A note on Alberta's Orphan Well Association stats: The OWA website figure (5,030 sites for decommissioning) has not been updated since the beginning of April.(www.orphanwell.ca/inventory/in...) If they follow their normal practice, I expect updated OWA numbers by May 13th or sooner.

Canada’s fragmented electronic health records harm patients and cost taxpayers billions: New research

Ominous. I get the sense this summer is going to kill in Vancouver because of runaway climate change and the El Niño cycle. If you can, prepare for serious heat and possible power shortages. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

A bi-weekly meeting of several BC ministries, industry regulators and the RCMP's CRU-BC protest policing unit has been keeping tabs on "ongoing climate action initiatives and treaty negotiations," according to a January update. My latest for @thetyee.ca. thetyee.ca/News/2026/04...

CST Canada Coal had another mine wastewater problem on April 20, 2026. They have repeated infractions for excessive total suspended solids, and this one looks huge: "Daily TSS exceedance Limit is 350 mg/l lab results showed 3897 mg/l." No sign of AER enforcement on the compliance dashboard yet.

"This time will be different, Carney says"

New Post: Bill 30, Expedited Project Approvals: Proponents Should Look Before They Leap ablawg.ca/2026/04/24...…before-they-leap/

Four months ago, a Narwhal investigation revealed the Alberta Energy Regulator appeared to violate a ministerial order when approving MAGA Energy to acquire additional oil and gas wells. Yesterday, the regulator announced it has suspended the company’s operations. thenarwhal.ca/alberta-maga...

There was a brief discussion of orphan wells (actually wells, pipelines, and facilities, but often shortened to just ‘wells’) in the Alberta legislature on Wednesday. (docs.assembly.ab.ca/LADDAR_files..., see pages 1475-1476) I’ve got some notes on the discussion. [1]

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on record in the legislature (on Wednesday April 15) saying that her government wants to artificially inflate the price of natural gas to keep struggling companies afloat - but wouldn't that mean ordinary Albertans paying MORE for their natural gas? #ABLeg #ABPoli

What on Earth is the CRA up to? Almost makes me wish I did tax law, but there's only so much time in life... www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

New Post: The Minority Report on Electoral Districts: Will the Law Protect Alberta from UCP Gerrymandering? ablawg.ca/2026/04/13...…p-gerrymandering/

Bankes and Tienhaara provide great coverage of both the specific local question of Northback's Grassy Mountain lawsuit against Canada, and a general summary of the problem with Investor-state Dispute Settlement processes. Albertans should be aware of both.

Lots more orphan wells! In case you thought Alberta was running out. www.aer.ca/about-aer/me...

📰 #Finance "CALGARY, April 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has turned over all remaining energy assets for Long Run Exploration Ltd. (Long Run) in Alberta to the Orphan Well Association (OWA) to complete closure work. The company filed for receivership…"

Jody MacPherson has been doing a great job of following Kevin O'Leary's dreaming of Wonder Valley - here's her latest. open.substack.com/pub/jodymacp...

So many law review articles and he just tweeted it out

New post on the ATA's injunction application re: the Alberta government's use of s 33 to send teachers back to work and "ram down their throats" a collective agreement. Justice Mah has a lot to say about the role of courts in a constitutional democracy and the Bill 21 case is influential here.

"Thousands of Albertans like me live directly in this project’s ‘hazard zone’. In an explosion, people in our communities are facing anything from breathing issues to brain damage to instant death." daveberta.substack.com/p/farmers-an... #ABLeg #ABPoli #CDNPoli

In light of this announcement the comment period on the DRAFT Canada/AB IA co-operation agmt shd be extended for a further 21 day period post introduction of the Bill to assess its implications. #abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli @cpaws-snap.bsky.social @cpawssab.bsky.social www.alberta.ca/release.cfm?...

On March 12th, 2026, Alberta's Committee on Resource Stewardship discusses oil and gas issues. Few questions received useful answers, but Brian Jean did say 34 out of the 40 recommendations from David Yager's report on AER reform were implemented. (He did not specify which 6 were not implemented).

🇧🇪 🇨🇩 A Brussels court on Tuesday ordered a 93-year-old former Belgian diplomat to stand trial over the 1961 killing of Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba ➡️ u.afp.com/SLsX

Andrew Nikiforuk and @thetyee.ca have blown open the next step in the efforts of Northback Holdings and Gina Rinehart to claim compensation from Canada/Alberta for backing a bad project - the Grassy Mountain Project #abpoli #cdnpoli thetyee.ca/News/2026/03...

The UCP has handed the political victory to the JCCF and required the law society to cancel the Indigenous cultural competency program for lawyers. I knew the UCP would do this since October 2025, but I am surprised how fast the law society threw in the towel. ablawg.ca/2025/10/16/t...

What a disgraceful abdication of the responsibility - and opportunity - to advance reconciliation on the part of both the Law Society and the Alberta government.

Investor-state dispute settlement processes are one of the most egregious ways the international market advantages investors over democracies. Canada should remove the investor-state dispute clauses from all their international trade agreements.

NEW: The AER is demanding a rural landowner agree to a private meeting with no electronic devices before considering his conflict of interest complaint against board member David Yager. open.substack.com/pub/theorcha...

New Post: The Proposed Co-operation Agreement on Environmental and Impact Assessment between Canada and Alberta ablawg.ca/2026/03/18...…nada-and-alberta/

Recording of Professor Dodek's lecture on the rule of law now available: (or at cnlh.ubc.ca/conversation...)

Is the Alberta Energy Regulator truly an independent entity or is it beholden to this government and the corporations that lobby it? "Mr. Morgan’s decision “gravely concerning,” saying it “undermines the authority and autonomy of the HCO and appears likely inconsistent with law.”

The comedy here connects to a weird hypocrisy in Canadian law that a municipal lawyer brought to my attention: Canadian provincial governments require municipal governments to be far more transparent than they require themselves to be, and they have no good justification for this.

If it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between fossil-fuel lobbyists and the billionaire press, that's because there isn’t one. My column on the politicians, journalists and junktanks using the Iran crisis as an excuse to extract our remaining gas and oil. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Ah gee I dunno

A really terrific interview with Jeremy Wildeman. It gets surprisingly far into the history and sums up the global order problem quite well in a very short interview.

Indigenous chiefs go to Alberta legislature, pressure province to nip separatism push From me and @reportrix.bsky.social today: www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/prairies_bc/...

Excellent piece. As Duane reminds us the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the US and Iran (and other world powers) that Obama negotiated in 2015 was working until Trump # 1 tore it up. The suffering & misery which this man is personally responsible for is immense. #cdnpoli

(1) It is funny that Smith responds to any and all events by saying they show the need for a pipeline. (2) High oil prices today can't justify long-term investments anymore, as in the long-term, buyers will switch to alternative energy sources that will be more reliably priced.

New Post: The Application of Provincial Statutes of Limitation to Indigenous Claims ablawg.ca/2026/02/26...…ndigenous-claims/

Without the convenient and familiar scapegoat of Justin Trudeau to blame for the sector’s troubles, Enbridge seems to be concocting a hypothetical jurisdictional crisis to excuse the private sector from paying for a pipeline, writes Taylor C Noakes.

Trump's Attack on Iran About to Light the Middle East on Fire Typical Trump. Wants regime change, but no endgame. Doesn't understand that the Revolutionary Guards are more radical than the current leaders. Prof James Hardcastle explains. #Iran youtu.be/AYm1WNU_1Ok

Carney's statement of support for the U.S.'s assault on Iran is sickening. Diplomatic options to address Iran's nuclear program existed and the U.S. deliberately sabotaged them. The U.S. has no real plan to build a democracy in Iran, only to crush it to dust and leave the people to suffer. (1/2)

Ah. It seems that Carney's speech at Davos was actually just an elaborate joke. Well played, sir. I was convinced there for a moment that you had scruples

I'm looking at old (2015) AER records again and found this gem. This was not a good sign for things to come. (the redactions on this are mine, I do not want to put the names of individual employees directly onto social media even where they are accessible through FOI/ATI).

A nice in-depth history of Alberta mining policy from 2022 (but I had not seen it until today). stateofthemountains.ca/state-of-the...

New Post: AlphaBow Again Challenges AER Enforcement Related to Oil and Gas Closure Liabilities During Insolvency  ablawg.ca/2026/02/23...…uring-insolvency/

It is absurd that any english law remains in force in Alberta without having been restated in modernized legislation. It is a rule of law problem for any law to be this cryptic. No legislation in force should be more than 50 years old, even if the updates are only to adjust out of date terminology.

Last week, I learned an adjudicator had sided with me in 5 inquiries re: the province refusing to release results of its Alberta Next surveys GOA published the multiple choice results in Dec but has been ordered to give me 213 pages of open-answer replies that haven't yet been shared #ableg #abpoli

Corb Lund's petition for no coal activities on the eastern slopes of the Rockies finally goes live (i.e. actually issued by Elections Alberta) - 120 day window, closes June 10. #abpoli #cdnpoli #ableg www.elections.ab.ca/resources/me...

There is a funny element to Saskatchewan extending their use of coal power is that Alberta natural gas companies have spent years talking about how their gas would replace coal power in China. I never found that very realistic (it relied on their audience not knowing much about China) (1/2)