Environmental advocates concerned by Alberta's new rules for coal mining

Alberta gov't quietly 'modernizes' coal policy

SILENCE IN DARKNESS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS 
IS THE MEANING OF QUIETLY

MODERNIZATION BEING OPEN FACE OPEN PIT STRIP MINING
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS NEXT TO JASPER NATIONAL PARK
WHAT LUSCAR*** TRIED TO PUSH THROUGH TWO DECADES AGO!!!

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/environmental-advocates-concerned-by-alberta-s-new-rules-for-coal-mining-1.4952655
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Environmentalists are angry that the Alberta government has changed a policy about open-pit coal mines without public consultation.

Published Sunday, May 24, 2020 

CTV.COM

TORONTO -- Upcoming changes to Alberta's coal regulations are expected to create hundreds of jobs in the province, but environmental advocates worry that the work will come at the expense of the ecosystem alongside the Rocky Mountains.

Alberta's energy ministry announced May 15 that the province's 44-year-old coal policy will be replaced June 1 by a new set of rules that bring coal producers in line with those looking to develop other commodities.

"Rescinding the outdated coal policy … will help attract new investment for an important industry and protect jobs for Albertans," Energy Minister Sonya Savage said in a press release announcing the changes.

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One of those changes opens up land that runs alongside the Rockies to developers of open-pit coal mines, though most of the mountains themselves remain protected.

Robin Campbell, the president of the Coal Association of Canada, told CTV News that he is aware of at least six companies looking at establishing coal mines in the Foothills region and sending the coal to Asia where it would be used in steel production.

According to Campbell, each mine would likely employ between 300 and 350 people.

"With the COVID-19 impact on the economy, this is an opportunity for our industry to help bring back economic activity into Alberta," he said.

Environmental advocates, however, are concerned about the impact that economic activity would have on the grizzly bears, caribou and other wild animals in the Foothills.

"Coal mines are known to be very destructive to these species," Shaun Fluker, an environmental law professor at the University of Calgary, told CTV News.

Fluker described the area opened up for coal-mine development as "a significant swath of public lands." It also contains rivers and other waterways.

"There's definitely going to be an impact on the sensitive wildlife populations that reside in the area," Nissa Petterson, a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association, told CTV News.

In addition to the impacts on the ecosystem, Petterson said she is concerned that the changes were made without public consultation.


***Search Results

The Plans to Strip-Mine Coal in the Mountains - Alberta Views ...
https://albertaviews.ca › plans-strip-mine-coal-mountains
Jul 1, 2019 - In most places where metallurgical coal is mined, giant machines scrape off ... of Hinton when the nearby Luscar and Gregg River mines closed down. ... even bring clients to the mines instead of nearby Jasper National Park.

Fighting Frankenmine - Alberta Views - The Magazine for ...
https://albertaviews.ca › fighting-frankenmine
Jul 1, 2005 - Mountain Park coal would have been more expensive to mine because the ... At the same time, CRC announced the “Luscar Coal Income Fund,” a ... by the province and essential to grizzly bears from Jasper National Park.

Luscar | Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
https://www.business-humanrights.org › luscar
Groups Demand New Environmental Assessment of Massive Open-Pit Coal Mine on Doorstep of Jasper National Park. Author: Sierra Legal Defence Fund.

[PDF]
Luscar & Gregg River Mines Land Management Plan ...
https://open.alberta.ca › dataset › resource › download › 2013-luscargreggri...
Mar 4, 2013 - Provincial Park lies south of the Luscar and Gregg River Mine sites, ... Jasper National Park representatives; other coal mining companies; and.

[PDF]

Luscar and Gregg River Mines Land Management Plan
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca › files › mineralsmetals › files › pdf › rmd-rrm
Whitehorse Wildland Provincial Park lies south of ... and Jasper National Park (JNP) lies to the west of ... Modern open-pit coal mining in the Luscar and Gregg.

Just outside Jasper National Park, a coal mine threatens an ...
https://thenarwhal.ca › just-outside-jasper-national-park-a-coal-mine-threat...
Mar 1, 2019 - In the Rocky Mountains east of Jasper, a small Indigenous community has been praying that a coal-mine expansion won't impact its ability to ...
Missing: LUSCAR ‎| Must include: LUSCAR

Cardinal Divide - Alberta Wilderness Association
https://albertawilderness.ca › issues › wildlands › areas-of-concern › cardin...
The Cardinal Divide area is adjacent to the eastern side of Jasper National Park. ... Coal mining, coupled with unmanaged motorized recreation, has deterioration ... The Cheviot mine was meant to replace the older Luscar Mine and maintain ...

Fueling the fire over Cheviot | Ammsa.com
https://ammsa.com › publications › windspeaker › fueling-fire-over-cheviot
... the proposed Cheviot Mine project, located near the Jasper National Park. ... old Luscar mine, which will deplete its coal reserves within the next three years.

Experience Our Coal History by experiencetravelguides - issuu
https://issuu.com › experiencetravelguides › docs › experience_our_coal_h...
Mar 18, 2019 - Luscar. TECK COALCARDINAL RIVER MINE. Watson Creek. Leyland Cadomin ... Entrance. Brûlé. Jasper Jasper National National Park Park.

Sherritt fined $1-million for polluting incidents that impacted ...
https://www.theglobeandmail.com › news › national › article36476916
Oct 3, 2017 - Toronto-based Sherritt International Corp. operations are seen in this file ... Coal Valley Mine about 120 kilometres east of Jasper National Park ...

Every worker in Canada who needs it can access 10 days of paid sick leave a year.

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that as Canada enters the “recovery phase” of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government will be moving forward on talks with the provinces and territories on ensuring that every worker in Canada who needs it can access 10 days of paid sick leave a year.

This announcement comes after the NDP made its support for Monday’s motion on how the rest of the spring session will be structured contingent on a more robust commitment to paid sick leave for all Canadians.“To come out of this crisis, our country needs workers… more than ever,” Trudeau said, citing a Sunday call with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh about the issue. “Nobody should have to choose between taking a day off work due to illness, or being able to pay their bills.”


Singh was quick to celebrate the win, saying his caucus will “keep pushing the government to make sure they deliver on this commitment and that they work with provinces to make sick leave for workers permanent going forward.”

Trudeau said that “without delay” he will be discussing with premiers a way to ensure that those who need to stay home can without penalty.

The prime minister also said the federal government will consider other long-term sick leave support.

He said that British Columbia Premier John Horgan first brought up the issue on a call with all premieres a few weeks ago.

Trudeau said the concern raised “quite rightly” by premier Horgan, was whether come fall flu season, people would be able to stay home without economic impact should they develop COVID-19-like symptoms. The time off of work would allow anyone concerned about their health to go get a test.

Trudeau said that if workers feel pressure to go into work even if they are unwell, it could be “a big problem,” and said thinking about new measures like paid sick leave—which is offered in some workplaces but not all—will be “essential” to control further COVID-19 spread.

Even though the mechanisms to implement a sick leave program rest with the provinces, Trudeau pointed to other joint federal-provincial COVID-19 relief measures that have been agreed to as examples of how it can be done, such as the commercial rent relief program which launched Monday morning.

“Today’s announcement means that frontline workers will no longer be forced to choose between their job and their health,” said Canadian Labour Congress President Hassan Yussuff in a statement, noting the cross-party co-operation that made this commitment a reality. “Right now, it is incredibly important that any worker who has been exposed to COVID-19 can self-quarantine without anxiety of lost wages.”

“It is good to see Parliament focus on working Canadians during this crisis,” said Yussuff.
DEBATE UNDERWAY ON MOTION

A small number of MPs are spending the afternoon in West Block debating the government’s new proposal for how to continue to meet as parliamentarians amid an ongoing pandemic, while keeping in mind the necessary public health precautions.

Defending the current situation, Trudeau said that work has been able to continue amid the pandemic, but that the focus still “needs to be on this crisis that has taken over almost every aspect of Canadians’ lives and of our economy.”

In order to see the motion pass, the government will need the backing of at least one other recognized party. Now that the government has spoken to the NDP’s main sticking point, they are likely to come on side.

“We’re in a pandemic. No Canadian should have to choose between going to work sick or staying at home not knowing if they can pay the bills,” Singh said in drawing his caucus’ line in the sand in advance of Trudeau’s address.

Rather than actually resuming the full House of Commons, the government is suggesting that MPs continue the current meetings of the special all-party committee focused on COVID-19. The committee has been holding two virtual meetings a week, and one in-person meeting.

Now, the Liberal minority is suggesting the committee meet four days a week — Monday through Thursday — in a hybrid fashion that would allow some MPs to participate in-person, while others can take part from their homes, via screens set up inside the Chamber, until June 17. The future special committee meetings would allow MPs to question the government on non-COVID-19 matters, though concerns remain about representation inside the House from MPs from across the country given the propensity of technical and connectivity issues experienced to date.

The proposal would also see MPs attend four additional sittings over the summer and includes a new ability for committees to conduct studies, including allowing the House affairs committee to dive deeper into an evaluation of how a formal hybrid House of Commons session could occur, with the implementation of new tools like remote voting.

Speaking to the motion on Monday, Government House Leader Pablo Rodriguez made the case that the work of Parliament has continued through the pandemic, pointing to the hundreds of witnesses heard from, the dozens of committee meetings held, as well as the handful of emergency bills that have passed.

He also noted that under the current special committee meeting structure, the government has faced more questions from the opposition than it would have under normal House sitting parameters.

Though, this approach continues to not sit well with the Conservatives, who remain opposed to the current House meeting structure and have long been calling for a more robust resumption of sittings with up to 50 MPs, suggesting Parliament be declared an essential service.

Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen accused the Liberals of using the COVID-19 crisis to “shut down” parliamentary accountability. She also noted that many of the usual functions of the House—like advancing private members’ bills and filing order paper questions—have been on pause for more than two months now with no plan in sight to resume those aspects of House business.

“The House of Commons needs to be functioning and needs to be seen to be functioning during this crisis. Contrary to what the Liberals, NDP, and the Bloc may think, this house is an essential service to the country, and we its members are essential workers,” outgoing Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said on Monday, in what may be one of his final speeches in the House of Commons as party leader.

He continues to advocate for a way forward that allows for more accountability on the massive government policies being rolled out over the last two months while respecting the health and safety of all on Parliament Hill, which he called the “beating heart” of the federal government.

Though for his part, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet is less concerned about the fine print of the motion, and is happy to let the other parties wrestle over the proposal, saying his focus is on how COVID-19 is impacting real people.

“We will probably get on the bus when it comes but we will not negotiate the hour at which it will come, or who will drive the bus,” Blanchet said.
Feds to push for 10 days of paid sick leave for workers

Trumpsters Are Already Revolting Against COVID Contact Tracing

The latest villain is the one that health officials say is integral to stopping the reemergence of the disease.


Will Sommer May. 25, 2020 


Mark Makela/Getty
Donald Trump’s allies in conservative media have a new villain in the coronavirus fight: contact tracing, the rigorous efforts to track the virus’s spread that public health experts say is essential to safely restarting society. 

Fox News host Laura Ingraham devoted much of her show Thursday night to raising questions about contact tracing, the process where interviewers try to figure out who has been exposed to the virus by literally figuring out whom the infected had contact with. As a Fox News chyron warned that contact tracing should “concern all Americans,” Ingraham claimed that calls for more contact tracers were just an “excuse” to keep businesses closed, and compared being interviewed by a contact tracer to being groped by a Transportation Security Administration agent.

“Instead of rummaging through your luggage, these contact tracers will be prying through the most intimate details of your life,” Ingraham said. 

A wide range of public health officials and experts have insisted that the country needs to vastly expand contact tracing, with one Johns Hopkins study calling for the hiring of at least 100,000 additional contact tracers. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said earlier this month that coronavirus deaths will “of course” increase without additional tracing and testing. Workplace contact tracing is included in the White House’s own reopening plan. 

“Contact tracing” sounds sensible —and a federal jobs program for 300,000 Americans! Yet concerns about our privacy rights are real—who protects your data? Here’s my take: https://t.co/RLJuzI7i9b #TheAngle

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) May 22, 2020
But Ingraham isn’t alone on the right in sowing doubts about contact tracing. Conservative columnists Andy and John Schlafly—best known as the sons of late right-wing activist Phyllis Schlafly—co-authored a column at Townhall.com criticizing Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) for budgeting nearly $300 million for contact tracing. The Schlaflys laid out a dystopian vision of contact tracing, comparing it to a “dark episode in the history of the communist Soviet Union” and claiming that contact tracing could be used to separate children from infected parents. 
They even imagined contact tracing details being used to embarrass Republican candidates. 

“The real goal of the contact tracing is to use COVID-19 as a pretext to monitor the whereabouts of every American, perhaps through our smartphones, and take away our liberties,” the Schlaflys wrote. “Republican political candidates will be tracked and leaks of their private information to the media would be inevitable under this scheme, while Democrats such as Joe Biden are given a pass on their far greater misconduct.” 

Instead, the Schlaflys called for Abbott to flood the state with hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that’s become a darling of Trump supporters as a potential coronavirus treatment—even as clinical studies suggest it has no effect on the virus and actually increases mortality.

“The $295 million that Abbott is spending on contact tracing could have purchased HCQ treatments for half of the entire State of Texas, to reopen the state without the need for oppressive monitoring,” the Schlaflys wrote. 

Emerald Robinson, the White House correspondent for conservative Newsmax TV, which is run by a close Trump confidant, compared contact tracing to “mandatory vaccination” and 5G towers, which conspiracy theorists have claimed spread coronavirus. 

Contact tracing. 5G. Drones. AI. Mandatory vaccination. Digital ID.

Nobody in America voted for any of this stuff.

So why are these projects moving ahead anyway?

Big Tech is out of control. It must be regulated before it's too late.

— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) May 22, 2020
Pro-Trump activist Tom Fitton, the head of conservative activist group Judicial Watch, put contact tracing on a list of his coronavirus grievances, declaring: “I’m done with it.”

I'm done with it. No masks, then masks, unprecedented shutdowns,the "models" collapse, the curve, hospital capacity, then its "testing", then "contact tracing" and now the VACCINE. And now CDC tells us it does NOT easily spread from surfaces! #ConstitutionOverCoronavirus https://t.co/4GSRn4DB3G

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) May 22, 2020
Other concerns on the fringe right about contact tracing have been driven by outright hoaxes about H.R. 6666, legislation from Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) that would put $100 billion into coronavirus testing and contact tracing. 

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The bill’s number alone puts it perilously close to the supposedly Satanic number “666,” right as conspiracy theorists have become convinced that any coronavirus vaccine would be the “Mark of the Beast.” Prominent conspiracy theory outlet InfoWars declared that the bill was the “Bill of the Beast,” while rumors spread on social media claiming that the bill would authorize contact tracers to abduct children.

Privacy watchdogs have raised legitimate concerns about how contact tracing data could be used, especially when the data is collected through apps. On Monday, the ACLU called for additional safeguards to protect contact tracing data. A report on a North Dakota contact tracing app found several privacy flaws. 

QAnon conspiracy theorist DeAnna Lorraine tells her viewers/followers not to get tested for COVID-19 because *SHE* doesn't want to be contacted by contact tracers if they test positive. pic.twitter.com/I2V2sVQeDU
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) May 20, 2020

But much of the fearmongering about contact tracing seems to be driven by ignorance of what it actually is. Failed Republican congressional candidate and QAnon conspiracy theorist DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, whose call to “#FireFauci” Trump retweeted in April, has urged her fans to not get tested for COVID-19. She also appears to misunderstand contact tracing, claiming that contact tracers go through phone “contact” lists, rather than in-person contacts. 

“I don’t want people to get tested, because I don’t want to be in their phone, in their contact list, and if you guys are all following me on Twitter and following me on YouTube, then I’m probably going to be in your contact list,” Tesoriero told her fans in a video. “So I would prefer not to be there. They specifically said if they find one person, then they’re going to make sure they call all of that person’s contacts, whether they have 5,000 contacts or 5 contacts. And I really don’t feel like being called, I want to get off the grid of this system.”

On her Thursday night show, Ingraham positioned herself as perhaps conservative media’s leading contact tracing skeptic. But her guests went even further than her, with Claremont Institute senior fellow John Eastman adopting what was meant to be a German or Russian accent to imitate a contact tracing interviewer. 

Ingraham guest Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the DiscoveryInstitute's Center on Human Exceptionalism, claimed that contact tracing meant that the “French revolution is attacking the American revolution.” Ingraham agreed, comparing contact tracers to radical French revolutionaries. 

“The Jacobins, they’re back,” she said 

YEP 
JACOBINMAG.COM


BOTH THE AMERICAN AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION INCLUDING THE JACOBINS WERE INFLUENCED BY THE INTERNATIONALIST, GLOBALIST, HUMANIST, REVOLUTIONARY THOMAS PAINE

Thomas Paine and the French Revolution. Tom Paine was the most pro-French Revolution propagandist. He had helped the Americans in their conflict against Britain with his pamphlet Common Sense and possibly had also had a hand in writing the Declaration of Independence. He had tried to encourage democracy in England.

Thomas Paine and the French Revolution - History Home

www.historyhome.co.uk › c-eight › france › frevpain

SENIOR FELLOW MY ASS WHAT ACADEMIC STANDING DOES HE HAVE 
SENIOR FELLOW IS NOT AN ACADEMIC STANDING 
I GUESS AMERICAN HISTORY LET ALONE EUROPEAN HISTORY WAS
 NOT PART OF INGRAHAM'S CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGIST DEGREE EITHER 

NEITHER OF THESE KNOW WHAT THEY SPEAK OF.

EUGENE PLAWIUK BA
SENIOR FELLOW, HISTORY
FREE UNIVERSITY OF BRUDERHEIM 

Thomas Paine's Revolutionary Reckoning - HistoryNet

https://www.historynet.com › thomas-paines-revolutionary-reckoning

Citizen Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet Common Sense helped ignite the American Revolution, was an enthusiastic early supporter of the French Revolution. He ...

Thomas Paine - HISTORY

https://www.history.com › topics › american-revolution › thomas-paine

Oct 23, 2019 - Thomas Paine was an England-born political philosopher and writer who supported revolutionary causes in America and Europe. ... to Europe and offered a stirring defense of the French Revolution with “Rights of Man.

Thomas Paine - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Thomas_Paine

Jump to Funding the Revolution - Paine has a claim to the title The Father of the American Revolution, which rests on his pamphlets, especially Common ...

‎Early life and education · ‎American Revolution · ‎Rights of Man · ‎Legacy

Thomas Paine (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

https://plato.stanford.edu › entries › paine

by M Philp - ‎2013 - ‎Cited by 3 - ‎Related articles

Jul 18, 2013 - Thomas Paine was a pamphleteer, controversialist and international revolutionary. ... was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution. ... Paine contemplated writing a history of the French Revolution but he ...

‎Life · ‎Political Theory · ‎Significance and Legacy · ‎Bibliography

Thomas Paine - Common Sense, Quotes & Death - Biography

https://www.biography.com › scholar › thomas-paine

Sep 11, 2019 - During the American Revolution, Paine served as a volunteer personal assistant to General Nathanael Greene, traveling with the Continental ...

Thomas Paine | Biography, Common Sense, & Rights of Man ...

https://www.britannica.com › Literature › Journalism

Thomas Paine, political propagandist whose Common Sense pamphlet and Crisis papers influenced the American Revolution.

Thomas Paine and the French Revolution | Reviews in History

https://reviews.history.ac.uk › review

Apr 12, 2019 - Thomas Paine, the most widely read political thinker in the late 18th century, played a notable role in the American Revolution, in the ...

Thomas Paine - USHistory.org

https://www.ushistory.org › PAINE

This simple quotation from Founding Father Thomas Paine's The American Crisis not only describes the beginnings of the American Revolution, but also the life ...