Working People of Alberta and Their Allies Confront Australian Coal Billionaires
- Dr. Dougal MacDonald -
Calgary, March 28, 2021
A powerful mass movement has built in Alberta
against the recently revealed plans of the ruling
United Conservative Party (UCP) government to sell
out Alberta's coal reserves on the eastern slopes
of the Rocky Mountains to Australian coal
monopolies for a song. The mined coal was to be
ripped and then shipped to Asia. The protesters
rightly view open-pit coal mining in the
province's critical watersheds as a big threat to
their communities, the environment, and their
livelihoods.
 Hundreds of
thousands of Albertans from all walks of life have
been protesting the attempted coal sellout through
organized groups, alliances, public forums, lawn
signs, and a number of petitions that have
gathered in total over 100,000 signatures. Early
results from a May 2021 provincial survey of over
25,000 people show Albertans have major concerns
about expanding the industry. "More than 90 per
cent of respondents felt there are areas of the
province that are not appropriate for coal
exploration and development," say the survey
results released May 21.
The UCP revealed their plan to sell out to the
Australian monopolies in May 2020 when the
government rescinded Alberta's Coal Policy, which
for 44 years has kept 1.5 million hectares of
lands on the eastern slopes of the Rockies off
limits from open-pit mining. The UCP axed the 1976
Coal Policy with no public consultation, although
they did consult the Alberta-based Coal
Association of Canada which represents the coal
mine owners. The UCP denies that its aim was to
open up the eastern slopes to the mining
monopolies but Australia-based Capital Investment
Partners, which owns four coal companies with
leases in the central Rockies, reported to
investors in 2019 that "the Alberta government is
in the process of changing the coal policy to
allow more open pit mining."
The intensity of the ongoing protests to date has
forced the UCP to backtrack or at least to pretend
to backtrack. Alberta's Minister of Energy Sonya
Savage, a former pipeline executive, announced in
a news release on January 18 that due to public
opposition the prior sale of eleven coal leases to
the Australian monopolies would be cancelled and
that no more would be sold on land where open-pit
mines were forbidden under the old policy.
Protestors pointed out that the cancelled leases
were only a tiny fraction of the leases sold since
the Coal Policy was quashed.
 On February 8,
Savage reversed the decision to rescind the 1976
Coal Policy, claiming that the UCP now plans
wide-ranging consultations on a new coal policy.
She announced that a five-person committee has
been appointed headed by a private consultant who
has worked for the World Bank and is a member of
the neo-liberal, corporate-funded Canadian Global
Affairs Institute. Of course, Albertans are well
aware that all such UCP-initiated consultations
are phony and will only lead to conclusions
predetermined by the monopolies and their sellout
government.
Between 2003 and 2013, the Australian monopolies
mined at home, supplying growing Asian markets
with iron ore, steel-making coal, and coal for
generating electricity and making huge profits.
But declining resource quality as well as people's
increased opposition to open-pit mining in
Australia has forced the Australian monopolies to
look elsewhere for coal to ship to Asia.
Australian coal monopolies are now hoping that
Alberta's sellout UCP government will offer the
same formula underlying their past success in
Australia: low royalties, low corporate taxes,
minimal regulations, and cooperative politicians.
In other words, the same formula the UCP uses with
the fossil fuel monopolies operating in Alberta.
The UCP's shady moves in the interests of the
Australian coal billionaires illustrate once again
how the global monopolies privately own and
control the contemporary economy and dominate
official politics. Their private ownership exists
in contradiction with the modern economy's
socialized nature, its interlocking reality and
the billions of actual producers who create the
social product necessary for the existence of the
people and society but have no say over the
economy's direction.
The aim of private ownership is to make maximum
profit from the parts of the economy the owners
control -- such as coal mining -- and force the
state to do their bidding and pay the rich. This
leads to dysfunction in the economy and recurring
crises as the competing parts conflict with each
other and with the interests of the actual
producers who have no say. The narrow aim of the
coal oligarchs for their private gain, for
example, clashes with the need of the various
sectors and enterprises of the economy to function
in harmony for the common good.
The objective conditions pose the issue of how to
deal with environmental problems and the
despoiling of nature, such as is the case with
open pit coal mining, where the tops of mountains
are literally cut off and the "waste" thrown into
nearby river valleys to block flow and pollute the
waterways with dangerous chemicals such as
selenium. The key problem is that people lack
control over their economies and official
politics. Without taking into account the
domination of the global monopolies over
everything, most efforts to deal with
environmental problems get manipulated by the very
forces causing the problems and turned into
programs to pay the rich.
Of course, issues such as industrial and other
pollution, land degradation, soil dispersal, dust,
incessant noise, poisonous gases, and water
contamination, all effects of open-pit mining, can
each be raised on their own. Suggestions,
campaigns and remedies can be fought out to a
temporary resolution such as the UCP's
cancellation of some coal leases, reversal of the
rescinded coal legislation, and the "promise" to
hold consultations to develop a new coal
policy.
However, to turn any success into lasting
victory, the problem of the oligarchs' overall
domination of all aspects of life must be raised
and confronted in a serious way and major efforts
put into overcoming this domination and building
the New.
This article was published in
Volume 51 Number 6 - June 6, 2021
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/M5100611.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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