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Alberta country music artist Corb Lund says his team has collected enough signatures to compel the province to take action to stop coal mining on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
Lund didn’t say how many signatures were received, but almost 178,000 are required under provincial law.
The next step is to hand the names over to Elections Alberta for verification.
In a Monday news release, Lund said he will do that on the final official day of the petition campaign on Wednesday.
“Reaching this threshold proves what we’ve known all along — people care deeply about protecting our headwaters, our Rocky Mountains and our way of life,” he said.
The petition asked signers to endorse prohibiting new coal mining in the Rockies on the grounds it needlessly risks harming the environment, particularly water.
For the past four months, Lund’s effort — dubbed “Water Not Coal” — has gathered signatures at events, including a multi-day horseback ride from Longview, Alta., south of Calgary, to Edmonton.
The group said it registered more than 3,000 canvassers.
A successful petition would force Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative government to consider passing a law banning coal mining or sending it to a provincewide referendum.
Last month, Lund said even if they got the required signatures, he doesn’t necessarily trust Smith’s government will act on it.
Laura Laing, a rancher and spokesperson for Water Not Coal, said they want permanent protection for water, agricultural corridors and the Rockies.
“This is what democracy looks like when citizens lead,” she said in the release Monday.
WATCH | Corb Lund relaunches anti-coal mining petition:
Renewed attempt to stop coal mining in Rockies
Since 2020, coal mining has been especially contentious in Alberta. During that time, country musician Corb Lund became a vocal opponent of coal exploration in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Now, as CBC’s Jo Horwood reports, his advocacy is moving to a more official step with the relaunch of a petition that the provincial government says could be included in October’s referendum.
The UCP has said mining will be done with strict environmental safeguards while providing jobs and delivering a critical resource.
Smith has said she supports direct democracy, and has invoked Lund’s petition as an example of her government giving voice to Albertans. Smith has already announced an Oct. 19 vote on whether the province should stay in Canada or kick-start a second referendum on whether to leave.
“I’ll be waiting to see whether or not [Lund and supporters] have the required signatures,” Smith said last month.
Should the signatures be verified, the province’s citizen-led initiative law requires the proposal to be put before a committee of lawmakers to make a recommendation to government on what to do with it.
The legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until Oct. 27.
A statement from Justice Minister Mickey Amery’s office said the government will “wait to see this process play out and for the final signature count from Elections Alberta once the signature verification period ends.”
The province has been wrestling with its coal policy for years.
In 2020, the UCP removed decades-old rules that had protected the eastern slopes of the Rockies from open-pit coal mining. The province began issuing leases.
After a firestorm of public pushback, the UCP reinstated the protections and stopped selling exploration leases.
It has since announced a plan to ban mountaintop removal and new open-pit mines, but new regulations are still being finalized and advanced projects could still proceed through the approval process.