It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Fight Back Now and Forever Canadian are teaming up for one big final push before referendum day – and we’re encouraging all Albertans to be part of the action!
Forever Canadian will be hosting two weekday INDOOR rallies – one in Calgary the evening of Thursday, October 15 and the other in Edmonton the evening of Friday, October 16.
Then, Fight Back Now will be hosting two big weekend OUTDOOR rallies – one in Calgary on the afternoon of Saturday, October 17 (part of our provincewide Day of Protest), and then the big Unity Rally at the Legislature, the afternoon of Sunday, October 18.
We’re asking you to consider attending BOTH the Forever Canadian weeknight indoor rally nearest you AND either the Fight Back Now march and rally in Calgary on Saturday or the Unity Rally at the Legislature in Edmonton on Sunday.
You send a powerful message by voting AND by showing up to protest! The bigger the crowds at BOTH the Fight Back Now events and the Forever Canadian events the better!
Bring your friends; your voices; your signs; and your Canadian flags! Say “yes” to Canada and “no” to the divisive MAGA-inspired agenda that Danielle Smith is trying to impose on our province without a mandate!
Forever Canadian Weeknight Indoor Rallies
Calgary
DATE: Thursday, October 15
TIME: Doors 5:30 pm
LOCATION: BMO Centre at Stampede Park
Edmonton
DATE: Friday, October 16
TIME: Doors 5:30 pm
LOCATION: Edmonton EXPO Centre
Register to get your tickets for the Forever Canadian events HERE
No tickets needed for either the Calgary Fight Back Now march and rally or the Unity Rally at the Legislature. But we ask that you RSVP HERE.
NOTE: Forever Canadian spokesperson Thomas Lukaszuk will be one of the featured speakers at the Unity Rally in Edmonton. He will also promote the Calgary Day of Protest Rally and the Unity Rally from the stage at the Forever Canadian rallies. This is what solidarity looks like!
In solidarity,
The Alberta Federation of Labour
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
Coal’s revival is creating divisions in Canada’s energy heartland
Grassy Mountain is on the site of an old mine that closed about 50 years ago. (Image courtesy of Northback Holdings.)
At the top of Grassy Mountain, some 6,700 feet above sea level, seams of coal are baked into the mountainside, visible through mining in this stretch of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Alberta from the early to mid-1900s. This and other former mines dot the picturesque mountain towns on the eastern side of the continental divide, the industry having moved out of the region decades ago after plummeting prices and demand made mining here unprofitable.
But Grassy still has more coal to give — much more. It’s now the center of a yearslong battle pitting nearby towns’ economic interests against environmental worries from downstream communities and ranchers. And this time, it’s being driven not by demand to heat homes in Canada, but to feed steelmakers in China, Japan, South Korea, India and other Asian countries.
Nearly 60 years after this site closed, locals are once again pinning their hopes for an economic revival on this windswept mountainside. Northback Holdings Corp., a division of Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting Pty., is working to reopen the former mine.
This is Hancock’s second attempt after an earlier application was rejected by a joint federal and provincial review panel in 2021 over concerns about the impact on the nearby water ecosystem. Northback Chief Executive Officer Brad Johnston believes the company can address the deficiencies in its first application and go further in restoring the mountain, including much of the unreclaimed former mine site.
Hancock has spent more than a decade and over C$150 million ($105 million) on a project that faces stiff opposition and is still at least four years from opening. It’s promising to scale back its original plans by around 40% to produce 2.5 million metric tons a year instead of 4 million, boost reclamation efforts during the course of mining, build a water treatment plant and stick around for years after production ceases.
The company is persistent because its forecasts show an undersupply in the global market within the next decade and pricing levels far beyond what it costs to extract the coal.
The proposal and others like it have struck a nerve in Alberta, a region traditionally friendly toward resource development, both in terms of public support and government policy. Country music star Corb Lund led a petition campaign this year to stop coal mining in the eastern slopes of the Rockies, attempting to force a provincial vote on the issue this month, unsuccessfully. A recent survey found a majority of the public would have supported his position in a referendum.
The fight over the project also reveals a little-known fact about Canadian coal. Within the country, it has been on a long decline, as governments moved to reduce coal used for power production. But at the country’s western ports, coal is still king of commodity volumes. About 39.9 million metric tons were exported from Vancouver last year, compared to 30 million tons of petroleum products.
While the province of British Columbia now accounts for the majority of coal production, Alberta has seen a number of proposals in recent years and the province recently approved an expansion of the Vista Coal Mine in Hinton, near Jasper National Park, that will make it the largest thermal coal mine in North America.
About 70% of the world’s steel supply depends on metallurgical coal and Canada is the fifth-largest global supplier, accounting for roughly C$9 billion in exports.
Northback isn’t the only such new proposal in the Rockies. Northwest of Calgary, Valory Resources Inc. is pitching Blackstone, an underground metallurgical mine in Clearwater County, and another one called Mine 14 near the town of Grande Cache.
In BC, Conuma Resources Ltd. reopened a mine near Tumbler Ridge in 2024 and a sister project was included in the province’s recent deal book marketed to global investors. Glencore Plc is also seeking to expand its Fording River site to maintain the mine’s 10 million metric tons of annual production.
Johnston, who took over as Northback’s CEO in July, says any coal mined at Grassy Mountain will all be for export off the west coast of Canada, largely out of the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert. The company’s projections, he says, show it can be profitable over the course of its projected 25-year lifespan due to strong Asian demand for steel-making coal, listing Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and India as possible customers.
The type of coal here is also high-quality enough for European steel producers. “The world wants this coal, it needs it,” he says.
The proposal would be a major employer for the five historic mining communities near Grassy Mountain. He cites the roughly 400 full-time jobs needed to operate it and the C$2.2 billion ($1.5 billion) in government revenue the mine will generate over its lifetime, according to a report prepared for the company by EY.
The company has already been sponsoring local organizations and has hired locals for its preparatory work, including a First Nations security contractor. Johnston says he is aiming to file another application in the coming months, with a potential target of opening in late 2030 if it receives regulatory approval.
He acknowledges the company’s first application did not sufficiently deal with concerns over its environmental impact. A joint federal-provincial review panel found the project was “not in the public interest” and would harm the nearby population of westslope cutthroat trout. He believes their new proposal is improved enough to meet regulatory hurdles, but knows there’s widespread opposition to coal.
“There are some people that are opposed to what we do, no matter how well we do it, or whatever systems of controls we propose to put into place,” he says. The company is always willing to answer questions about environmental management, he says, and local support “doesn’t come unconditionally, and their expectation is that we’re going to provide jobs and economic benefit, but we’re going to do so in an environmentally responsible way.
There’s been more public backing in Canada for energy projects since US President Donald Trump’s administration began pressuring the country on trade, says Heather Exner-Pirot, director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. That attention has largely been around oil and gas, and hasn’t necessarily translated to coal.
“I think most people, even in Canada, don’t appreciate that metallurgical coal is our biggest export by volume out of the Port of Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert, and that by revenue, after gold, it’s usually our top-producing mineral product,” she says.
She points out the towns closest to the proposed mine are largely in favor and people further away are opposed. In Crowsnest Pass, the municipality nearest Grassy Mountain, more than 70% voted to support the mine in a 2024 plebiscite. But municipal councils downstream, including in Lethbridge, Alberta’s fourth-largest city, have been staunchly opposed.
While Prime Minister Mark Carney’s federal government has been encouraging “nation building” projects to spur economic activity and build stronger interprovincial connections, the coal in western Canada won’t be going to the steel factories of southern Ontario and Quebec. The cost to ship by rail across the country makes it too expensive for the steel factories to use.
Instead, demand is driven by Asian countries and interest in Canada as a conscientious steward in producing coal. “If you are a Japan or a Korea, you may be willing actually to pay a premium for that better environmentally and socially responsible product,” Exner-Pirot says.
Source: Bloomberg News.
Steel is “ubiquitous” in products ranging from batteries to large-scale energy infrastructure, said Ian Lange, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Demand for steel and therefore metallurgical coal can be a proxy for economic activity around the world. Alberta is one of the most attractive places for natural resource extraction given its friendly regulatory environment and ease of getting to Pacific ports, he says, and miners have been making greater efforts to ensure environmental protection.
But he says “it’s really hard to say with certainty that this won’t be a problem 30, 40 years down the line.”
The environmental pushback to increased mining in the Rockies can point to substantial levies against operators in recent years. Coal mines in BC faced C$60 million in federal fines in 2021 for water contamination breaches, and another C$16 million in fines from the province in 2023. And as recently as this past July, Glencore-owned Elk Valley Operations Ltd. was fined an additional C$269,000 as part of a larger C$3.6 million ruling over delaying construction of water treatment facilities and 171 water quality breaches related to selenium.
Concerns over water quality extend south of the border. A 2024 study from the US Geological Survey found evidence of selenium pollution as far as 350 miles away from Elk Valley’s mine along the Columbia River and contamination in other cross-border waterways.
Lund is a fourth-generation Albertan, his family settling in the early 1900s on ranch land they still own near the Montana border. He spearheaded a petition to have a referendum on banning some new coal mining that garnered more than 170,000 signatures earlier this year, though the question did not get put on the ballot for voting day on Oct. 19.
He says he was drawn into the issue after rancher friends of his worried about the potential impacts on downstream water from selenium and other contamination. The amount of water used and the air quality are other concerns.
“As far as I can tell, it’s a bad deal and it’s going to ruin our water and our ranch land, and there’s nothing in it for Albertans,” he said. “And I think it’s a foreign billionaire coming here to take our coal and make all the money and leave us with the mess.”
His family’s land isn’t threatened by the mine reopening, but his residence in Lethbridge is served by the watershed from around Grassy Mountain. He says he’s seen the issue resonate across political lines in the largely conservative, pro-resource development province. Many Albertans view the Rocky Mountains as “the soul of the province, and that includes a good chunk of the conservative base who are hunters and fishermen and ranchers and irrigating farmers,” Lund says. “So it’s not just a left-right issue. It’s very close to a lot of people’s hearts here.”
He’s “been in this fight for almost seven years now, and we’ve outlasted two premiers” as well as “multiple CEOs from the coal companies” and they will do everything they can to stop new mining in the nearby Rockies.
Lucas Michalsky, a cattle rancher about 20 minutes east of Grassy Mountain, has a different take on the mine’s impact. “We are the forgotten corner of Alberta,” says Michalsky, whose family worked in nearby coal mines after moving from Poland in the early 1900s.
The Grassy Mountain proposal has already brought more hope to local residents about the prospect of higher-quality jobs. “Northback has put in tens of millions of dollars,” into the area, he says. “All the people that are against coal haven’t put a dime into our community.”
Some local residents work in Glencore’s coal mines across the BC border, or see their children move to work in northern Alberta’s oil sands. The draw for Michalsky is seeing his kids close to home where they might “have a job as a millwright or a welder or an electrician at Northback, and come home every night so they can run cattle.”
He believes the environmental impact is overstated by opponents, who are largely not from the immediate towns that will benefit from the mine. “This is a blue-collar community. It always has been. And we’ve lost our logging. We’ve lost our oil and gas. Mining is the only thing we have left, because we never really had much of the first two.”
(By Iain Boekhoff, Michael McKee and Arielle Schwartz)
Thursday, October 08, 2026
HKUST researchers reveal a tiered adaptation strategy in deep-sea chemosynthetic symbiosis
Researchers conduct deep-sea in situ transplant experiments of Archivesica marissinica at site HM-3 corresponding to moderate hydrogen sulfide depletion.
A research team led by Prof. QIAN Peiyuan, Chair Professor of the Department of Ocean Science at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with international partners, has made significant progress in uncovering how deep-sea chemosynthetic symbioses cope with environmental change. The findings reveal that metabolic flexibility in the symbionts, coupled with the host's finely regulated population of bacterial symbionts, mutually sustains the host's energy stability. This provides important in situ evidence of how chemosynthetic holobionts at deep-sea cold seeps remain resilient when energy supplies fluctuate and highlights the key role of a tiered adaptation strategy in sustaining the stability of cold seep ecosystems.
Apart from HKUST, the research was conducted in collaboration with the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (Guangzhou Marine Laboratory), Ocean University of China (OUC), the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS), and the University of Calgary in Canada. It represents an important outcome within the framework of two UN Decade Programmes namely "CliMetS" and "MOCSI". The research was recently published in the leading international journal Science Advances, titled “In situ evidence of tiered adaptations buffering a chemosynthetic clam holobiont against environmental sulfide fluctuations”.
In chemosynthetic ecosystems, such as deep-sea hydrothermal vents and methane seeps, hydrogen sulfide is a crucial chemical energy source for supporting biological communities. However, its concentration can fluctuate substantially due to tectonic activity, seepage intensity, and processes such as the anaerobic oxidation of methane in sediments. Direct evidence has long been lacking on how deep-sea symbiotic organisms adapt to such dynamic environments and how hosts and symbionts work together to maintain system stability.
The Haima cold seep comprises seep sites at different developmental stages, providing a "natural laboratory" for studying biological responses to environmental change. The research team focused on a dominant species of deep-sea clam (Archivesica marissinica) at the Haima cold seep and its sulfur-oxidizing bacterial symbionts. By combining deep-sea in situ transplant experiments with in situ sample fixation, the research team conducted deep-sea in situ transplantation studies at two sites HM-3 and HM-2 respectively. The clams were moved from their native sediments into transplantation cages positioned approximately 0.5 m above the seafloor, preventing them from accessing hydrogen sulfide-rich sediment. This setup simulates decreased hydrogen sulfide availability, leading to reduced energy and nutrient acquisition: HM-2 represents severe hydrogen sulfide limitation, whereas HM-3 represents relatively moderate limitation.
By integrating metagenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, quantitative PCR, in situ hybridization, transmission electron microscopy, and protein structure prediction, the research team elucidated a tiered adaptation strategy in holobiont, encompassing symbiont metabolism, host regulation of symbiosis, and resource transportation.
The study revealed that reduced hydrogen sulfide availability first triggered pronounced metabolic reprogramming in the bacterial symbionts. Transcriptomic and proteomic analyses showed that pathways involved in sulfide oxidation, including dsrAB, aprAB, and sat, were suppressed, whereas the soxXYZ gene cluster associated with thiosulfate oxidation was upregulated. These results indicate that when hydrogen sulfide becomes limiting, the bacterial symbionts can adjust their sulfur-oxidation strategies and potentially enhance their capacity to utilize thiosulfate, thereby maintaining energy metabolism and carbon fixation. This metabolic plasticity may represent the first line of defense for holobiont in coping with short-term hydrogen sulfide limitation.
The study further demonstrated that host regulation of symbionts changes with the severity of hydrogen sulfide limitation. Under the relatively moderate hydrogen sulfide limitation at HM-3, the abundance of bacterial symbionts remained stable. Meanwhile, pathways associated with endosomal maturation and endosome–lysosome fusion in the hosts were suppressed, suggesting that the host may reduce intracellular degradation and turnover of bacterial symbionts to help maintain the symbiont population. This reflects that the host preferentially maintains symbiosis under relatively moderate hydrogen sulfide restriction. Under the severe hydrogen sulfide limitation at HM-2, however, symbiont abundance decreased significantly, and transmission electron microscopy revealed the digestion of symbionts by lysosomes. This indicates that hosts facing severe resource constraints might enhance their survival by increasing symbiont turnover to access limited nutrients.
The gill tissue of Archivesica marissinica also possesses a strong sulfur-metabolic capacity and highly expresses key enzymes such as thiosulfate sulfurtransferase (TST). TST participates in the conversion of toxic hydrogen sulfide into thiosulfate, which is then utilized by bacterial symbionts for sulfur oxidation. Coupled with the observed upregulation in the symbiotic soxXYZ gene cluster, these findings suggest that thiosulfate generated during host hydrogen sulfide detoxification may serve as an alternative energy substrate for the symbionts. This establishes a potential metabolic synergy between host detoxification and symbiont utilization, offering new insights into how hosts and symbionts achieve metabolic complementarity under resource-limited conditions.
Additionally, the research team investigated the potential role of Archivesica marissinica hemoglobins in gas transport. The two hemoglobin subunits, Hb1 and Hb2, are primarily localized in blood cells and highly expressed in the foot and gill tissues. Both protein structural prediction and molecular docking results revealed that the hemoglobin complex exhibits a slightly higher binding affinity for hydrosulfide than for oxygen. These findings suggest that the hemoglobin complex may mediate the binding and transport of hydrogen sulfide and oxygen, providing new molecular insights into the mechanisms underlying gas transport in vesicomyid clams.
Prof. QIAN Peiyuan, co-corresponding author of this study, said: "Taken together, we believe that Archivesica marissinica and its symbionts form a multi-layered, tiered adaptation strategy. This enables the deep-sea chemosynthetic holobiont to maintain normal functions and survive while adjusting resource allocation according to the severity of environmental stress. The in situ experimental framework established by this research provides a new approach for investigating the authentic molecular responses of organisms inhabiting extreme deep-sea environments to natural environmental changes. It also offers new scientific evidence for understanding how global deep-sea cold seep ecosystems respond to environmental change and maintain ecological functions and biodiversity."
The co-corresponding authors of this paper include Prof. QIAN Peiyuan (HKUST, Guangzhou Marine Laboratory), Prof. SUN Jin (OUC), and Prof. Casey HUBERT (University of Calgary in Canada). The co-first authors include Dr. LAN Yi (HKUST, Guangzhou Marine Laboratory, University of Calgary in Canada), Dr. YAN Guoyong (HKUST, Guangzhou Marine Laboratory) and Dr. WANG Hao (Guangzhou Marine Laboratory, IOCAS).
In situ evidence of tiered adaptations buffering a chemosynthetic clam holobiont against environmental sulfide fluctuations
Article Publication Date
2-Oct-2026
Researchers conduct deep-sea in situ transplant experiments of Archivesica marissinica at site HM-2 corresponding to severe hydrogen sulfide depletion.
The research team conducts deep-sea in situ transplant experiments of Archivesica marissinica at theHaima cold seep.
The research team analyses hydrogen sulfide binding capability of clam host hemoglobin.
Sunday, October 04, 2026
Another oilsands boom? Smith, Carney say this time Canada will be ready
From left, Scott Burrows, CEO of the Pembina Pipeline Corp, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney applauded after speaking in Fort McMurray on Thursday Oct. 1, 2026. Prime Minister Mark Carney declared the Pacific Link pipeline project to be in the national interest. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Greg Halinda
CALGARY — It’s been a relatively quiet decade in Alberta’s oilsands, but the federal and provincial governments believe a new West Coast pipeline coupled with policy shifts might help turn up the volume.
Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Fort McMurray, Alta., this week to announce the first proposal to be deemed in the national interest under legislation passed last year: the million-barrel-per-day Pacific Link pipeline from Alberta to a tanker export terminal in southern B.C.
The designation means the proposal will be subject to a streamlined review process, shepherded by the Calgary-based major projects office.
The pipeline’s economic fate hinges on oilsands companies being willing to spend on expanding their output. At a news conference, Carney was asked whether he expected a return to boom times in the northeastern Alberta oilsands hub city.
“I wouldn’t use the term ‘boom,’” he replied. “I would use ‘sustained growth.’”
The last boom from the mid-2000s to mid-2010s came with the side-effects of cost inflation, labour scarcity and housing shortages. Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith say that if oilsands companies start building again — as they hope — it will be different this time around.
Oilsands companies have for years shied away from the multibillion-dollar megaprojects of more than a decade ago. The last mine to be built from scratch was Fort Hills, operated by Suncor Energy Inc. From when it got the final go-ahead decision in 2013 to its startup in 2018, its cost ballooned to more than $17 billion from $13.5 billion. Lately, instead of so-called “green field” projects, companies have opted to instead tweak their existing operations to squeeze out more bitumen or add to their existing footprints.
Executives have cited a dearth of pipeline capacity, a convoluted regulatory regime and onerous environmental regulations for the chill on large-scale growth projects. But also around the time investment fell off a decade ago, global crude prices cratered amid a supply glut and didn’t have much of a chance to recover before the COVID-19 pandemic virtually obliterated demand.
Fast forward to 2026, and the Mideast war has laid bare the vulnerability of global energy supply chains and left countries clamouring for stable providers. A host of Trudeau-era energy policies loathed by oilpatch players have been undone and Pacific Link has taken a big step forward to becoming a reality, potentially enabling more oilsands crude to reach lucrative Asian markets.
A Heavy haul truck prepares to dump material into a crusher at the Suncor Fort Hills facility in Fort McMurray Alta, on Monday Sept. 10, 2018.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
“We learned lessons from the past in building infrastructure,” Carney told reporters on Thursday. He said local mayors are thinking ahead for what their communities need and early participation from First Nations leaders means “a much broader spread of the economic benefits.”
He also cited “another phase of technical innovation” in the industry that didn’t exist previously.
At the news conference, Smith noted the autonomous oilsands haul trucks in the backdrop. Previously, human drivers for those gargantuan vehicles would have received six-figure salaries and might have been flown in and out of the site from elsewhere in Canada, living in work camps, for a week or two at a time.
“(Companies) have managed to find a way to increase production without having the kind of dramatic pressure that we saw in the past of a large number of people moving here, not able to find homes,” Smith said.
The premier said she’s also talked to local municipal leaders about the bridge and road infrastructure that might be needed if production ramps up. She mentioned upgrades to Highway 881, the road that winds through several steam-driven oilsands sites south of Fort McMurray, Alta.
“There’s lots of ways that we can partner with the federal government to make sure those key infrastructure projects get built, so we build on a pace that allows us to keep up,” she said.
Andrew Botterill, who leads Deloitte Canada’s oil, gas and chemicals practice, said the Alberta oilpatch has matured since the last boom.
“What we have is a more efficient, far more aligned group of producers up there than maybe what it was 10, 15 years ago,” he said.
“They’ve come together as an alliance and really recognize that ‘We’ve got to share labour, we’ve got to be less competitive, we’ve got to find ways that we can do things together and not just drive up costs.’”
Oilsands properties are concentrated in fewer hands than had been the case a decade or more ago. Erstwhile producers including Husky and MEG Energy have been bought out and international players like Shell and Total have exited or sharply reduced their holdings.
Lance Mortlock managing partner at EY Canada, flagged a bigger-picture concern over the availability of workers with multiple major projects in the works — not just the Pacific Link pipeline and new oilsands projects, but potentially mines, transmission lines and hydro dams.
“We’re going to need tens of thousands of workers across the country to build this stuff: engineers, professionals, welders, pipe fitters. I’m not sure where all these people are going to come from if we do half the projects that we have the desire to construct,” he said.
“So I’m hoping that there’s going to be more conversation about the workforce and more conversation about how do we sequence these things so we optimize the system from a labour force perspective?”
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Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2026.
