some of it in shallow ground water storage for later release. With our expanding land-use footprint, especially logging, we are changing the way water is trapped, stored and released. This exacerbates floods and drought.

Our forested headwaters are the ultimate “reservoir” for water, yet they merits no attention in this report. Funding upstream watershed restoration and security would seem to be the first thing to consider, not more dams downstream.

This breathless endorsement for more dams and reservoirs isn’t adaptation but a blatant cheerleading proposal for irrigation interests with little in the way of benefits for Albertans, other than a hefty price tag.

With this report, the irrigation lobby confirms its “adaptation roadmap” will mean our rivers are good — to the last drop.

Shifting a dominant culture and narrative of engineering the landscape for irrigation agriculture to a new perspective of learning to do with less water is a tall order. Difficult, but not insurmountable.

Urgently required is an independent, objective analysis by qualified professionals on the broader questions of how to adapt to a climate change future, perhaps the driest of perfect storms, not how to expand irrigation.

Lorne Fitch is a professional biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife biologist and a former adjunct professor with the University of Calgary.

Nothing, it seems, is ever dead. It just waits in a moribund condition for the kiss of life from a government out of touch with Albertans’ feelings about blowing the tops off mountains in the Eastern Slopes. Apparently this minister required a bit of remedial tutoring to be assured that Grassy Mountain is in the Eastern Slopes.

He may not have read the report from brave scientists in another government department who concluded the old mine and the one on Tent Mountain continue to spew toxic materials at levels that far exceed provincial and federal standards. I suppose that is, in his estimation, a reflection that a mine can’t really be dead if it continues to actively and negatively affect downstream water and water drinkers.

On the minister’s reading list should have been the results of the joint federal/provincial panel. The panel heard from dozens of experts who debunked all the Australian company’s claims of minimal impacts, successful mitigation plans (including dealing with selenium and other toxic chemicals), bountiful economic benefits and so on, ad nauseum.

That information, facts and evidence then allowed the panel to conclude this project was not in the public interest. None of the evidence has been successfully contested by the company.

The minister must have also overlooked or slept through the massive outpouring of concern from Albertans over the prospect of turning the Eastern Slopes into a series of black holes at the expense of watershed protection, biodiversity maintenance, recreational and tourism attributes and the very real spectre that taxpayers would be stuck with the reclamation costs, as is so very evident now with the petroleum sector.

Based on the extreme backlash, the Alberta government convened a Coal Policy Committee to advise it on coal issues. The extensive public engagement process found Albertans’ top of mind concern was the environmental impacts of coal mines. Two things stand out from the results of the consultation:

“Albertans have concerns about the regulatory process for coal activities. Albertans are concerned that coal policies can be easily overridden when many thought that these policies were legally binding.”

With this latest revelation about an about-face on the status of Grassy Mountain, those concerns still register large. The minister might consider this report required reading.

This situation resembles so closely an anecdote about W. C. Fields, an American comedian. He was an avowed atheist, yet was observed by a friend reading the Bible on his deathbed. Asked why, Fields’ reply was, “looking for loopholes, looking for loopholes.”

It would seem there have been an astounding number of loopholes sought, yet all that have been through a judicial review have failed. Experts in law and policy point out the project is legally dead.

What else could explain the minister’s reluctance to drive a stake through the heart of this coal proposal and put it and Albertans out of our misery?

Lorne Fitch is a professional biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife biologist and a past adjunct professor with the University of Calgary.

Ironically, for an arid landscape, we still seem stuck on the perspective that water is abundant and growth is not limited by its supply.

In reality, water has always been in short supply. We have been lulled into a state of complacency with the marvels of dams, reservoirs and canals. These have given us an impression of abundance. Despite all of this engineering infrastructure, we are still just one or two years of low snowmelt away from water shortages.

Climate change isn’t our future, it is our present. Declining river flows, persistent drought, increased temperatures, heat domes, greater evaporation and more wicked weather events signal our world has changed.

This is not the end of our world but it’s time to be smarter, more conscious of the changes and better stewards of what water is available. This might start with the recognition that irrigation expansion is a dream that cannot be fulfilled.

Even if we completely drain our rivers and renege on interprovincial water sharing agreements, this dream cannot be sustained. We can’t make more water. Building more storage is an expensive, zero-sum game and any temporary advantage is at the mercy of climate change.

Doing more of what we have always done — more dams, more reservoirs, more irrigated acres — is navigating our future through the rear-view mirror. There are other forward-thinking pathways that have more promise.

These other pathways require the discussion to occur outside of the boardrooms of the irrigation sector and their supporters. Water, its uses and future is of concern to all Albertans, not just one sector. A sector that is so reliant on the public purse needs to be more receptive to ideas from Albertans outside the irrigation fold.

We need to deal with the chronic overallocation of water, a historical artifact of the frontier. Several southern Alberta rivers are dying from lack of water — this needs to be dealt with through the science of in-stream flow need studies. It will also require those with water licences to surrender some of their water for the public good to restore ecosystem health in our rivers.

Serious questions about crop choices under irrigation must be addressed, especially thirsty ones like alfalfa. More efficient irrigation systems, reduction in evaporation from open canals (which is being addressed with pipelines) and water metering offer opportunities to continue irrigation agriculture through prolonged periods of water scarcity.

All of us must conserve water. Urban dwellers might start by ditching their thirsty Kentucky bluegrass lawns in favour of something more native and drought tolerant. As individuals, families, corporations and governments, we are in this together and everyone needs to do their part.

The South Saskatchewan Regional Plan is due for a review in 2024. This is where we can and should come together to better plan our water future. If we can appreciate this is a multi-sector initiative, at a watershed scale, there are opportunities to better adapt to a changing world.

If we don’t start connecting the dots between the state of the watershed and downstream water availability, this will exacerbate drought conditions and our ability to irrigate and provide domestic water supplies and affect economic sustainability.

With the frontier of resource abundance behind us, change is required.

The Grassy Mountain coal mine proposal in Alberta’s eastern slopes of the Rockies has already been turned down by a joint federal-provincial panel on environmental, economic, social and health grounds. The company, believing it had the fast track to a mine based on promises from the UCP government, was furious and appealed the decision. The courts refused to hear the appeal.

Channelling Mark Twain for a moment, in terms of his view of mines, Grassy Mountain has become a metaphorical hole in ground, into which power, influence and money are poured. From that hole in the ground, the owners hope for an answer that does not include “no.”

Northback must believe in the proposition that heads they win, tails they get to flip again. They are back, flipping the coin under a new name and applying for a new exploration permit, for the same thing they were turned down on in 2021.

If nothing else, they deserve credit for brass and chutzpah.

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is accepting statements of concern from Albertans about this resurrected mine proposal. This is the same agency that failed to advise downstream residents of a serious leak in a tar sands tailings pond for months until confronted by the issue.

In the case of this coal exploration proposal, they are subjecting Albertans to a flawed form that the agency laughingly calls “user friendly.” Virtually at the beginning of the form, you are told you have to be directly and adversely affected by the activity to register a concern.

Woe betide you if you are a downstream water drinker, breathe air coming from the proposed mine site, are an angler, a hunter, a camper, a naturalist, a rancher or any Albertan who has already emphatically said “no” to coal development in the eastern slopes. You will not penetrate the economic cordon imposed by the AER.

You shouldn’t have to, though, because we’ve been through this before. A decision has been made and nothing has changed, except maybe the drought has heightened our concerns about water. This might matter, except in Alberta where you have to parse the fine print for wiggle room, exceptions and deviations.

The 2022 ministerial order restricts coal projects but allows for exceptions for “active coal mines, for advanced coal projects and for safety and security activities.” However, the definition of “advanced” means a project is already moving through a regulatory process. The current application for coal exploration on Grassy Mountain does not meet this test.

One needs to sift through this with a large degree of incredulity. This project is not in a regulatory process and none of the conditions of the 2022 ministerial order have yet been met. Why it is even being considered by the AER is a mystery.

I would agree it is an “advanced” project, one that has advanced through a prior legitimate process of review and scrutiny. It has advanced to the point of rejection.

The fumbling by the AER and the government of Alberta on this file defies belief and suggests several possibilities. Is there an attempt to subvert the ministerial order and AER process?

It raises serious questions on whether lobbying efforts have been successful at circumventing government policy related to coal exploration and development.

One hopes that when money talks, policy and the broader public interest don’t walk. It also calls into question how many times “no” has to be applied before it sticks.

A frontier attitude toward resource use has led to irrigation being allocated half of average river flows. Persistent lobbying effort for irrigation expansion has jumped ahead of reason. Lastly, and key to this discussion, is climate change, which is shrinking the flow in southern Alberta rivers and creating a hotter, drier climate.

There is, as well, the usual human hubris. Pretending that we don’t live in an arid climate, that water is abundant and that we can continue to grow an economy based on crops produced by artificial rain from irrigation sprinklers clouds our thinking.

There is a cost to ignoring the reality of changes in our world. Imagine a future where people are showering in public facilities, eating off paper plates to avoid dish washing and collecting infrequent rain water to flush toilets (or using toilets less frequently).

Such a scenario is now playing out in several communities in the Colorado River basin, subject to severe drought brought on by climate change. The future is with us and within our horizons.

With irrigation expansion schemes in the planning phases, supported by both levels of government, maybe this would be a good time to reflect on where we are headed. Does this yellow brick road have risks to southern Alberta communities, to irrigation farmers and to our rivers?

We should ask, is more always better? At what point do we extract so much water from our rivers they no longer exist as rivers in the sense of living ecosystems? We are already at a point where water quality, fish populations and riparian forests are suffering. Those are indicators of over use, even without irrigation expansion.

It would also be good to remember we, as a headwaters province, have obligations to our downstream provincial neighbours and need to share water.

We can applaud the irrigation sector for efforts to use water more efficiently, to reduce wastage, seepage and evaporation. But irrigation efficiency will not rescue our rivers if it allows expansion of irrigated acres and fuels unrealistic expectations among irrigators.

The reality is that a high proportion of irrigation water is poured on thirsty crops like alfalfa. If water is precious and limiting, can we afford to water such crops? Other, more drought-tolerant crops, together with other strategies, might provide a long-term answer to the survivability of irrigation agriculture in arid southern Alberta.

There will be a point where all of our technological and engineering prowess becomes subject to the law of diminishing returns — perhaps it already has. Yes, irrigation efficiency gains and new reservoirs might buffer users from short-term drought. All the same, we cannot hide from the inevitable effects of less water and hotter, drier conditions over prolonged periods.

Current modelling shows that with just two back-to-back drought years, there is not enough storage capacity in today’s reservoirs to meet demands. We can’t build enough capacity to outrun climate change. That the huge reservoirs on the Colorado River could not provide enough storage to weather drought, we would do well to heed.

Irrigation farmers would be well advised that staring into the expansion sun might blind them to the inherent risks of running out of water. Irrigation expansion in the context of a declining supply of water lies on the razor’s edge between optimism and delusion, between audacity and foolishness and between imagination and flimflammery.

I understand the Great Sand Hills is a fragile place and unrestricted vehicle access could unleash a litany of concerns. I note that all the rural municipalities have prohibitions on off-highway vehicle use, a positive move. But, to close the door on access even on well-established, gravelled trails and to deny foot access seems an over-reach if protection of the environment is the reason for access restrictions.

Cattle grazing might be a benign and legitimate land use in the Great Sand Hills, but a grazing lease on public land shouldn’t foreclose on a reasonable amount of use for recreational purposes, notably hiking, wildlife observation, botanical investigations and simply to revel in big, wild space. That’s not how the lease holders I dealt with felt and they seem to have the support of the Saskatchewan government.

The ranching community should recognize that not only do they have an obligation to manage their public land leases well, they also do not own the land, legally or morally, with all the rights that would normally accrue to private land.

The interactions I had followed a similar vein: “You wouldn’t like it if I (the rancher) wanted to picnic on your front lawn.”

No, I probably wouldn’t, but my lawn is not public land and it is patently absurd to use that excuse when the “front lawn” is public land and several thousands of acres in size.

The tenure for public grazing leases is at the pleasure of the public, the public that also eat beef produced on public land with generous grazing rates. It would seem that ranchers might consider this reciprocal arrangement — reasonable public access in return for access to grazing opportunity.

My observations of the situation in Saskatchewan are from a person who lives in a neighbouring province where we have had these debates over public access to public land. Most have been resolved with better policies, better and more accessible information over access provisions (unavailable in Saskatchewan), and a maturity on the part of public lease holders over the rights for the public.

I would like to think of Saskatchewan as a welcoming place. Perhaps the government, lease holders and the public might work out a better arrangement for accessing public land so I do not feel unwelcome in the province.

Damp, slightly rotten wood produces little flame, or heat, but much smoke. This creates the illusion of light and warmth but holding your hand over the fire provides little measurable result.

The smoke smothers and chokes inspection, transparency or progress. If there is a flame, it is disguised under the smoldering pallor. It’s analogous to political or corporate spin, propaganda and deflection.

By contrast, well-seasoned, dry wood burns cleanly, with little smoke and an evident flame that provides light and allows you to warm your hands. In a comparable political arena, there would exist clarity, transparency and accountability.

Contemplating something with too much smoke and not enough flame is a signal of inaction or inappropriate actions. Old ideas, soft and sodden, don’t produce much light or progress. As smoke is to punky wood, so too it seems with some politicians with agendas that require concealment, not the purifying light of a blazing campfire.

This can happen with the smudge of communications spin, leaving you feeling you’ve been smoke-tanned and tainted in the process. It detracts from plunging into the gloom to address the subjects that need attention for shifts in policy and legislation. But we can’t be distracted by the smoke from politicians and the corporate world.

There is the temptation to pour accelerant, like gasoline, on a smouldering campfire. It might provide momentary light, but not enough, or for long enough, to be of much use. No, the answer isn’t more smoke. The answer is to extinguish this crumbling pile of barely flammable wood and start over with a new, dry base with a chance of kindling a blaze of change.

In Alberta we can be under a pall of summer smoke, the tangible form from wildfires giving us burning eyes and runny noses. We are also subject at all times to the metaphoric smoke of politics.

To the uninitiated, political smoke is hard to identify. It swirls over you until confusion sets in and the creator of the smoke offers to guide you to clear air. Beware of a puree of platitudes, a bouquet of bromides and a gall of gestures. These do not offer clarity but are forms of obscuring smoke.

We seem to be enveloped in smoke from the current government related to the erosion of publicly funded health care; a cavalier attitude to the COVID pandemic; an education curriculum derived from the internet; a sense pension funds are not being managed at arm’s length; a balanced budget not based on fiscal prudence but rather a windfall of oil revenue; a dubious push for a provincial police force; weakened environmental regulations and the hype of “no-conflict” and “ethical” oil; and, climate change denial and foot-dragging in the face of wicked weather.

With these and other topics of concern to Albertans it seems like someone has started up not only the smoke generator but also the fog machine and the haze creator to obscure the truth amid billows of obfuscation.

Albertans are tired of real smoke and should be equally concerned about the political smoke. It’s said that politicians are motivated by two things — heat and light. If, like me, you are concerned that too much smoke means little heat and light, it’s time to build a new fire.

I guess, by whatever interpretation you use for “eco-terrorists”, as a biologist and a person concerned about the environment, I seem to be one.

You include in this name-calling many, maybe most, Albertans who speak up on environmental issues. How voicing one’s concerns on issues like water quality, landscape integrity, climate change, sustainability and biodiversity makes one a “terrorist” (and “anti-Albertan”) is mystifying.

In the hierarchy of disagreement, name-calling is the lowest type of argument and the most demeaning and insulting. Why we can’t have these essential discussions on the fate of our province without resorting to schoolyard tactics also escapes many of us.

The people you denigrate with slurs and name-calling include bird watchers, anglers, naturalists, Raging Grannies, scientists, farmers, ranchers, parents and others who wish to breathe unpolluted air, drink clean water, maintain wildlife and support sustainable, ecologically benign economies. When questioned about their motives all say they also wish to leave something for the grandkids, other than an ever-increasing environmental debt and a toxic future.

As a group and individually they write letters, donate, demonstrate, plant trees, recycle, reduce personal expectations and consumption, or do without.

To my knowledge, they do not blow up things and they act peaceably when demonstrating and retain an atmosphere of politeness when meeting with politicians over environmental issues. Hardly the actions of terrorists.

We owe them for contributions to our health, safety, landscape integrity, transition to clean energy use and sustainable forms of economic activity that work toward dealing with climate change. Maybe some thanks are due to people concerned about the environment, instead of facile name-calling.

The prevailing narrative by the name-callers, like yourself, is that these people are against everything involving economic activity.

Contrary to that, most are for many economic initiatives. There is support for an economy shifting from endless growth to thoughtful development, from the burning of petroleum and mining of coal to renewable energy that would still entail tremendous investment opportunities and produce sustainable jobs.

I see restoration of landscapes ravaged by inappropriate land uses, shortening supply lines and reducing energy costs by buying locally, as well as support for sustainable, restorative agriculture as other examples of economic activity supported broadly by Albertans.

What most people want to understand is what the real and full costs are of something, not just the hype of inflated and sometimes illusionary benefits.

One of the great fallacies in today’s world, especially the western one, is we think we can have our cake and eat it too because of the perception there is always more where that came from. We think we can have unbridled economic development and protect the environment; we can ramp up the extraction and use of fossil fuels and still reduce greenhouse gases; and we can have unrestrained off-highway vehicle use of public lands and still maintain biodiversity, water quality and quiet recreation. If it seems too good to be true, it is. Ask someone with an environmental background.

Mr. Premier, words matter and are an indicator of behaviour. If you can’t see beyond names to a more civil discussion, you can’t see the majority of Albertans who care about their province. Many of them might well have become suspicious of anyone who resorts to name-calling.

Like many of your tactics against those who you dislike, when directed at people concerned about the environment, name-calling creates a false narrative, which is offensive, one that lacks any evidence and publicly displays your antipathy to the concerns of many Albertans.

It’s time, Mr. Premier, to move from the name-calling sandbox of your youth to the adult world, where we treat each other with respect.

In the midst of the rage over an extremely ill-considered plan to throw open the Eastern Slopes for coal mining, we were promised an independent process to provide advice to government on the future of coal.

From the terms of reference we have learned it’s not about an open, unfettered opportunity to tell the UCP government of our concerns about water contamination, of diverting water to wash coal, the reality of recreation, fish and wildlife and sustainable business losses, a real concern over human health, the inability to reclaim or restore mined areas and the overarching issue of climate change. Rather than discussing whether coal mining is a good idea, it is about the “where, when and how” of development.

A coal policy review on its own, with such a narrow focus, is a classic square peg in a round hole. No amount of pounding will make it fit with the concerns of Albertans.

The focus of the review is on three bits of legislation, all of which relate to the “orderly, efficient and economic development” of coal. The word “environment” only shows up in one of these acts and only in the context of coal development. Yet, it is the environmental issues surrounding coal development that Albertans want to discuss, not where we want holes dug in our Eastern Slopes to meet the needs of foreign coal companies.

Coal can’t be considered on its own, outside of regional, evidence-based land use planning, which includes cumulative effects assessments and reviews of ecological thresholds.

The Eastern Slopes are already busy and we can’t afford to cram new developments like coal onto them without consequences to our essential watersheds.

This flawed process fails miserably to provide meaningful input on the larger context of coal and how it relates to other issues surrounding its mining in the Eastern Slopes.

This doesn’t look like consultation. Instead, it has all the hallmarks of a condescending brush-off.

By constraining Albertans’ input to a narrow discussion, and not what most want to talk about, it is reminiscent of cattle being herded down a chute to a predictable endpoint at the slaughter house. The failed promise to have an open discussion on a broad suite of concerns represents a massive failure of the UCP government to effectively listen. It is about controlling the agenda, narrowing the focus to a predetermined outcome.

The outcome seems to be about giving legitimacy to coal mining in the Eastern Slopes despite the incompatibility with maintaining water quality, stream flows, air quality, biodiversity, recreation/tourism, aesthetics, traditional values and other sustainable endeavors, as well as dealing with climate change.

No amount of promised reclamation, mitigation or remediation will glue our mountains back together after open-pit coal mining. The Eastern Slopes are a gift we will not be given twice.

This bait and switch technique over coal is an insult to Albertans. It makes us even more wary of “consultation” and suspicious of the final recommendations when we are shoehorned into a limited range of topics.

The UCP seems inexplicably invested in coal development despite the weight of evidence this is not in the social, cultural, economic and environmental interests of Albertans. It must be driven by a powerful ideology where the answer comes before the question.

In terms of this flawed approach to a review of Alberta’s coal policy, there is no right way to do the wrong thing.