Alberta
Wetlands spontaneously forming in oil sands region’s reclaimed boreal forest
Suncor Energy employees monitoring wetlands in the oil sands in northern Alberta. Photo courtesy Suncor Energy
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will GibsonWetlands and peatlands are a crucial part of the boreal forest’s ecosystem
A zoologist by training, Jan Ciborowski has spent more than three decades wading through wetlands in the Great Lakes and northeastern Alberta. During that time, he has come to appreciate how nature can change the best laid plans of even the smartest scientists and engineers.
Ciborowski and a team of undergraduate and graduate students are now studying a recently documented phenomenon that highlights nature’s guiding hand: spontaneous wetlands forming in reclaimed areas in the oil sands.
These so-called “opportunistic wetlands” began developing on oil sands sites reclaimed and planted to become forests decades ago at Suncor Energy’s Base Mine and Syncrude’s Mildred Lake Mine north of Fort McMurray.
“Up to 18 per cent of the reclaimed area expected to become forests have seen wetlands spontaneously forming. We are investigating whether they are likely to persist and forecast whether they will be able to sustain themselves,” says Ciborowski, who has held the NSERC/COSIA Industrial Research Chair in Oilsands Wetlands Reclamation at the University of Calgary’s Department of Biological Sciences since 2019.
“We can make forecasts about what will develop over hundreds of years when you reclaim an area but it’s not in our hands. Nature makes those decisions.”
Wetlands and peatlands are a crucial part of the boreal forest’s ecosystem, serving as vital habitat to hundreds of species of wildlife, including waterfowl, songbirds, and mammals such as beaver and moose. They act like sponges, absorbing precipitation and run-off that prevents flooding, and providing water during dry periods to the surrounding upland forests. Peatlands also serve as sinks to store carbon.
Because oil sands companies are legally committed to reclaim their leases to a status equivalent to prior to disturbance, they benefit from wetlands on their reclaimed sites.
The two oldest mining operations — Suncor’s Base Mine and Syncrude’s Mildred Lake Mine — have constructed man-made wetlands on reclaimed sites, where the companies have conducted research.
This is why the presence of opportunistic wetlands, which have been forming on their own, have created a great deal of interest within the industry.
Ciborowski’s team is studying 120 wetlands in the region ranging from two to 40 years of age. Half are on reclaimed oil sands sites and the other half are not.
“These are all very young compared to mature peatlands that have taken hundreds of years to develop. We are monitoring water quantity, water quality, landscape disturbance, and the colonizing plants and animals to understand how conditions develop and to forecast wetlands’ succession,” he says.
Outside of the oil sands, opportunistic wetlands can form when water balances change after forest fires consume the trees, or when beaver activity causes ponds to start forming.
“These can be our frame of reference for comparison with the wetlands forming on reclaimed landscapes. The real challenge is being able to understand whether those wetlands will remain when the trees grow to maturity,” he says.
While it is hard to forecast the future for opportunistic wetlands, Ciborowski has seen how early studies have influenced the science of reclamation and practices within the industry.
“What’s exciting about our work is we’ve gathered experts in a number of different disciplines — hydrology, geosciences, plant ecology, aquatic ecology to name a few — to work together on reclamation science. My belief in research is that collaboration is crucial. One can’t expect to find the necessary breadth of expertise to do it in a single lab.”
From LifeSiteNews
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.
“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.
“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”
Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.
The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”
It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”
Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”
Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.
With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.
About the proposed law, Smith said that her government believes it is “vitally important to preserve the time” kids have as a “youth.” She added that she believes this is so kids can “gain sufficient amount of knowledge, experience, and perspective so that you can fully understand who you are, who you want to be and what opportunities you may want to have as an adult before making permanent life-altering decisions related to your body.”
While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”
This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.
Alberta
Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest
From LifeSiteNews
Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.
An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.
On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.
“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.
Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.
“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”
After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.
Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.
He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.
In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”
However, defence lawyer Sarah Miller pointed out that that Pawlowski’s sermon was protected under freedom of speech, an argument that Krinke quickly dismissed.
“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.
Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.
Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.
The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.
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