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Letter: Hard to talk to your representatives when you can’t feel heard
By Letter to the Editor on May 29, 2025.
Re: Critics blast Alberta Energy Regulator coal project approval by Alexandra Noad in the Medicine Hat News on May 21, 2025. Dear editor, In this article, Rob Miyashiro, MLA Lethbridge West, “encouraged Albertans to contact their local MLA … to let them know they don’t support the mine.” That’s great advice, only I had an appointment with MLA Justin Wright regarding my opposition to the coal mine that I had made three weeks prior, and the day I walked into his office (with six slides, two of them were maps) to document exactly why this coal mine will be a disaster for his constituents in Medicine Hat; I was greeted with, “Didn’t you get my message?” from his receptionist. They had left a message on my phone the day before, which unfortunately, I hadn’t listened to. She offered to reschedule my appointment for June 20 – fully six weeks away. As I left, I noticed three people in the waiting room and when they stepped out of the office 35 minutes later, I spoke with them. They told me they were pharmacists and said they’d had their own meeting rescheduled that morning from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (2 p.m. was my meeting time.) Their cancelled meeting was rescheduled for the same day; my cancelled meeting was rescheduled for six weeks from the date of cancellation. My point is, if, as constituents, we are not treated seriously by our MLA, who do we turn to? I’d like to offer the readers of this newspaper a summary of the presentation I had prepared for MLA Wright. 1. The AER is not a reliable or independent regulator – we cannot depend on it to protect our water from selenium contamination. 2. The minister is not reliable. It was only four years ago that Brian Jean wrote an opinion piece in the Calgary Herald (Feb. 8, 2021), outlining his opposition to the coal mine, ‘based on our water and environment, our long-term reputation and that the cost benefit to coal may not be there.’ 3. In Medicine Hat, we only have one river. It is our sole water source. Rising selenium levels from the Elk Valley Coal mine recently forced Fernie to find a new secondary water source. We do not have that option. Anna Hansen Medicine Hat 11-10
As the former conservative MLAs taught me after Lougheed’s energy minister Bill Dickie was a brother in-law of one of my uncles these Reformers are only interested in blaming problems on others and are hellbent on destroying everything previous conservative governments have created for the good of the people and that’s exactly what they are doing. Destroying Lougheed’s oil royalties and corporate tax structures has cost Albertans the loss of $1.2 trillion which is why we are in financial ruin and Alaska and Norway aren’t.
These Reformers had no business destroying the protection conservative Lougheed put on our mountains, especially after Coal Tech was fined $60 million for polluting the water in B.C. and Montana but that’s what Reformers do, destroy what conservatives create.