The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy

The episode—from the Water in Southern Alberta podcast miniseries co-hosted with Bob Morrison which originally aired in June 2025—brings together legal and planning experts to unpack how Alberta’s water law and water market function, especially in southern Alberta. Arlene Kwasniak, a long‑time scholar of water law from the University of Calgary, outlines the complex legal framework governing water, starting from the Canadian Constitution’s division of powers between federal and provincial governments over issues like fisheries, navigation, federal lands, Indigenous lands, and provincial property in water. She emphasizes that alongside federal and provincial statutes, Indigenous law, common law, international law, and policy all influence water management, but her focus is on Alberta’s Water Act and water‑use rights. Before modern legislation, common law riparian rights gave only landowners adjacent to water bodies limited household and “extraordinary” uses, with built‑in equity and sustainability because all riparians shared the same rights and could enforce them in court. These rights were largely extinguished by the Northwest Irrigation Act, which vested ownership of provincial waters in the Crown and introduced the prior allocation principle—“first in time, first in right” (FITFIR)—where licence priority is determined by date of application and senior users are fully satisfied before juniors in times of shortage. Arlene traces the evolution from the Northwest Irrigation Act to Alberta’s Water Resources Act and then the Water Act, noting that groundwater was brought under Crown ownership and FITFIR in 1962, replacing the old rule of capture. The Water Act introduced major river basin divisions and approved water management plans—currently for the South Saskatchewan, Battle, and Milk River basins—which must be considered in key regulatory decisions like transfers. It also created statutory authorizations: household and agricultural exemptions with quantified annual volumes, and licences that grant diversion rights for specified purposes (municipal, irrigation, commercial, habitat enhancement, recreation, water conservation objectives, and others) typically on renewable 10‑year terms, while older licences have no expiry and are easily renewed. New licences can include water conservation objective (WCO) conditions that allow the director to restrict diversions when flows fall below set thresholds, whereas older licences may have in‑stream objectives (IOs) that are generally less protective. Arlene contrasts both WCOs and IOs with scientifically determined in‑stream flow needs (IFNs), arguing that WCOs and IOs are more politically set and often below IFN levels, limiting ecosystem protection.Assessing the Water Act against an idealized water law, Arlene finds major shortcomings. She notes that while there are some tools to curb impacts for new licences, existing licences are strongly protected, there is no expropriation power for water rights, and cancellation is only possible when rights have gone unused for three years with no reasonable prospect of use. The Act offers only limited mechanisms to secure sufficient in‑stream flows, does not recognize or secure Indigenous water rights, and does not integrate quantity and quality regulation, conjunctive management of surface and groundwater, formal watershed governance, clear rules for alternative sources (wastewater, rainwater, stormwater, saline water), or climate change mitigation and adaptation—though the government is proposing amendments on some of these fronts. Household use has the highest priority, partially securing basic human needs. Overall, Arlene would grade the Act a “D” and says she would not pass it, arguing Alberta could have moved away from FITFIR toward more equitable systems like those in Saskatchewan, Australia, and New Zealand, but powerful sectors—oil and gas, municipalities, and agriculture—resisted change. In practice, Davin McIntosh—a water rights consultant and broker who specializes in facilitating water transfers in Alberta, with prior experience as a planning and municipal development lawyer and involvement in a significant proportion of water transfers in the Bow River Basin and Southern Alberta—points out that priority calls under FITFIR are rarely made, with Alberta preferring voluntary reductions to avoid cutting off junior users, especially municipalities whose licences are technically subject to FITFIR but whose drinking water cannot realistically be curtailed. Davin then explains why and how water transfers were introduced. As recognition grew in the 1980s–1990s that full exercise of long‑standing rights could push rivers below environmentally sustainable levels, the Water Act added transfer provisions, and a 2007 moratorium on new licences in many areas made transfers the main mechanism for reallocating water. He describes an eight‑step process: * finding a suitable right (difficult because rights are rarely advertised and cancellation risk discourages signalling non‑use), * negotiating price and contracts despite uncertainty of approval, * confirming the licence is in good standing (including compliance checks and sometimes costly reconstruction of works to match old plans), * submitting a paper application, * responding to extensive and discretionary requests for information from the director, * publishing mandatory public notice and handling statements of concern, possible public meetings, and finally a decision. He highlights the director’s broad discretion and evolving, often unwritten policies—such as disallowing transfers “around a corner” in a Y‑shaped tributary, apportionment rules limiting how much can move from a mainstem to a tributary, * partial good‑standing determinations, and * the 10% conservation holdback that created government WCO licences but is now proposed to be scrapped due to limited overall transfer volumes. With only about 400 transfers approved since 2007, roughly half being arm’s‑length, the conservation holdback has not significantly boosted in‑stream protection. Throughout the discussion, we stress that enforcement of ecological needs and federal powers has been weak. Arlene notes that IFNs are not directly recognized in the Water Act, that WCOs and IOs fall short of IFNs, and that private in‑stream flow licences are not currently allowed, though government can and has issued WCO licences to itself. More water lessons within the Water In Southern Alberta miniseries. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Bob Sandford introduces himself to the Concerned Citizens on Climate Change (4C) group, in February of 2026, as a long-time Alberta-based water and climate expert who now serves as senior government relations liaison for global climate emergency response at the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, noting that his institute recently launched a major global report on “global water bankruptcy” at the UN General Assembly. He frames his remarks within UN principles and Indigenous rights, emphasizing that all cultures contribute to a shared human heritage. From his vantage point as an Albertan, he criticizes the UCP government’s libertarian direction, arguing that its policies undermine healthcare, education, and environmental protection while flooding the public sphere with divisive, misleading messaging that distracts from deeper crises and an apparent agenda to dismantle democracy and separate Alberta from Canada. He warns that amid these distractions, a long‑advancing global water crisis has become an even more immediate threat than accelerated climate warming, which Alberta’s government largely denies.Sandford explains the UN “global water bankruptcy” concept as a post‑crisis state where societies persistently withdraw more water than renewable flows can support, depleting natural capital such as snowpack, glaciers, wetlands, and groundwater that provide “liquid income.” The report shows that even water‑rich countries like Canada, and regions such as southern Alberta, are not immune and may be nearing water bankruptcy, prompting initiatives like the Canada Water Agency. He argues that Alberta has failed to “repay” nature through forest, watershed, and biodiversity protection, and that maladaptive responses—creating weak watershed bodies, building more dams, drilling deeper wells, and diverting rivers—temporarily mask insecurity while deepening insolvency. Nature, he says, is now “initiating foreclosure” by shutting off water, as seen in glacier loss and shrinking snow and ice, and each drained wetland or logged headwater further erodes resilience beyond what engineering can replace.Summary continues before this news update!WOW: Did you see Hoekstra on Ryan Jespersen’s Real Talk?With water bankruptcy—and the West Texas Intermediate system collapse on the horizon—can you believe what is coming out of Pete Hoekstra’s mouth? Frequency of Contact with Alberta Premier:Admits that he talks to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith “maybe once every three or four weeks” and speaks with her representatives in Ottawa “at least every week.”Lack of Expertise on Canadian Perspectives:States: “I’m not an expert on Canadian citizens or why they think the way that they do or what drives them and those kinds of things.” This is Pete’s job.Acknowledgment of the “No Need for Canada” Position:Confirms: “He says we don’t need Canada” — acknowledging that the president has made this statement on the record.The Sales Approach:Expects the Canadian provinces to “put on your sales hat” and actively pitch why buying from Canada is beneficial, rather than expecting automatic trade relationships.Bob and Water Bankruptcy continuedLooking ahead, Sandford urges Alberta to formally acknowledge water bankruptcy risk and adopt transparent, fair rules for sharing scarcity, with participatory processes and strong social safety nets—conditions he says are absent under the current government. He links water security directly to food security and broader sustainable and circular economies, noting that water is often the only issue warring or divided groups can agree on, citing examples from the Middle East, the Northwest Territories, and transboundary agreements with Alberta. He highlights emerging climate science from James Hansen suggesting another El Niño and accelerated warming that could push global temperatures toward 2°C in the 2030s, with Canada warming at twice the global rate, implying severe drought, reduced snowpack, year‑round wildfire risk, and deep social and economic disruption in Alberta by 2027 and beyond. He likens the current moment to “Munich 1939,” arguing that Alberta is unprepared for three degrees of warming, with unpredictable precipitation, concurrent floods and droughts, and increasingly manipulated water licensing.Politically, Sandford and other speakers connect water to a broader project of “rescuing, reviving, and restoring democracy” in Alberta, suggesting that the looming threat of water bankruptcy could galvanize citizens across issues like education, healthcare, and food security without relying on existing political parties.TAKE ACTIONJoin Public Interest Alberta’s, “No thanks. We choose hope.” Campaign! Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In light of the closing of the Alberta Water Council—as we learned from Jay White—and the 2026 Global Water Bankruptcy report—courtesy of Bob Sandford—now is a great time to revisit Engineer J. Bruce Smedley’s recommendation to form a public water agency. This conversation from August 2024 centers on Alberta’s escalating water crisis, framed by drought conditions, failing infrastructure, and inadequate government planning and oversight. I outline recent drought impacts, including four southern Alberta communities that had to have water trucked in, and highlights the auditor general’s findings: modelling is limited to parts of the province, most basins lack conservation objectives, there is weak monitoring of water pressure and risk triggers, and enforcement of water licenses and compliance is ineffective. Bruce stress that current models assume “water in equals water out” and ignore losses from heat and evapotranspiration, and that surface water analysis is largely missing, with monitoring focused on rivers and streams rather than the full hydrological picture. We also connect Alberta’s decisions to downstream regions, noting that Alberta is effectively “the taps” for Saskatchewan and Manitoba,—not the Mississippi basin (oops!)—so local choices have far-reaching consequences.Against this backdrop, Bruce presents his proposal for an integrated water resource preservation and restoration agency that is public, independent, apolitical, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and accountable. Bruce’s Water Agency Framework* Terms of Reference: coherent initiative of social planning with an interdisciplinary approach to managing water basin resources and their uses to identify and satisfy water resource stability and sustainability sufficient to secure ecological, social, and human subsistence indefinitely given resource conflicts, external disruptions, and climate change.* Scope of work: to include intake, withdrawal and loss of every drop of surface water, groundwater, aquifer, relative to watershed management including; flood control, tourism, hydropower, fisheries, water quality, navigation, sand and gravel extraction, and riverbank enhancement, erosion, relocation, etc.* Adequate data collection and information consistent with the scope and modeling requirements.* Scenario modeling and analysis including climate change, extreme weather, financial and institutional risk.* Government and public response, input, and real time communication and information.* Forecast modeling consistent with sustaining food, health, safety, ecosystem, and biomass sustainability.* Agency accountability that ensures system integrity and optimized investment decisions, allocation of capital resources, time horizons, and project implementation and operations.* Communication to inform public awareness. disaster readiness, and ensure contingency plans are available for rapid disaster response, food and water security, as well as communicate cost, liability, and inherent risk in real time, consistent with global weather fluctuations of hours, days, and weeks.* Government and industry funding, staffing, scheduling, and accountability.His letter calls for a 10,000‑foot, river‑basin‑wide perspective that considers future water supply under climate change, glacier loss, and increasingly extreme and erratic weather, rather than just current allocations. He argues that no one is currently modelling entire basins or systematically integrating rainfall, aquifers, usage, and ecosystem needs across agriculture, urban, recreational, and wildlife uses. The proposed agency’s terms of reference include tracking intake, withdrawal, and loss of every drop of water from mountain precipitation through snow and ice fields to river flows, recognizing that only about 25% of falling moisture becomes usable river water. It would use complex systems modelling and advances in mathematics and AI to run scenario analyses, identify failure points, and guide long‑term, province‑wide planning, funded on a multi‑decade horizon rather than political cycles.The discussion then broadens into practical implications, governance gaps, and examples of both failure and opportunity. We describe failing and aging infrastructure, such as Calgary’s major water pipe installed 49 years ago and similar vulnerabilities in other systems, noting that promises of “hundred‑year” assets outlast the people responsible and erode accountability. We criticize fragmented watershed councils that can only advise, not veto projects like proposed Bow River dams, and point out that infrastructure‑heavy solutions are being pursued despite scientific skepticism and uncertainty about future water availability. We highlight how development, oil and gas, and gravel extraction are expanding water use in sensitive areas even as shortages loom, and how sampling is mis‑targeted—focused on rivers rather than wells where contamination and drying are actually being observed by landowners. Bruce’s experience with government responses underscores a pattern of political “feel‑good” letters that claim things are under control without engaging the urgency or substance of his proposals, reinforcing the need for public pressure and stakeholder‑driven change. Finally, we emphasize accountability, equity, and systemic thinking about water, food, and land use. Bruce insists that all humans need water and should be treated equitably, and that agriculture, urban use, and industry must be reconsidered to reduce waste, including shifting to local food systems such as rooftop or vertical farming to cut transport and water use. Alex cites Dutch vertical gardening and local greenhouse operations as proof that low‑water, local production is feasible and could reduce emissions and pesticide use. We argue that small changes—like replacing imported strawberries with local production—can significantly alter complex models because everything is interrelated, and warn that once we alter systems (e.g., dams, clear‑cuts, urban heat islands), there is “no going back,” so interventions must be carefully evaluated for ecosystem impacts on flora, fauna, and even jet streams.Next Up, I’ll jump ahead reshare Bob Sandford’s outlining of risks of Global Water Bankruptcy. Stay tuned! Help me get to 500 subscribers on YouTube and 1000 here on Substack! Like and share this video. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The Gravity Well project as an effort to use dialogue to address environmental and social dilemmas, with a particular focus on water crises in Southern Alberta and the Eastern slopes as “taps” that are being degraded by logging, coal mining, oil and gas, and roads, as referred to in my conversation with Harley Bastien. This episode, released in August of 2024, features environmental historian, Shannon Stunden Bower, an associate professor at the University of Alberta, a white settler scholar working in environmental history and historical geography, and a leader in the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE), which aims to bring historical perspectives on human and non‑human nature to researchers, the public, and policymakers through blogs, books, and other publications. Bruce Smedley, a professional engineer with 50 years’ experience in environmental projects worldwide, adds that water has been central to industries from pulp and paper to mining and fisheries, and that his long engagement with climate change and environmental impact assessments has made him attentive to how industry, governments, and Indigenous communities intersect around water issues.Shannon then situates the famous “Dust Bowl” drought of the 1930s in a longer climate and economic context, explaining that settlers arrived during an unusually wet 15‑year period and mistook those conditions for normal, whereas tree‑ring records show that multi‑year droughts are part of the Prairie West’s long‑term climate. The 1930s crisis was intensified by three factors: lower‑than‑expected precipitation, collapsing wheat prices during the global depression, and accumulating damage from unsustainable agricultural practices such as black summer fallow, which degraded soils. We connect this to colonial policy, noting how agricultural colonization and the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905 were intertwined with the Department of Indian Affairs under Duncan Campbell Scott, reserve segregation, and legal mechanisms that dispossessed Indigenous peoples and blocked their emerging agricultural success, such as among the Blackfoot in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Shannon elaborates that agricultural settlement was “tightly coupled” with Indigenous dispossession, genocidal policies, and measures like the Peasant Farming policy that forced Indigenous farmers to use outdated technology while neighbouring settlers used modern machinery, all within a broader “clearing the plains” project described by James Daschuk.Our discussion turns to the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA), created in 1935 as part of Canada’s “New Deal” response to the 1930s emergency, and operating until its elimination in 2009 under Stephen Harper’s government in what some have called a “war on science.” Shannon describes PFRA’s early soil‑conservation strategy of strip farming—alternating cropped and fallowed strips to anchor topsoil—which produced unintended consequences by creating more field edges that favoured wheat stem sawflies, leading to severe pest outbreaks that caused some farmers to abandon strip farming despite ongoing soil loss. PFRA’s small‑scale water development projects, such as dugouts and stock‑watering ponds, are presented as relatively successful in providing reliable water for households, gardens, and livestock without large‑scale irrigation, whereas later large irrigation schemes were more complex. Shannon also recounts PFRA’s role in international development in northern Ghana, where Canadian expertise was exported to build water infrastructure; the project had mixed technical success but led to serious unintended health impacts due to increased water‑related diseases carried by snails and mosquitoes—risks that had not been present in the Canadian prairies—highlighting the dangers of transplanting models without local ecological and cultural knowledge.From there, the conversation broadens to contemporary farming, irrigation, and governance. Bruce notes that many prairie farmers historically arrived with little climate knowledge, took decades to learn the land, and now face soil deterioration and micronutrient loss after a century of farming, while cultural mismatches—whether Europeans in Canada or Canadians in Africa—underscore the importance of local knowledge. Shannon explains that farms have grown larger since the 1930s, making intimate, soil‑attentive management harder, and that the elimination of PFRA and other public agricultural science capacity under neoliberal “small government” has left farmers more dependent on corporations like Monsanto, whose mandate is profit rather than public interest, thereby increasing farmer vulnerability. She traces Alberta’s irrigation history from small individual schemes to corporate and cooperative models, and then to a 1930s shift that framed irrigation as a public good to justify state investment in large infrastructure, with later efficiency gains in the 1960s–70s; nonetheless, she stresses that “you can’t build your way out” of most problems and that more infrastructure alone often creates new issues. We contrast proposals for more dams, irrigation, and even north‑south water transfers—raising concerns about species transfer and failing infrastructure like the Oldman Dam and St. Mary Reservoir—with their preference for restoring headwater forests, removing roads and industrial sites, and enhancing natural storage and habitat.In the final part of the conversation, we explore potential paths forward. Alex advocates for wetland restoration as a low‑cost way to filter water, maintain movement to reduce sulphates and phosphates, and increase biodiversity, citing artificial wetland basins in his own community that effectively filter hill runoff before it reaches treatment plants. He and others draw parallels between past and present “New Deals,” migrant promises, and cycles of empire, industrialization, and monocropping, arguing that large machinery and annual GMO seed systems from companies like Bayer have disconnected farmers from their land and trapped them in unsustainable models, while small‑scale, greenhouse‑based local food production offers more intimate, resilient alternatives.Check Out More from Shannon and Bruce in the Water in Southern Alberta podcast mini-series. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In May of 2024, after watching the Dried Up documentary, I reached out to Harley Bastien of the Piikani First Nation. I asked Harley to tell me what I am missing in my thinking and he delivered. Reviewing this conversation today, I notice that I open with reference to Dixon Hammond and the Beaver Creek Watershed Crew, as well as giving power to landowners, not First Nations—yikes! A couple weeks ago at the Chiefs Steering Committee’s Think Tank on Water in Edmonton that the term “stakeholder” refers to taking a stake. Makes me wonder if it was not a coincident that I worked in the “Stakeholder Relations” department for the oil and gas industry rather than the Indigenous Relations department.The conversation begins with me situating the dialogue in the context of watershed protection and headwaters stewardship in Southern Alberta, describing how a local council brought together Indigenous representatives, residents, experts, and council members to ensure landowners lead decisions about their river system. I explain that despite 20 years of local work to care for the river, the broader headwaters remain vulnerable, emphasizing that logging, coal mining, and road building damage water sources and calling for restoration of the eastern slopes as protected “taps” for regional water. Harley introduces himself through his Blackfoot identity, explaining that he comes from the Ani people and sees himself as part of a lineage stretching back perhaps 10,000 generations, with a way of life “etched” into his being. He describes being taught that humans are not above other creation, that everything—including plants, animals, air, and even beings beyond Earth—has a spirit, and that Blackfoot teachings acknowledge “star people” or star beings who have visited Earth. Alongside this traditional upbringing, he recounts his “Canadian” education, brief work in oil and gas that he left because of its destructive impacts, and his subsequent decades in environmental consulting, where he deliberately avoided government employment and instead built private-sector initiatives like Harmony Walkers and Buffalo Rock Tipi Camp to blend Indigenous and Western science. He also serves on Alberta’s Indigenous Wisdom Advisory Panel but criticizes its focus on making oil sands appear acceptable, calling this misaligned with his values.As the discussion deepens, Harley contrasts Indigenous land-based learning with Western education, arguing that many scientists and professionals learn about land from computers and brief field visits rather than living on the land, which he sees as “missing the whole boat.” He recounts a vision quest that led him to “save the land” as a way of saving his culture and all those generations, and he critiques how perspectives are shaped by greed, arrogance, and narrow upbringing. He is sharply critical of Western schooling and religion, calling education “one of the roots of all evil” when it transmits lies, such as teaching that Columbus “discovered” a land already inhabited, or presenting sanitized histories that erase Indigenous presence and contributions. He denounces churches as often functioning like financial institutions and “torture chambers,” rejects mythologized religious narratives, and insists that children are being failed when they are not taught the truth about history, land, and humanity’s dependence on the rest of creation.Harley then links these critiques directly to environmental crisis and intergenerational responsibility, stressing that trees, animals, air, and water do not need humans, but humans absolutely need them. He condemns short-term, self-centered thinking focused on personal wealth, three-year returns, and material legacies while ignoring breathable air, clean water, and the broader web of life, arguing that most people are “me and ours” oriented and unwilling to look 100–200 years ahead. He describes “giving back” as a total life commitment—every day his “boots hit the floor” he is working for Mother Earth and all his relatives, not just human descendants, and he criticizes performative or minimal efforts, unpaid though his own work often is. Using stories from his childhood berry-picking in the mountains, he illustrates teachings about leaving enough for other beings, staying quiet to respect mountain spirits, and the warning that if those spirits leave, the mountains and all dependent life will suffer—contrasting this with today’s “three ring circus” of industrial activity and recreation in the headwaters that threatens to dry rivers and spark future “water wars.”In closing, Harley asserts that Mother Earth will survive and reorganize without humans, as she has before, and warns that if humanity continues on its current path, nature will eventually “flush the toilet of man,” a force no wealth, science, or military can stop. He expresses that he personally has no hope under present conditions but invites others to prove him wrong by changing, emphasizing that the first step is truth—especially in education—through revising curricula to correct myths about figures like Columbus and Cortez and acknowledging that colonial powers had no legitimate right to claim Indigenous lands.Follow and Support: Harley’s legacy lives on in his son, Trevor BastienThe Surest Way to Block Open-Pit Coal MiningJoin our Piikani Partners in asserting their constitutional aboriginal right to healthfully consume fish from their traditional waters of the Crowsnest and Oldman Rivers. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode previously aired in February of 2024, Colin Smith of Land Lovers Network joined Alex MacGillivray (my former co-host) and I. Colin and I connected through anti–clear‑cut logging advocacy with the Calgary Climate Hub in Southern Alberta. Colin introduces himself as a lifelong Southern Albertan with a background as an electrician, small business owner, and caregiver, now extending his caregiving to land and ecosystems; he describes how caring for his grandmother during the pandemic led him to deep engagement with soil microbiology, the soil food web, and high‑quality composting, culminating in Compost Club meetups at an urban farm hub in Calgary. A major portion of this discussion unpacks the “nine planetary boundaries” popularized by Joe Brewer’s work on regenerating Cascadia, which I frame as “laws of the land” as literal earth system limits and a way to define the polycrisis humanity faces. Colin walks through boundaries including climate change, biosphere integrity, land‑system change, freshwater change, biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus), ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, and novel entities like microplastics and PFAS chemicals, emphasizing that most thresholds have already been crossed and that nitrogen/phosphorus flows are “most off the chart.” Colin adds detailed examples such as Lake Winnipeg’s blue‑green algae and microcystin issues linked to phosphates and dams, and notes Geological Survey of Canada findings that such formations are associated with several major past extinctions, while Colin and Alex highlight the ubiquity of microplastics and PFAS, including tire‑derived microplastics reaching even remote mountain lakes. They stress that these interacting boundaries create feedbacks—such as aerosols temporarily masking warming—and that recent removal of Sulphur from marine fuels may have accelerated atmospheric warming, illustrating how different boundaries can counteract or amplify each other.In response to this crisis, our conversation shifts to bioregions and ecological‑based economies, drawing on Indigenous territorial perspectives and watershed‑based governance. Colin explains bioregions as nested, fractal landscape units defined by watersheds, flora, fauna, and climate, using Southern Alberta’s Bow River Basin and its tributaries (Ghost, Jumping Pound, Elbow, Highwood, Sheep, Oldman) as examples, and contrasts this with nation‑state borders and modern capitalism’s pull toward resource extraction and urban concentration. Alex and Colin discuss territorial self‑governance and local food systems, citing Redcliff, Alberta’s large greenhouse complex as a model for year‑round vegetable production that reduces transport emissions, and proposing co‑locating greenhouses with existing gas wells to use natural gas and captured carbon for food production. Colin and I then highlight social design principles from Joe Brewer’s work: defining shared identity and purpose, equitable allocation of contributions and benefits, fair and inclusive decision‑making, fast conflict resolution, and “stability projects” as a starting point before deeper regeneration, all aimed at moving from a wasteful, ever‑growth economy toward collective, outcomes‑based systems.Throughout, we grapple with the emotional and political dimensions of ecological collapse. Colin argues that recent spikes in wildfires, floods, drought, and other anomalies suggest we are “outside of the realm of survivability” for current lifestyles, and criticizes short‑term political thinking and promises of unlimited growth, calling instead for grassroots, mycelium‑like community organizing, unexpected alliances across political divides, and a redefinition of wealth away from material growth toward regeneration of natural abundance. He and I emphasize the need to face grief and fear together, avoid tribalism, and use nature itself—through initiatives like Land Lovers and Compost Club—as a healing, community‑building context that mirrors the diversity and interdependence of healthy ecosystems. The episode closes with me reiterating that the crisis is not just “climate change” but a nine‑facet planetary problem driven by a wasteful growth economy, and expressing hope that conversations like this, and potential collaboration with Joe Brewer, can help “pull the tapestry together” among many people already doing ecological work in Alberta and beyond.For more information on Joe Brewer’s work, check out this YouTube playlist on bioregional organizing I made: Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This conversation centers on plug-in or “balcony” solar systems and how to make them safe, legal, and accessible in Canada, particularly Alberta. Chris Cashen, CEO and co‑founder of Volta Home, explains that his Vancouver-based startup is building what they describe as the first compliant plug‑in solar solution for North America, having spent about a year on the project and recently completing lab validation with a utility partner and Powertech Labs in BC. A simple connection is meant to make rooftop or patio solar accessible to many types of occupants, including renters.Dr. Joe Vipond from the Calgary Climate Hub describes their charity’s role in empowering Calgarians to participate in climate solutions, including through an electricity working group that became interested in European “balcony solar” as a way for renters, condo owners, and people without suitable roofs to join the energy transition. He notes that plug‑in solar can offset about a third of a household’s electricity use, which is significant in the current context of energy costs. I mention that jurisdictions like England are pushing such legislation in response to energy shortages linked to the war in Iran, framing this as a timely discussion. Joe and the host also highlight that current microgeneration regulations were written for larger rooftop systems, not small 800–1200 W plug‑in units, so the law simply hasn’t caught up yet.Chris outlines the complex stakeholder landscape—safety and compliance bodies, utilities, authorities having jurisdiction, municipalities, and even fire departments—and explains that Volta Home began by working with Underwriters Laboratories and engaging CSA to create and harmonize UL 3700 across North America so manufacturers can build to a single standard and reduce costs. He describes how they then engaged their local utility to validate grid export and compensation for homeowners, noting that in Europe millions of such systems have been deployed, adding near utility-scale capacity in a short time and offering utilities a potential advantage if they support rather than block the technology. Looking ahead, Chris expects a UL 3700 technical committee to form around late fall to early winter, with a possible official standard by mid‑next year, after which “nano generation” policies—similar to Germany’s simple online registration for sub‑600/800 W systems—would be needed to unlock widespread adoption.Joe explains that while anyone can technically assemble a panel and microinverter and plug it in today, doing so is illegal because current legislation requires an interconnection permit and a licensed electrician, making small systems uneconomical: systems might cost $800–$1,600, but the interconnection permit in Alberta is at least $4,000 plus roughly $1,000 in electrician costs. The Calgary Climate Hub is therefore pushing legislative changes to remove the interconnection requirement for these small systems, mandate compliance with standards like UL 3700, establish a “right to install” despite landlords or condo boards, and provide liability releases for utilities and other entities. Joe cites Europe’s more than four million installed systems and the absence of solar-related safety incidents (with only one fire tied to a battery system, which is not what they’re currently discussing) as evidence of safety. He calls plug‑in solar a “no‑brainer” for homeowners, utilities, and governments, and urges citizens to support the campaign via pluginsolarpower.ca by sending letters and signing petitions, while Chris recommends using that site as a central “single source of truth” and notes that federal policy, modeled on Germany or the UK, is needed to align standards, legislation, and market adoption across Canada.Join the Calgary Climate Hub MONDAY, June 29 at the Sunalta Community Hall from 6-8:30 pm.Please note: I am taking a break over the summer and will be running water conversation reruns from the past 3 season. Reach out should you wish to discuss something urgent! Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The conversation begins with two updates from me before Brad Lafortune of Public Interest Alberta announces a new campaign called “Together—NO!” aiming to oppose Premier Smith’s treasonous October 19, 2026 Alberta referendum which— beyond the illegal separation question—includes nine questions on immigration and constitutional issues handpicked, leading, and designed to secure “yes” votes aligned with a US agenda regardless of separation. Brad and I argue these questions scapegoat immigrants, attempt to rewrite the Constitution without public demand, and distract from real concerns like affordability, healthcare, education, and cost of living, framing the campaign as a collective, positive “no” to division, chaos, and rights erosion while affirming a desire to remain in Canada and protect democratic processes.Public Interest Alberta is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, grassroots advocacy organization with about a thousand volunteers across the province, supported by unions such as Health Sciences and UNA, focused on public services and democracy and refusing government funding. They see themselves as a suitable vehicle to coordinate a large, four‑month, province‑wide campaign involving hundreds of volunteers and many partner organizations, including existing networks like Forever Canadian, Water Not Coal, Recall Nicoladies, and groups such as Alberta Voice and the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good, as well as faith communities and newcomer‑serving agencies. The campaign is explicitly framed as a “David and Goliath” effort against a well‑funded government communications push, with the speakers emphasizing the need for people‑powered organizing, financial donations, and broad civil‑society collaboration to send a clear message that “Alberta’s better than this referendum.”A major component of the strategy is a robust, data‑driven approach: Together—NO! is working with an experienced Canadian polling firm to test assumptions, measure baseline attitudes, evaluate which messages are most and least effective, and see how government framing holds up when contrasted with fact‑ and values‑based counter‑arguments. We highlight how prior polling on issues like the polluter‑pay principle showed high support “when prompted,” revealing that awareness, not agreement, was the main gap—an insight we want to replicate here to tailor outreach, raise awareness of misleading question framing, and continually refine messaging through both polling and feedback from real conversations on the ground. This research will guide whether the campaign will address the referendum as a whole or focus on specific questions, and help them “meet people where they’re at” while keeping the core goal of securing “no” votes on the agenda.Operationally, the campaign is built around a mix of digital infrastructure, regional organizing, and direct outreach. The website albertareferendum2026.org hosts a pledge form where people can commit to voting, volunteering, or donating, and serves as the central hub for staying in touch. We are developing regional campaigns in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, and likely other cities such as Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray, with plans for extensive canvassing, event tabling, literature drops for those uncomfortable with door‑knocking, and a “road show” in August and September across about 15 locations featuring campaign launches and town halls. Training is structured in two main tracks: “train‑the‑trainer” programs to build local leadership capable of running canvassing operations and regional campaigns, and canvassing workshops (including deep canvassing techniques) to prepare volunteers for hard conversations, equip them with facts about immigrants’ contributions and taxation, and build confidence for door‑to‑door engagement.Throughout, Brad and I stress values of fairness, neighbourliness, and solidarity, arguing that most Albertans do not want to “punish” newcomers who work, pay taxes, and support communities, and that the government is trying to manufacture scapegoats and a “firewall” narrative that doesn’t reflect real Alberta values. We frame the campaign as an opportunity to build long‑term organizing capacity, empower local leaders, and create space for constructive, respectful conversations that both “agitate” their base and help people reach their own understanding, with the ultimate aim of emerging from the referendum with stronger democratic engagement and renewed focus on strengthening public services rather than pursuing divisive, racially charged constitutional experiments.Take Action Saturday, June 27 from 11-4 pm.A rally for Unity from 11 am to 1:45 pm at the McDougall Centre, then an Anti-AI Rally from 2-4 pm!I am taking a hiatus from the podcast over the summer, I will be rerunning the conversations focused on water to highlight the people doing this work. Should something come up which needs to be discussed, in your opinion, please let me know.I am speaking at both events tomorrow, I hope to see you there! Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The conversation is with Jay White, a professional biologist in Alberta, who recounts his long involvement with the Alberta Water Council and its origins in the early 2000s under the province’s Water for Life strategy. He explains how the Council was conceived as part of a “nested” governance model: the Alberta Water Council at the provincial policy level, watershed planning and advisory councils (WPACs) at the basin level, and local watershed stewardship groups doing on‑the‑ground work. White describes the Council’s multi‑stakeholder composition—environmental NGOs, industry sectors, governments at all levels, and First Nations—emphasizing that participants left sectoral identities at the door to work collaboratively on water issues in a non‑adversarial, confidential setting. Over 22–23 years, he moved from representing the Alberta Lake Management Society to chairing the NGO caucus and serving as vice president, and he still meets with former NGO colleagues despite the Council’s dissolution.White outlines the “Water for Life” strategy’s three pillars: * safe, secure drinking water, * healthy aquatic ecosystems, and * reliable water supplies for a sustainable economy. In its early years, the Council quickly tackled drinking water by reviewing 525 major facilities to ensure licensed operators and compliance. Subsequent work focused on water supply for the economy and attempted, with difficulty, to define and operationalize “healthy aquatic ecosystems,” including a failed attempt to define riparian areas that was rejected by government lawyers. Major outputs included a draft provincial wetland policy delivered in 2008, which the government only translated into the current policy in 2013, and a voluntary initiative where all water‑using sectors reduced water use by 30% within two years, a target the chair had chosen somewhat arbitrarily. White notes the Council also produced numerous documents on drought, floods, drinking water, and source water protection, largely through volunteer project teams supported by a small staff, arguing the province received exceptional value for minimal funding.The turning point of the conversation is the Alberta government’s abrupt decision to terminate the Alberta Water Council. White recounts receiving a January 26 letter giving the Council 90 days to wind down, despite a grant that was supposed to run until late 2026, and being asked to chair the final full board meeting. He reads his “Jerry Maguire moment” statement, in which he condemns the decision as deeply disappointing and the process as a three‑month “erasure” of 23 years of collaborative governance, trust, and capacity. He stresses that the Council was not ineffective or obsolete but “patient” and “inconvenient to haste,” and warns that the loss of its advisory role will be felt later as policy gaps and fractured relationships. Afterward, colleagues reacted with stunned silence and later messages of support; White and others believe the 90‑day cutoff was designed to prevent the Council from securing new operational funding, which typically takes years to obtain. The host connects this to a broader pattern of “erasure,” including reports of documents being removed from government offices after the 2019 election and the rapid dismantling or absorption of major entities in the oil and gas sector.Board Colleagues, There are moments when the decisions of those in power do more than alter budgets or reorganize priorities. They reveal what we value—and, more troublingly, what we are willing to abandon. For twenty‑three years, the Alberta Water Council served as a place of careful listening. A forum where industry, communities, municipalities, and government itself met not as adversaries, but as stewards of a shared responsibility. Water, after all, is not ideological. It is not partisan. Water is life. And yet, with little warning and less regard, this work has been consigned to a three‑month farewell. Decades of trust, expertise, and collaboration reduced to a winding‑down period scarcely long enough to say goodbye—let alone account for what is being lost. This Council has spent twenty‑three years doing work that rarely makes headlines—and that is precisely why it mattered. As a Water for Life partner, the Alberta Water Council proved that shared governance and collaboration was not a weakness, but a strength. Industry, municipalities, NGOs, and government came to the same table—not to win, but to understand. We did not chase certainty. We built trust. And now, with three months’ notice, that trust is being asked to quietly disperse. I want to be clear about my reaction. I am deeply disappointed by this decision. And I am profoundly disturbed by the manner in which it was made. This was not an organization that failed. It was not ineffective. It was not obsolete. It was patient. It was careful. It was inconvenient to haste. Collaborative water policy is slow by design. It asks people who disagree to keep speaking. It insists that water—shared, finite, and unforgiving—deserves more than short timelines and abrupt conclusions. Three months is not a transition. It is an erasure. Long after this Council closes its doors, the consequences of this decision will remain—felt in policy gaps, fractured relationships, and lost capacity that cannot be reassembled on demand. History rarely marks the moment when stewardship ends. It only records when its absence is finally noticed. We did the work. We honored the responsibility. And that record will stand—whether it is acknowledged or not. Water policy advice is not dramatic. But its absence is. And one day, when foresight is urgently needed and quietly missing, we will recall that it did not vanish on its own. It was cancelled.We then examine the broader dismantling of Alberta’s water governance architecture. Jay explains that WPACs are mandated to produce regular state‑of‑the‑watershed reports and integrated watershed management plans, but these plans are explicitly voluntary and lack regulatory hooks, leading some industry representatives to disengage once they realize there is no binding requirement. He notes that watershed stewardship groups, which implement on‑the‑ground projects like riparian fencing and off‑site watering, have lost a key funding conduit with the disappearance of the Land Stewardship Centre, creating competition for “paltry” remaining funds. With the Alberta Water Council gone at the top and stewardship funding cut at the bottom, only the WPACs remain, and their own funding agreements expire at the end of 2026, making 2027 a critical and uncertain year. I underscore that these structures were about ensuring clean, sufficient drinking water and functioning ecosystems that underpin the entire economy, and expresses alarm that advisory capacity is being casually removed.In the latter part of the conversation, we connect Alberta’s situation to national and global biodiversity and climate commitments. White describes the federal “Force of Nature” policy, tied to Kunming biodiversity commitments and the goal of protecting 30% of land and waters by 2030, backed by $2.8 billion in funding. As a biologist working on wetland restoration projects, Jay was eager to see this funding support restoration and reclamation, especially given severe biodiversity losses—about 70% of aquatic species in North America and 40–50% of global biodiversity in the last 50 years—and the current “sixth major extinction” driven by humans. However, Alberta was skipped in the first funding round; White notes the provincial government claimed it did not need the money because 64% of Alberta (the green area) is Crown‑managed and supposedly “essentially undisturbed,” a claim he disputes by pointing to Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute data showing extensive human footprint and fragmentation.Take Action: Write the ECCC and Alberta Environment MinistersSubject: Enforce the “Force of Nature” Strategy in AlbertaTo: [email protected]: [email protected] (Grant Hunter); your MLA, the PremierDear Hon. Julie Dabrusin,It has come to my attention that Alberta did not receive any Federal grant money related to the Federal Nature Strategy. As a province with the largest ongoing environmental catastrophe underway—where interbasin transfers are being contemplated to sustain an outrageous level of steam injection and extraction, with growing groundwater contamination concerns, coupled with more than 275,000 conventional oil and gas sites to be restored—I am shocked our province did not seek or receive funding in this program.Restoring nature is required for Alberta and Canada to regain ecological stability. Each province should receive funds and measure success through biodiversity and water monitoring and mitigation efforts.Considering the energy and ecological cliff this province and country is facing (due to the war on Iran and the unchecked climate crisis), it is time to ensure this work aligns with Species at Risk and Land Stewardship Laws before it is too late. There is no question we face water bankruptcy if we do not take nature restoration work seriously.Please advise how Environment and Climate Change Canada and Alberta Environment are working together to ensure the province takes its role seriously in these efforts. The federal government needs to cease oil and gas development, pipelines, tolls, or carbon capture and storage subsidies but rather co-invest in nature and water restoration with industries.Sincerely,Jenny Yeremiy, P. Geoph Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode opens with the me sharing this as my fifth episode with Wesam Cooley and turning quickly to a discussion on the current war in West Asia, a continuation of long‑running Western imperialism in the region. We describe a major turning point on February 28, arguing that Iran is “rising” as a real world power and has reframed the regional “problem” as resistance to Western imperialism and settler colonialism. I I stress a Chinese‑inspired idea of an “inevitability of peace,” even as events on the ground feel the opposite, and asks how Iran’s approach connects to Lebanon, Gaza, and a new memorandum of understanding (MOU).Wesam explains that the new MOU, pushed by the United States, has not been signed by Iran and is already being violated by Israel, which refuses to recognize that it applies to them and continues bombing Lebanon, including Beirut. He argues that Iran is in a position of military strength, confident it could “end this once and for all” if forced into an all‑out war, though at enormous human cost. We both emphasize that US‑Israeli strategy relies on deliberate attacks on civilians as a core military tactic, citing the bombing of a girls’ school and the broader pattern in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. We criticize Western media as actively misleading on West Asia, praising Iran’s English‑language PressTV.ir as more accurate about on‑the‑ground realities than corporate Western outlets.We then connect the war to global economic and energy dynamics, arguing that the US is masking crisis by draining oil reserves and manipulating markets, while Iran leverages its position in a broader struggle over fossil fuels. I describe US oil infrastructure like Cushing as “arteries” now running low, warning that restarting flows will be difficult and that the US is only a few weeks away from feeling severe impacts. I link this to Alberta’s role as a supplier and to the idea that investing in the “most expensive” military has not produced the most effective one, especially when facing a confident Iran willing to prolong the energy squeeze. Wesam notes that Western governments, including Canada, now largely support the deal with Iran to avoid “falling off a cliff,” while Israel alone vetoes peace through continued bombing, revealing its outsized leverage even over the Trump administration.The discussion shifts to Zionism and settler colonialism, distinguishing between Christian Zionists, who see Israel as part of an apocalyptic prophecy, and Jewish Zionists, who view the land as divinely promised and expandable beyond Palestine into neighbouring states. I highlight the “Greater Israel” project and note that even as Israel loses militarily, it is still grabbing land in Lebanon, aided by a US president with a real‑estate mindset. Wesam explicitly labels Israel a settler‑colonial project akin to Canada, built on racist expansion, genocide, and the confinement of Indigenous peoples into “bantustans,” and argues that Iran, Palestine, and regional resistance movements have concluded they can no longer coexist with this settler colony. He warns that Israel’s deep push into Lebanon may be overextension, likening it to the board game Risk where an army stretches too thin and becomes vulnerable to counterattack.From there, we pivot to Alberta and Canada, framing Alberta as a “minor front” of US empire where inter‑imperialist competition between the US and Europe plays out over pipelines, resources, and political alignment. Wesam describes competing pipeline visions—one east‑west to feed European markets and another southward backed by Premier Danielle Smith—alongside talk of Canada potentially joining the EU, which the US would oppose in favour of absorbing Canada itself. We connect this to a massive planned build‑out of AI data centres in Alberta, driven by natural gas and championed by figures like Kevin O’Leary, and warn that this expansion threatens water, ecosystems, and Indigenous rights while enriching external investors who can “take the money and run.” I describe the provincial referendum with nine “unconstitutional” questions that she believes are designed to deepen racial divisions, undermine rights, and invite US‑style enforcement (e.g., ICE‑like agencies), and she outlines her work with Public Interest Alberta’s “Together No” campaign to oppose these measures and broader separatist agendas.In the final stretch, we centre Indigenous nations and Palestinian solidarity as crucial to any meaningful anti‑separatist or anti‑imperialist project. Wesam notes that treaty nations have become the strongest defenders of the land, in part because of long experience resisting Canadian and RCMP abuses, and mentions that chiefs are seeking to have Danielle Smith tried for treason. He argues that if Alberta ever gains a right to secede, every treaty nation must first have the right to secede from Alberta, and that white Canadians must commit to “absolute uncontested sovereignty” for Indigenous peoples and to ending projects like pipelines imposed over Indigenous opposition. He also points to a scandal around the suppression of a Gaza encampment at the University of Calgary, allegedly involving Mike Ellis and possibly Danielle Smith, as a potential lever to weaken the Smith government and its separatist ambitions, but insists this can only be used by an anti‑separatist movement that openly and fully supports Gaza and Palestinian liberation. The episode closes with both speakers stressing reciprocity and solidarity—between settlers, Indigenous nations, and West Asian communities—and inviting anti‑separatist leaders to an upcoming July 5 anti‑imperialist forum in Alberta to discuss how struggles in Palestine, West Asia, and the Americas are interconnected.Post show media sources* https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/pm-carney-says-hes-seen-tentative-us-iran-peace-deal-calls-conflict-worth-it/* https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-war-united-states-israel-lebanon-deal-9.7237094* Post Media Graphic & Post* https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/details-of-us-iran-deal-revealed* https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/business/cushing-oil-inventory* https://fortune.com/2026/06/10/us-strategic-petroleum-reserve-depleted-lowest-level-since-reagan/* Bonus market turmoil discussion courtesy of Kpler who offers global trade intelligence: Meet Kpler at StampedeI am attending the Kpler stampede party to get the scoop from this oil and gas market flows analyst directly. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The episode of The Gravity Well podcast features Jessica Chung from the Council of Canadians, focusing on AI data centres, their environmental and social impacts, and emerging cross‑Canada resistance movements.Jessica introduces herself as a water and climate campaigner, formerly a Line 5 pipeline organizer with Sierra Club Canada, living in Guelph with her family. She shares a story about activist Kim Bradshaw lending her a car so Kim could travel by train to glue her hands to an airport tarmac in an anti–big oil action, illustrating “community in action.”Jessica describes her unusual path into activism: she left law school after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, then became a yoga teacher, which shaped her ability to “hold space” in movements. This conversation came after I watched a pro‑pipeline “Build Ontario Strong” ad promoting gas for AI infrastructure and wanted an Ontario perspective. Jessica recounts a recent two‑day Civil Society Summit on the AI industry, with 270 attendees and panels on Indigenous data sovereignty, environmental harms, gender‑based violence, labour, war, food systems, corporate accountability, and AI in media and arts. She stresses the summit was not about shaming everyday AI use (like email summarization) but about how AI is being used as a “front person” for oil and gas, justifying continued fossil fuel expansion under nationalist competition narratives.Jessica frames AI as a neutral tool—like a hammer—whose impact depends on who controls it, what rules exist, and how power is exercised. I echo this, arguing AI can be used for “pro‑social” purposes such as organising toward a water‑centred economy, minimizing energy use, and keeping systems local rather than controlled by foreign entities. I link AI expansion to abandonment of international law and corporate accountability, warning of ecological collapse and citing examples of water contamination and freshwater loss in places like Texas and Louisiana.Jessica explains that civil society is trying to reclaim the AI narrative from “tech bros” who have captured political attention, and to invite everyday people into the conversation. She notes that youth, highly adept with digital tools, are at the forefront of resisting AI data centres and can mobilise quickly even within short public‑input windows and confirms summit recordings are available at AICivilsociety.ca. I highlight @Alberta_Anti_AI, an Instagram group with over 3,000 members in under a month, and describes coordinated rallies in Alberta and Ontario, including a Unity rally and anti‑AI rally in Calgary, and a previous provincial‑wide day of action with thousands in Edmonton, Calgary, and [21] other locations. Check out @Solstice’s video from the main event in Calgary here.Jessica cites Hamilton and Burks Falls (Ontario) as recent examples of local resistance, noting that some victories—like projects stopped before shovels hit the ground—are under‑reported but real. In Burks Falls, two 20‑year‑old women organized opposition that led the city to take a data centre proposal off the table. She emphasizes that activism often slows rather than fully stops projects, buying time for alternative paths to emerge. I agree, it’s a David‑and‑Goliath struggle where our wins are measured in delays and vigilance.I describe Alberta communities organizing against massive data centres, including one 1.4‑gigawatt project (equivalent to 1.4 million homes’ energy use) that drew over 1,100 statements of concern. I criticize incomplete accounting that ignores upstream gas extraction and frac’ing, pointing out that water used in fracking is permanently lost. She mentions strong pushback in Grande Prairie and multiple sites near Calgary, with communities sharing strategies and resources like the airesistlist.org website.Jessica tells me municipalities are key battlegrounds because AI data centres intersect with zoning, real estate, and venture capital. She describes efforts to support youth organizers who want June 27 to become a national day of action, prompted by BC Greens leader Emily Lowen. With only 16 days’ lead time, they are building a decentralized toolkit tailored to the Canadian context and engaging about 200 people across sectors to define what civil society should be in this moment. She argues AI threatens the entire political spectrum and cites Mark Carney’s “AI for All” strategy as essentially focused on ensuring adoption, not democratic consent.I underscore AI is unifying issue across left and right, tied to water, surveillance, safety, jobs, and environmental destruction. I cite the Wonder Valley project, which she says would be the largest heat source in the world, and name large AI data centres “gas guzzling” and resource‑wasting infrastructure serving billionaires, contrasting them with low‑power, everyday AI uses. Jessica clarifies that “AI” is often used as a monolithic term, but the real empire project is the race toward AGI—machines outperforming humans on all tasks—requiring massive power to scrape the entire internet. She notes AI can also be small‑scale and community‑oriented, such as tools for preserving local languages. However, she argues current dominant uses deepen social inequity rather than reduce it.I give a concrete example of AI‑enabled monetization: vehicles from 2026 onward reportedly requiring subscriptions for features like heated seats and full radio use, effectively taxing people’s own property and widening divides. I support national coordination and cites Taiwan’s Audrey Tang using digital tools to achieve 90% public support for policies before voting, as well as the town of Olds exploring people‑driven economic planning instead of elite committees. I link AI data centres to centralized power generation, arguing that renewables’ strength lies in decentralization and security, especially as wars make large {oil and gas] facilities, including AI centres, potential military targets.Jessica reflects on a broader shift from “power over” to “power with,” calling solidarity a “miracle” given humanity’s long, often violent history. She notes that people now show solidarity beyond shared language or appearance, citing global concern for Gaza as an example. She argues big‑tent movements should not require full consensus and asks how much agreement is really needed to work together, given our survival is intertwined. She references Maud Barlow’s warning that within about 10 years there could be a 40% global water shortfall, stressing the urgency as billionaires continue extracting both resources and power. She highlights that many US AI data‑centre fights are led by everyday people—barbers, teenagers, young adults—and frames this as a moment where “the box has crumbled,” asking who we want to be.I agree that anyone who cares can participate and recounts narratives that divide provinces: Alberta stereotypes about Ontario’s “Laurentian elites” and Ontarians allegedly seeing Albertans as backward “bow hunks” needing outside guidance. I warn these stories hinder cooperation even as shared threats like AI data centres and looming “water bankruptcy” (citing UN water expert Bob Sandford’s work) demand unity and ecological restoration. I ask Jessica how these narratives look from Ontario.Jessica says her view of other provinces is primarily relational, shaped by people she’s worked with rather than media narratives, and she feels “unplugged” from many ads and stereotypes because she doesn’t watch organized sports. She acknowledges that separatist movements and social media algorithms fuel judging and generalizing about entire provinces. She stresses that relational work is “everything” because elites benefit when people are easily controlled by pre‑packaged narratives. She cites reports that first‑year university students struggle to finish full papers due to social media’s impact on attention, warning this undermines future capacity to read complex bills or arguments. She argues that change will come less from perfect arguments and more from thousands of people building relationships and community resilience as crises—especially in the Global South—intensify. She frames “divide and conquer” as a deliberate strategy of those in power and calls for stretching our capacity to see each other freshly, beyond conditioning.I point to Gaza as both horrifying and inspiring, noting that people there have not turned on each other despite extreme conditions. I see this as a lesson in solidarity. I recall a Chinese government representative describing an “inevitability of peace,” which she finds a hopeful framing for this transition from power over to power with. I believe stopping further system deterioration would itself be a remarkable achievement and feel encouraged by emerging resistance.In closing, Jessica emphasizes that activism is deeply personal and often happens in quiet, internal moments: noticing when we react to flattening narratives, asking who benefits if we believe them, and cultivating a habit of reflection. She calls this “life finding its own intelligence” and stresses that activism is not only public action but also slowing down with ourselves, questioning anger and manipulation before acting. I connect this to spiritual practice and “micro moments” of discernment—asking who is speaking, for whose benefit, and whether a message is truly for us—suggesting such practices are becoming more common.Join the AI Civil Society today!AICivilSociety.ca Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

I threw a microphone on my spouse Chris last week—you may recognize him from Season 1, Episode 5 or the Leadership Training series in Season 2. Our conversation explores common Alberta narratives about other Canadian regions and the federal government, and then connects these narratives to environmental policy, resource extraction, and changing provincial values.Albertans often view Quebec as a “taker” province that receives special treatment, keeps its wealth, and benefits from federal transfers while restricting Alberta’s ability to develop oil and gas. Quebec is perceived as having different values—linked mainly to French culture—and as opposing Alberta’s oil and gas interests, especially around pipelines and environmental protection. At the same time, I note that Quebec’s stronger climate stance and bans on practices like frac’ing are seen as positive environmental leadership, even if they clash with Alberta’s extractive priorities.Chris explains that many Albertans misunderstand equalization, believing Alberta should get back exactly what it pays in federal taxes, when in reality the federal government redistributes funds based on national priorities, meaning Alberta may not see a direct return on every dollar. This feeds a perception that Quebec and Ottawa benefit from Alberta’s wealth and block its development, reinforcing grievances that fuel separatist sentiment.Comparisons are drawn between Alberta’s oil sands and Quebec’s large-scale hydro, mining, and industrial projects; many Albertans feel Quebec gets easier federal approval and preferential treatment for its projects, while Alberta faces more scrutiny. I question whether this perception is actually true, emphasizing that it is a narrative rather than a proven fact.The discussion then shifts to Ontario and the idea of “Laurentian elites,” described as longstanding political and industrial power networks in central Canada—families, capitalists, and industrial behemoths concentrated along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence corridor, historically shaping national decisions. Alberta’s story about Ontario includes a sense that central Canada is the political center that decides national outcomes because of its population, leaving the Prairies feeling numerically and politically sidelined.I recount past experiences of Ontarians viewing Alberta as backward or insignificant (e.g., being asked if Edmonton had paved roads), contributing to a feeling that Ontarians see Albertans as beneath them. Today, Chris notes that Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government is more moderate than Alberta’s United Conservative Party, and that Alberta Conservatives may not see Ontario Conservatives as truly conservative. I highlight that Ontario’s premier has recently adopted more Alberta-like rhetoric on pipelines and natural gas, suggesting some current alignment around resource development.Despite these political dynamics, many Albertans still believe people in Ontario don’t understand or care about life in Alberta. I challenge the assumption that Ontarians broadly look down on Albertans, suggesting many Ontarians may share similar distrust of government and Ottawa, and that the “they think less of us” story may be overstated.Narratives about Ottawa in Alberta center on the belief that the federal government is “handcuffing” Alberta, imposing rules that don’t make sense locally and preventing the province from thriving. Chris uses the example of federal restrictions on strychnine for prairie dog control, explaining how the poison moves up the food chain and harms predators and other animals, and how federal scientists pushed for restrictions to protect biodiversity. Political pressure from farmers led Ottawa to loosen these rules, illustrating tensions between private property rights, environmental science, and federal regulation.We argue that private land use must respect “natural law,” especially in sensitive areas like riparian zones and creeks, where leaving buffer strips and protecting vegetation can benefit both farms and ecosystems. We frame riparian areas as critical infrastructure that reduce flood risk and protect surrounding lands, and suggest that better protection of such areas could have solved many environmental problems.I advocate for nation-building projects focused on ecological restoration—re-willowing riparian zones, restoring wetlands, and headwater forests—as nature-based solutions that reduce long-term costs from climate-related disasters like severe hailstorms in Calgary, which cause billions in damages and higher insurance costs. Chris notes that current infrastructure spending tends to favour hard engineering (rocks, culverts, road works) because that’s where the money is, while the benefits of ecological approaches are poorly quantified.Turning to the Maritimes, Albertan narratives often claim that Atlantic provinces have too many federal seats relative to their populations and that residents work just enough to qualify for employment insurance, reinforcing another “taker” stereotype. I recall the older concept of “have-not” provinces and the idea that wealthier regions should help those with fewer opportunities, and wonders if this solidarity has eroded.Chris explains how the collapse of Atlantic cod fisheries transformed the region: scientific warnings about declining stocks led to calls for quota cuts, but political backlash weakened restrictions, and combined with technological advances and corporate consolidation, this drove overfishing and ultimately a catastrophic stock collapse that has not recovered. This history is used as an analogy for Alberta’s oil industry: I suggest Alberta could face a similar collapse if it over-extracts, especially given constraints like water transfers between basins, risks of over-pressurized formations, and evidence of freshwater contamination near Cold Lake. We argue that while private capital may sees Alberta oil and gas as a good short-term investment, environmental limits and potential catastrophes could force a rapid shift.Our conversation concludes by tying these regional narratives back to Alberta’s internal identity. Chris says some Albertans behave like a family member who insists on having their way all the time and refuses criticism, even though Canada’s strength lies in its diversity. As a lifelong Albertan, we feel the province has changed: where Alberta once invested in campgrounds, forest rangers, wildlife protection, and a sense of balance, economic development and in-migration have shifted priorities toward making as much money as possible, often at the expense of natural infrastructure that will eventually need repair. This reinforces the broader point that many Alberta narratives about other regions and Ottawa are shaped by political messaging and economic anxiety, and that rebalancing toward environmental stewardship and interprovincial solidarity may be necessary.Do you agree? What did we miss or where did we go wrong? Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode focuses on water, cumulative impacts, and long‑term consequences of AI data centres, rather than just short‑term economic promises. Olds resident, concerned citizen turned leader of a local resistance around water sovereignty and now AI data centers, Janey Olson, joins me to explain.From my perspective—as a geophysicist and oil and gas environmental liability expert—what’s happening in Olds is both shocking and emblematic of a wider pattern: residents are blindsided by huge, high‑impact projects—Synapse and Data District—framed as “done deals” by local and provincial economic arms before people have real information or a meaningful say. Janey highlights that Synapse is a 1.4‑gigawatt project—equivalent to adding about one million homes’ worth of power demand—and that there are two data centres proposed in her small town. I note more proposals appearing near Calgary, in Bonnyville and Fox Creek, and Wonder Valley in Grande Prairie. A 1.4 gigawatt facility is like adding 1.4 million homes to Alberta’s grid “suddenly” and will affect everyone’s power costs and the province’s competitiveness, and it risks turning Alberta into a “sacrificial lamb” for a federal AI and data‑centre agenda. I explicitly connect this to a push to monetise natural gas and build massive fossil‑fuel‑driven power infrastructure—hundreds of diesel generators, turbines, and chillers running 24/7—just to feed these centres. I outline who stands to gain from these AI data centers in this conversation with Charlie Angus on Meidas Canada. Note: Wonder Valley is backed by UAE (https://www.theenergymix.com/70b-wonder-valley-project-still-a-mirage-as-olearys-ai-dream-stalls-in-alberta/) while Kuwait and Qatar are partnered with Brookfield’s Investment partners for Synapse.Water is at the heart of our concerns. We stress that rural residents are already facing “very scary stuff” around water access and control, and that these data centres are “high draw water users” arriving in a context of growing scarcity. I explicitly thank Janey for “following the water” and say that water is “central to everything we want to have in this world,” making it unacceptable to hand it over to AI data centres “to compete with China” for something that doesn’t add value to the common good. I bring in the warning from UN water advisor Bob Sandford about us being on the “cusp of water bankruptcy,” and argue that this is precisely why cumulative water‑impact safeguards are being stripped away—because honest assessment would stop “this obscenity.” The removal of environmental impact assessments is, to me, one of the most alarming pieces. I echo Janey’s point that environmental impact assessments—which check cumulative impacts of water and power—have been removed for both Wonder Valley and Synapse, leaving the AUC to look only at project‑specific issues rather than the bigger picture. I call this “critical” at a “critical point in time” and say it’s “quite obvious” that these safeguards have been “thrown out the window” precisely because they would block such “obscene” developments.Janey notes a deep contradiction between years of carbon‑tax pressure on ordinary people and the sudden willingness of governments to green‑light massive, round‑the‑clock fossil‑fuel power plants for data centres, without robust cumulative environmental review. Janey describes how, after years of being “plagued with carbon taxes,” governments are now “throw[ing] the doors open” to polluting projects in order to “beat China” and make Alberta the “sacrificial province,” and I explicitly underscore that framing for listeners. I emphasise that this is “very big stuff and not something to be taken lightly.” At the same time, I’m inspired by the scale and quality of local resistance. Janey explains how a small kitchen‑table group in Olds has grown into a record‑setting intervention at the Alberta Utilities Commission, with over 1,100 people stepping up to participate in proceeding 30732. I stress that the AUC staff themselves seem to be trying to do their jobs well and help residents navigate the process, even as higher‑level political decisions strip away environmental safeguards. Take Action: use Little Town Big Data’s Guide to submitting a Statement of Intent to Become an IntervenorTo amplify these local efforts, clarify timelines and tools for public action, and connect the dots for my audience between Olds, other proposed data‑centre sites, and broader provincial and federal policy directions, Janey walks listeners through the significance of the 1.4‑gigawatt load, the AUC proceeding number (30732), and the steps for filing a Statement of Intent to Participate, and I commit to following up so the public can “jump in when it’s most helpful.” Janey also encourage people to contact the province and the premier directly to demand a moratorium or slowdown so Alberta doesn’t become a “data‑centric guinea pig.” Here’s the Premier’s Email: [email protected]. Olds fight as part of a larger pattern Alberta has seen before—like the coal‑mining battles—and standing up for water is critical for everyone, not just Olds. I call Janey and her neighbours “heroes for Alberta” and emphasize that these projects are deliberately sited in smaller communities where there are “fewer voices to be heard,” which is why broader provincial support from you and me is essential. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

CBC Reporter, Eagle Andersen called me to hear my thoughts about the updated information provided by Kevin’s “O’Leary Digital” team in advance of their open house slated from tomorrow, June 4 from 4-7 pm at Grovedale Community Hall in Grande Prairie. I criticize the new newsletter about a proposed data centre project for omitting key information about what powers the facility, assuming it will rely on natural gas and arguing that this leaves out major parts of the electricity, water, and contamination story. I highlight that the project is expected to use about six billion liters of water per year (six million cubic meters), which is roughly equivalent to the annual allocation for the Greenview District, effectively doubling municipal water use for a single project and with no guarantee that usage would remain capped at that level. I also note concerns about power demand, citing examples like Lake Tahoe where residents were reportedly told they could no longer get grid power due to a data facility, and emphasize that a seven‑gigawatt facility would be a massive addition, equating five gigawatts to the power needs of five million people.I argue there is “zero benefit” to Canada and Albertans, claiming the project offers only limited construction and operations jobs and primarily serves U.S. government interests, which they accuse of trying to push Canada toward violating international law, climate obligations, and stability. I add that, especially after the war in Iran and anticipated resource shortages, leaders should make “extreme choices” to limit use of fossil fuels and ensure benefits do not accrue mainly to fossil fuel interests.When asked what information the company should provide, I say the full scope of the project must be disclosed, including how power will be generated and the associated infrastructure, pointing to the example of Olds where oil and gas workers understand the gas turbines, roadways, and infrastructure needed for such projects. Drawing on personal experience working near Grande Prairie, I speculate that a large gas cap over an oil field might be used to extend the life of a field instead of addressing environmental cleanup obligations, calling this a likely costly error. I also reference the prime minister’s recent statement that the U.S. is misleading and argue Canada should not follow a “mega pipeline drill, baby drill” agenda.On public engagement, I describe significant opposition in Olds, describing “major outcry” and strong grassroots organizing, including people handing out posters and flyers and encouraging Albertans to file statements of concern against the project. I mention an upcoming open house in Olds on June 24, to be attended by the premier and local MLA Sawyer, and question whether Grande Prairie has been given a similar opportunity. For the upcoming open house in the Grande Prairie region, they say they hope the project is “shut down immediately,” arguing Greenview County should prioritize supporting farmers and the agricultural economy and focus on water restoration and cleanup operations instead. I suggest stopping the project now to limit any damages O’Leary’s business could claim, referencing the Grassy Mountain coal project as a precedent where the answer was to “settle.”I explain my participation a recent webinar through Public Interest Alberta was to inform the public about environmental liabilities and the impacts of data centres on water use, cybersecurity, and water security, describing these facilities as “non‑starters” and noting similar projects have been stopped elsewhere. I see data centres as another face of fossil fuel expansion and argue that carbon capture and storage is not a genuine climate solution, based on their industry experience. I insist fossil fuel expansion for hydrogen, LNG export, or data facilities—especially those they say could benefit “nefarious actors”—must not proceed, and that public opposition and on‑the‑ground action are the only ways to stop such projects.Regarding the webinar’s reception, I report that hundreds attended and feedback was “really good, really strong,” and they mention a planned follow‑up interview on their platform “The Gravity Well” and further efforts by environmental organizations to keep sharing information. I warn that data centres should not be appealing to Albertans because they bring in large corporate and billionaire interests that do not help the province through challenging times.When asked why I care, I explain how this is about “our present and our future,” citing their two children and Alberta’s role as a headwater province that should focus on restoring water rather than extracting more fossil fuels. They reference the “keep it in the ground” philosophy and carbon pricing as concepts originating in the oil and gas industry, arguing that remaining resources are not worth extracting and would cause irreparable harm, which motivates them to do this work even without pay.Here’s the link to Eagle Andersen’s article, please follow him as he will be attending the open house tomorrow and hopes to gain a statement from the Sturgeon Lake Chief. Jody MacPherson of The Missive is following the Wonder Valley story closely: https://www.theenergymix.com/hidden-wonder-valley/. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Thanks to Raul of Charlie Angus / The Resistance’s Meidas Canada, I am thrilled to share the presentation that University of Calgary Public Health Professor, Lindsay McLaren, and I gave at the Public Interest Alberta (PIA) Common Purpose, Collective Action 2026 conference in Edmonton last month. The presentation outlines our backgrounds, a better vision, our experience, an action, and how to join us! Lindsay and I outline the need to recenter Alberta and Canada’s economies around public and planetary health. That comes with:* Recentering decision-making around water and land restoration, not energy growth.* Recognizing we are in a polycrisis: seeing multiple and additive crises with the common root causes: extraction, accumulation, and exploitation.* Unwinding the neoliberal playbook of manufactured scarcity (cutting of public services), division, deregulation, private wealth accumulation, and stunting of our imaginations.* Reclaiming the term “economy” as “caring for one another”. Own the economy you wish to foster.* Grow alternatives which include principles of reciprocity, solidarity, and equity. * Look to other jurisdictions, including the Canadian Quality of Life Framework, to help shape your local well-being economy.We hope to have a similar meeting in Calgary this fall to continue this effort, stay tuned! A special shout out to TheBreakdownAB for all of Nate Pike’s help in gaining support for recalls.Should you wish to join Lindsay and I in shaping a well-being economy in Alberta through the PIA Democracy Task Force in Alberta, please email Brad Lafortune of PIA here: [email protected]. Help Brad (or I) know what you’d like to see from the Democracy Task Force.The Gravity Well | Public Interest Alberta CollaborationI had the pleasure of joining Brad Lafortune of PIA in co-hosting a webinar on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) data center explosion happening in Alberta, across North America, and the world. Locally, the United Conservative Party of Alberta did not run on a platform of AI water and power consumption or foreign surveillance intensification. The webinar features Representative Melanie Sachs of the House in Maine. Melanie created and passed a non-partisan AI ban bill, ultimately vetoed by a single elected official. Melanie shows the specific project at play in her area and its derelict conditions. It’s vital Albertans follow the success, and learn from the failures, of other jurisdictions in order to stop AI data center construction in Alberta and Canada. Stay tuned for more updates on this from Brad, Lindsay and I. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

I sat down with Matilda, a grade 10 student at William Aberhart High School, today, on Menstrual Hygiene Awareness Day. She shares her project to install free feminine hygiene product dispensers in the girls’ bathrooms so that no student is ever left without supplies when they need them. And explains that her motivation comes from a personal experience of getting her period at school, finding no products available, and recognizing how stigma keeps students from openly asking for help or even naming what they’re going through. Matilda has turned that experience into advocacy, launching a change.org petition and promoting her work through her Instagram account “@AbeFlowsFree,” where she’s also organizing a bake sale to support the cause. Beyond menstrual equity, she speaks candidly about broader problems at her school, from overcrowded, noisy classrooms without enough desks to packed yoga classes where 35 students can barely move without bumping into each other, underscoring how urgently students need better learning conditions.Jenny: Okay, thank you for joining me today, Matilda. Let’s start with who you are, what you’re up to and just a little bit about you for people listening. Thank you.Matilda:Yeah, thank you for having me. My name is Matilda. I’m a grade 10 student at William Aberhart High School. And yeah, this is my project to get free feminine hygiene product dispensers in the girls’ bathroom.Jenny:Excellent. And remind us, today’s a special day, right? What’s today for folks who don’t know?Matilda:It’s Menstrual Equity Day and Menstrual Awareness Day. A day to make people aware of people that have periods and how they deal with them and the barriers that are in their way and just kind of an advocacy day.Jenny:Amazing. Out of curiosity, is there anywhere people can go to find information about that on today?Matilda:Well, there’s a website that I like or an Instagram account called The Period Purse. I follow them. They’re a Canadian-based organization and they have a lot of good information.Jenny:Amazing. Thank you so much for that, Matilda. Okay. You’re trying to make sure that feminine hygiene projects are free for any student that needs them in high school, at your high school, correct? Yes. And so what does that look like? Why are you doing that? What’s the rationale behind the project?Matilda:Well, I just thought that it kind of started with a feeling that I had when I got my period in a bathroom one day and there was nothing there. I was like, “Well, there’s got to be other girls like me.” And it was a really, really bad feeling and there was nobody else there and I didn’t know that my school had stuff, which they don’t. I was like, “Well, I want to do something to stop this.”Jenny:Yeah, that’s nuts. I can actually remember a very similar scenario, not just once but many times when I was in high school where I felt I forgot to prepare myself. And yeah, it’s also something that we don’t talk about enough because it does feel like it’s your own thing that happens and not really just an understanding of what it’s like for before it comes kind of thing.Matilda:Yeah. Especially in high schools, there’s lots of stigma around it. People will just say, “I’m not feeling well. I need to go home to a teacher instead of like, I’ve got my period. Nobody will ask each other for products when they need them.” And people will just pretend they don’t have it or they’ll laugh about it like, “Ha ha, I got my period when it’s a serious biological thing.”Jenny:Yeah. I’ve heard there are certain cultures that will celebrate it and it’ll be a big moment for people and you’re right. That’s amazing to hear that it hasn’t changed much since I was in high school because I remember having all of those same experiences of shame almost with it or like trying to hide it or just make light of it and not take it seriously. And a lot of problems come with it too. I remember having lots of pain and in some cases where it was debilitating. So yeah, it’s something we should really understand better and be okay with talking about, right?Matilda:Yeah, definitely. And that’s like a tangent to my project, of course, my main thing is to get the feminine hygiene products, but I also want to increase awareness and increase people talking about it at my school.Jenny:Amazing. So important. I really appreciate you taking this initiative. So how can people help? What can people do to get involved? Let’s start with adults like me and then we’ll talk about students.Matilda:I have a change.org petition. So you can go on their website and search for William Aberhart and my petition will pop right up and you can sign that. You can reach out to if you have kids or if you know people who have children at schools, you can email their principal or the administration to ask what their kind of situation is. You can get involved in parent councils or you can email school board trustees and MLAs.Jenny:Amazing. Thank you. Those are all awesome and I will try to make sure to give as much information as possible when I post this conversation for folks. What about students? How can students get more involved in what you’re doing, Matilda?Matilda:When you’re at school and you have something you can first of all just talk about it, even if it’s a friend or two friends, that’s people that know about it. You can mention it to your guidance counsellor in their appointment. You can insist with your teachers and your principals and your assistant principals tell them that this is something that we need because the more students that bring up this issue, the more likely they are to move forward with it.Jenny:Yeah, absolutely. And you’re right. It’s something that we should be expecting of our classrooms, our schools, I should say, because the thing that we think is important is the thing that we will start feeling is okay and safe to talk about, things like that. Amazing. I can see the value in what you’re doing. It’s wonderful stuff. So can you talk a little bit about the state of education for you, Matilda? What’s it like these days? Do you have concerns? What are your thoughts for people?Matilda:Yeah. So schools right now, the class sizes are so big that, for example, in my math class, half of the students needed help in the trigonometry unit, but the teacher could only help a few of those students because there wasn’t enough support for all of them and all of their questions because each student had multiple questions and they needed the teacher to go over it multiple times. It’s just crazy. It’s too big and it’s always so loud and sometimes there’s not even enough desks in the classrooms for everybody to sit at.Jenny:Thank you for saying that because I’ve heard people try and tell me online that that’s not true. And I had heard that William Aberhart was one of those schools that there literally was not enough seats for students to be in in some classes. It’s crazy.Matilda:Yeah. It’s ridiculous. And even in classes like yoga, there’s not enough space in the yoga room for like 35 people to do yoga and not crash into each other every pose we’re doing.Jenny:Right. I can just imagine. I’ve been in a yoga class that’s packed and that 35 is nuts. That’s a huge room that’s required for that. Wow. Well, thank you so much, Matilda. Is there anything else you want to add before we close? I’m hearing that people should go to change.org. They should check out your petition. They should talk to the schools that their students go to, make sure that this is accessible and that students should talk about this amongst themselves and with their guidance counsellor and with their teachers and make it a priority. Anything more you want to add?Matilda:Students can talk to their parents too. And if you support me, follow me on Instagram at @abeflowsfree and I believe we’re doing a bake sale this month or maybe next, so I’ll follow upJenny:With that. Excellent. So they can look to your Instagram, which is ABE Flows [Free]. Is that correct? Matilda: Yes. Jenny: Great. So @Abeflowsfree on Instagram, find out about the bake sale that’s coming up shortly. Thank you for all you’re doing, Matilda. Make sure you poke me when you’re doing that so I can make sure people know to get out there and get some baked goods with you, support the cause.Matilda:Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much.Jenny:Thank you. Take care for now. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The episode of The Gravity Well podcast features fellow Alberta activist Chelsea Barnowich (also known as “Chelsea Loves the Moon”), focusing on organizing against separatism in Alberta and broader threats to democracy and public institutions. We begin by outlining an Alberta-wide day of action in Calgary, including a noon event at MLA Mickey Amery’s office, a memorial walk, a march from City Hall to McDougall Centre (with Handmaid’s Tale costumes), and an evening gathering at Riley Park featuring music, biking, booths, and speakers to showcase the province‑wide movement for unity. Chelsea then explains her current federal petition (E‑7340), originally rooted in Section 35 treaty rights but now focused on asking the federal government to investigate the Alberta Prosperity Project for foreign interference and links to U.S. actors, including Trump‑aligned officials. The petition quickly gained about 10,000 signatures in its first 72 hours and has since surpassed 15,000, with 25 days left at the time of recording, and Chelsea emphasizes that large signature counts make it harder for Parliament to ignore.Chelsea and I argue that Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP are effectively aligned with separatist forces, citing Smith’s trips to the U.S., her mixed messaging on separatism, and the use of a “firewall letter” strategy attributed to Stephen Harper that seeks to isolate Alberta economically and leverage separatist sentiment to force federal concessions such as Senate reform. They warn that this approach is “playing with fire,” drawing parallels to Brexit and suggesting that even a partial separatist vote could be used by Donald Trump to claim Albertans want “liberation,” especially given Alberta’s large oil reserves and Trump’s openly stated ambitions. I situate this within a broader “MAGA and separatist sandwich,” linking Alberta politics to Project 2025 and a wider right‑wing agenda aimed at dismantling public institutions, entrenching a billionaire class, and promoting a supremacist order.The conversation also highlights a long list of grievances against the Alberta government: attacks on workers’ rights, attempts to mine the Rocky Mountains, gerrymandering, creation of a provincial police force, underfunding education, benefiting from war‑driven windfall profits, stoking separatism, cutting disability benefits, threatening pensions and CPP, restricting books and critical thinking in schools, and undermining ecological stability, which they argue is essential for any functioning economy. They stress the centrality of treaties as law, not optional policy, and note that Premier Smith has recently spoken about rewriting treaty law, which they see as part of a revisionist and ongoing attack on Indigenous rights.Chelsea draws on her previous House of Commons petitions on Gaza—one of which gathered 30,000 signatures in 30 days and was followed by a symbolic airdrop of aid—to show that petitions can influence federal discourse and action, even if responses are often limited to explanatory letters. She argues that legal victories, such as recent First Nations court wins on Section 35 and treaty rights, are crucial but insufficient when facing actors like Donald Trump who, in her view, disregard international law, as illustrated by his role in the kidnapping of Venezuela’s president. Her core fear is that a separatist referendum, even with modest support, could be used as a pretext for U.S. intervention in Alberta.We call for escalating but non‑violent disruption modeled on successful right‑wing tactics, such as highway slow‑rolls and occupations, while repurposing them for the public good. Chelsea advocates repeating the message that “THE UCP IS THE SEPARATIST PARTY” to reach moderates and notes that separatist supporters have been flooding UCP memberships and online spaces. We cite examples such as MLA Jason Stephan’s resignation after pro‑separatist writings, Rob Anderson’s involvement in separatist meetings, polling showing UCP supporters as the strongest base for separatism, and a committee process on the Forever Canadian petition that was allegedly pre‑empted by a pro‑UCP press release, demonstrating democratic erosion.The episode closes by promoting multiple ongoing and upcoming efforts: other federal petitions (including E-7269 on limiting the notwithstanding clause, banning AI data centers, [House of Commons petition # e-7427]and a forthcoming petition about the U.S. ambassador’s use of voter lists), and a June 27 multi‑city, now multi‑provincial rally under the banner “Albertans for United Canada in solidarity with Treaty 6, 7 and 8,” coordinated through Chelsea’s emerging “United Alberta Collection” and website unitedab.ca. That rally aims to bring together Indigenous speakers, recall activists, labour groups, Palestinian protesters, and other movements in Calgary, Edmonton, and Victoria, emphasizing unity, relationship‑building, and mutual encouragement as a way to “charge batteries” and make it harder for the government to ignore public opposition. Chelsea ends by framing the current moment as a “war for our democracy,” urging people to show up in large numbers this summer, occupy the legislature if necessary, and ensure Alberta does not become the “51st state,” while I stress that petitions and street actions can be both effective and joyful forms of civil resistance.Thank you, Chelsea, I hope to see The Gravity Well community on Friday in Calgary, I’ll be at all three events with the WaterNotCoal.ca petition and a Handmaids’ Tale costume. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

“Faith Leaders Across Alberta Oppose” features four leaders of the Alberta faith community with diverse Christian backgrounds who describe their spiritual journeys, articulate commitments to pluralism, and explain why more than 200 faith leaders signed a public letter opposing a recent Alberta government–backed Christian gathering that sought to shape policy through a narrow, right‑wing religious agenda. Across the conversation each of them stress the importance of inclusive public life, interfaith respect, and the “inherent dignity of every person,” warning against privileging one religious voice in policymaking and calling instead for leadership grounded in hospitality, social and environmental justice, “preference for the poor,” abundance rather than scarcity, and everyday spiritual practices that help people respond to rising fear, polarization, and separatist politics with courage, love, and shared responsibility for the common good. Key themes which emerged throughout the four separate discussions are best summarized by Reverend Dr. John Pentland: hospitality, spirituality, social justice, and risk. Now is the time for faith leaders, all leaders really, to take risks. It has never been more important than right now. Additionally, plurality is explained throughout this conversation. The importance of seeking different views and multiple outcomes. Not seeking one unified goal.I am happy to hold more conversation with these leaders or others who support or have signed the letter of opposition. Here’s the full transcript to assist your listening. Introductions to The Gravity Well and Alberta Faith LeadersJenny (00:00:04):Welcome to the Gravity Well podcast with me, Jenny Yeremiy. I host the Gravity Well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty seven and Metis Districts five and six. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples are created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide the Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants, either individually or collectively, do not necessarily represent those of the Gravity Well.This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see and hear, remember to like and subscribe! Thank you so much for joining me, Leslie. I’m super pleased to have Leslie Gardner in the studio today. We are today speaking about spirituality and about the recent meeting that the provincial government had with some specific religious leaders and just to break down this issue and opportunity together. Leslie, can we start with a little bit about you, your spiritual journey and what brought you here today? Thank you.Leslie:Sure. Thanks, Jenny. I’ve had varied exposure to different religious organizations in my life. Started off Anglican and then as a kid in the country with a Baptist church and then as an adult, became Roman Catholic and I’m now participating in congregations that are Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. I’m also part of a group here in Lethbridge who started what we call the Lethbridge Inclusive Catholic Community Fellowship led by a woman priest.Jenny:Fabulous. And remind me, Leslie, when we spoke earlier, you were mentioning you do studies at the University of Alberta, is that correct?Leslie:Yes. Yeah. I’m also part of a community around St. Stephens College, which is a theology college on the campus affiliated with the University of Alberta and had its roots in the United Church. And we’re still very much involved with the United Church, but it’s also much broader than that in the master’s programs and demand programs that we offer.Jenny:Incredible. Thank you for all that work. What a journey. Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, now evangelical and united. That’s wonderful. You’ve dabbled in everything Christian, is that right?Leslie:Not exactly, but lots of influence from important people that you meet, influencers of various kinds, people you admire. What do they have to share with you? And I’ve been really fortunate there.Bill:Hello, everyone. My name is Bill Way and I lived in Alberta for 50 years in Calgary and now I’m five years on Vancouver Islands. My spiritual journey is pretty interesting. I was born Catholic and was brought up to go to church and be a good boy. Around my years in high school and university, I joined a folk choir and I started singing at church. That little tiny version of the Catholic church really appealed to me and we had families that we raised with each other’s children and a really good community. And in that journey, I met a lovely lady from the United Church and my wife’s father was a minister. She was a preacher’s kid. I was Catholic. There’s lots of things that weren’t good about this, but basically that just kept adding to the diversity of my spiritual background. We raised our kids with a concept called double belonging, which means that our kids were too young to know that we’re going to go to church at the Catholic church at nine and then we’re going to jump in the car and we’re going to go to the United Church at 10:30.They just think that’s what people do. By the time they got to be teenagers, they’d kind of had enough of church. We just sort of did that. And I got more and more involved with the United Church. I actually, without becoming a member, I became secretary of the Church Council. I was on the committee that hired and fired ministers and I continued on with the music too. I was in the choir in the United Church. Interestingly enough, this strange phenomenon called the Roman Catholic women priests came into my life. Not only did I just jump back into the Catholic church, I loved the fact that the RCWP movement abandons a lot of the things about the Catholic church that I don’t like, like exclusivity. In the past, I’d say 10 years, I’ve been an active member of RCWP Canada. About my spiritual journey, it includes my travel.When we were travelling together, we have travelled to Turkey, to Thailand, to Guatemala and in all of these places, the dominant religion is not the one I was brought up with. And I just learned, you know what? There’s plenty of pathways to a spiritual life. There’s nothing exclusive about it. And the more you kind of hold onto a belief and say, “This is my truth and you better accept my truth.” That is like a bell ringing in my ear saying, “You’re actually not in the right path at all. “ In a nutshell, I’ve gone from Catholic to United. Now I’m back to a new version of Catholic.Jenny:Incredible. And I love how you said you, well, first of all, the double belonging, providing space for both of you to continue that faith journey and then eventually wrap around to something that was merging the two ideas together in a sense. It’s so neat. And I love the idea of the dropping some of the things that you didn’t like about the one faith that you were raised in and being able to carry forward a message that you still can get behind. Wonderful. John:My name’s John. I am the lead minister at church in Chicago. I grew up in Ontario and moved out here in serving a rural parish for four years where I learned a lot. And then a suburban church in Southern Calgary for 10 years and three years at Calgary, an area United Way. A nonprofit in the city where I learned a lot about how the cities are connected to the great people that are doing amazing work within the city. And then I’ve been at Hillhurst United for 21 years, which is a historic building over 115 years. We’ve been in the neighbourhood. Four practices, hospitality. We believe you got to eat and drink together to know each other better through spirituality. Religion’s got a bad name in the world. We seek to live with religion, honouring the soul and diversity of each person. Social justice, how do we take what we say and sing and pray into the world to transform it and love?And the last one is risk. Jesus’ most common phrase is being unafraid. And right now we’re living in a time where religious people and secular people are fearful and encouraged to be fearful and hateful is judgmental and we need to risk being open, honest, vulnerable, and loving. That’s a bit about who I am. I cycle every day. I got four kids, a dog and two cats.Jenny:Amazing, John. Thank you so much for that wonderful summary. I think those principles are just something I will absolutely underscore as we go through here. It’s just so nice to hear the thought of being courageous now and the importance of people to recognize that fear is growing and that it takes courage and leadership to overcome it. I’m pleased to have Reverend Samaya Oakley in the studio today. First, can we start with an introduction please, Samaya? Thank you.Samaya:Absolutely. I am privileged and honoured to serve the fine people at Calgary Unitarians. I had the delightful pleasure of serving as their intern minister back in 2013, 2014. I went away and did ministry in other contexts and other settings in 2023. Early in the year, it was like, “Hi, I need full-time ministry.” And Calgary was looking for full-time ministry and our styles aligned and I ended up joining them as their minister in August of 2023, 10 years later. It was quite a serendipitous connection that we had. I knew them, they followed me. It was a match kind of made in, I’m going to say in heaven, haha we have been doing great ministry together over these last three years that I’ve been with them.Jenny:Wonderful. Have you always been a part of the Unitarians movement, Samaya?Samaya:I’ve known the Unitarians at a point in my life when my life blew up, my career blew up, my marriage blew up and I was on my own with a four-year-old and two different friends in two different social circles said, “You’d find a home in the Unitarian Congregation.” I ended up joining the congregation in North Vancouver. They’re the congregation I credit with making me the minister that I am today. They really supported me in my path and I speak very fondly of them. Just about 30 some years ago that I have followed the path and I work continentally as well as nationally. I did youth ministry for 15 years and then I officially became a minister and ordained and still do comprehensive values-based sexuality education training, our whole lives program that we run involved nationally with our ministers, the UU ministers of Canada, just finishing my second term three years as my president.Served as three years another time and just finishing my second term in my three years. So quite involved, lot of professional development. I tend to focus a lot of mine in the area of sexuality and also racial justice. Those are two very strong passions of mine. We have a comprehensive values-based sexuality education program that I mentioned that we’re going to be kicking off this fall. We’re starting with kindergarten grade one program and also a young adult program that will be kicking off, but I’m a facilitator in seven different levels of age-appropriate sexuality education.Jenny:Yeah, that sounds very important. I think it would be helpful for people to understand what age-appropriate sexual education looks like and knowing that it is coming from faith leaders, that this is with the best moral and community interest in mind. Yeah, wonderful.Samaya:Yeah. One of the things I think that really sold me in Unitarian Universalism is I was sitting around a table just after I joined the NorthShore congregation and it was the first time in my life I had ever sat down. I was young, relatively young, early 30s, that’s young-ish. And it was the first time in my life I sat down with humanists and atheists and mystics, people like me who come from a pagan background and how enlivening that conversation was and how much it opened my perspective and my view on the world because up until then having been raised in a pretty traditional Catholic religion, there’s one answer. And in this conversation there were so many different answers and they were all based on people’s lived experiences, people really passionately looking at their own worldview. I say, when you come through our doors, your work is just beginning because we’re not going to tell you what redemption means or salvation means or how to live a good life.That is actually something that we encourage people to do for themselves. We will journey with you in that spiritual practice and we will be there with you as you ask those big questions of life that we all ask of life. What does it mean to be a good person? How does my life have meaning and purpose? What is it that I can do and give to the world and how can I do that? How do I make sense of the world in which I live? We don’t have the answers to that. We will journey with you in that exploration. And I think that that is such a beautiful gift that it’s one of the reasons why I signed this letter because of our tradition’s deep commitment to religious pluralism, the inherent dignity of every person and the importance of maintaining a healthy boundary between government and any one religious voice.That is such an important thing for me.Jenny:Oh, that’s wonderful. You’re making me remember because just to give you a litle bit of my religious background, I was baptized in the United Church but went to Catholic school because of proximity. But what I remember most about Catholic school is high school where we learned about the other religions, like you said. And to me what was really neat about that was finding the common threads between each of the religions. I think that was probably the time when I really enjoyed religious studies the most is learning about those different ways of approaching things, but finding those underlying moral values. Is there anything more you’d like to say by my way of explaining pluralism for folks just to understand that better?Samaya:In Unitarian Universalism, my congregation here in Calgary, we have people who are about humanists, about atheists. We also have mystics. We also have people coming from various other world traditions as well and that is celebrated here. It becomes part of the tapestry of who you are as a human being. And it is in that interchange in that tension between holding what is really important for me and listening deeply to what is important for you and somehow finding a way through that. It’s living in the tension, living always in that tension and being comfortable with discomfort.Jenny:Wow, that is a really important lesson, I think, for all of us right now. Why don’t we underscore the letter please? Can you help people understand what was in the letter, why did you sign it and the purpose of it? Thank you.Samaya (00:16:15):Here’s one of the things sat with me that I was really sort of thinking about is that the gathering was a Christian gathering. I do understand that public officials regularly attend to get at events and faith leaders and myself and premiers. We should all be free to participate in the life of our own religious communities. And I know for us, we would welcome opportunities to host elected officials within our own traditions. And at the same time, I don’t think the heart of the concern is about any one of those elements in isolation. It’s about what that event represented in the broader public context. When a sitting premier convenes or lends significant weight to a gathering that is framed as shaping public policy through a particular lens, particularly one that appears ideologically narrow, I’m wondering what message it sends to those who are not in that circle.I’m wondering about how it affects the perceived independence and inclusion of other faith communities. And that’s a place where I hear resonance with another concern that I’ve seen named is about the tone and the impact of the event and whether or not it contributed to a sense of a shared civic belonging. I actually wondered if it might even narrow it.Jenny:Yes, absolutely. One thing I will say is not only are you concerned about policy being shaped by what has been said in that, there has been policy shaped by this narrow group of people, I’ll be specific. There’s an organization called Cardus, which is very aligned with evangelical Christian faith and is during the strike, for example, the teacher’s strike, they made specific recommendations for the province to take and all of those recommendations were taken by the government. There is evidence of that. And then this event was in my mind then solidifying that for people because it was narrow in its invitation list. Is that right?Samaya:That’s correct. Yeah. I think public policy needs to be shaped for the people who are living in a place where the policy is going to be affected. And does that policy really fit for all Albertans, for instance? I don’t think so. And to add to that, it’s also in the public realm where there is one religious voice and I want to counter that with another religious voice because there are other religious voices that are very important and need to be taken into consideration. And that’s where the rub is for me.Jenny:Right. I’m going to underscore that there are at least 180 last I looked faith leaders who signed this from many ... Oh, now it’s 202. Sorry.Samaya:202. Okay.Jenny:And people should see it’s many different faith backgrounds, Anglican, there’s United, there’s Mennonite, there’s Unitarian, there’s the United Church of Canada. I know there’s a Catholic group in here because I am trying to seek voices. There’s an evangelical church in here as well. So many different faiths have taken the time to sign this, faith leaders, excuse me, and members, I should say, who signed this. And I’m just going to underscore some of the things that were mentioned in the letter for people. They speak to a public life is one that makes room for all voices and not to diminish some voices. You want to have a gathering that is shaped by welcoming and humility and that it shouldn’t be shaped by privilege or a limited access and that many traditions are not being represented in that. To understand that’s that plurality piece you spoke to again, helping people who are in the margins and understanding that there should be a diverse chorus of faith communities who are helping shape the province that we share.Anything else in there that I missed? I know there was something about diversity as well.Samaya:When I listen to you list all of the traditions, they all tend to be traditions that have come out of Christianity. That raises a question for me. Where are the indigenous voices in that? Where are voices that come from, let’s say the Sikh tradition or the Muslim tradition or the Jewish tradition? I’m wondering about that because what I would love to see is a more inclusive vision of religious life in Alberta. It’s not necessarily a Christian vision of religious life in Alberta. As I said, there are humanists and atheists in our congregations in the province and how does that impact their view? I just really want to highlight that. When we look at public policy as being shaped by one tradition and one viewpoint, is it really public policy that benefits us all?Jenny:Yeah, thank you. So important to mention that this is limited what seems like to Christian views so far. I think I would encourage anybody who’s listening from another faith, please reach out to the organizer of this. I’m certain there’s room for everyone to sign. It would be great, like you say, and maybe I’ve missed it, but to have some other voices on this protest list, if you will.Bill:I found out about it through the Roman Catholic woman priest in one of my churches. And as soon as I got involved with it, I said, “Ho, ho, okay, this is not the right pathway.” And what I understand about the letter is that instead of embracing the message from one branch of the church and then try to make that into government policy, to me, that rings true about the Catholic church in about 300 AD when they decided, “Well, you know what? It’s okay to have Rome in charge of the religion. And by the way, it’s now the law and you’re going to be crucified if you don’t get involved with this. “ I’m getting a little bit emotional, but I really believe that all major religions have a special message about taking care of each other and especially in terms of taking care of people who have no voice, people who have less education, people who are basically different.Again, I studied quite a bit of Buddhism and a little bit of Islam and certainly Christianity. That base message is, yeah, take care of those people who don’t have a voice because it’s your responsibility You just do that. I was concerned because the event that was described, I think it was May the 5th, really looked like it was exclusive to people with money and really inviting people who had the same echo chamber about what the message was all about. In other words, let’s try to do something for the privileged people, the powerful people, let’s try and get the wealthy people and we’ll gather them together, which I know is a recipe for political strength that if you can tap into people with money and all that, it’s good for politics. It sucks for spirituality. And I guess I’d rather talk about spirituality than religion because the word religion itself just breaks us up into groups.I’m not into that. I’m into gathering the groups together.Jenny:That’s such a wonderful message. And yes, it’s again, a theme I’ve heard from the others who have spoken in this is the importance of standing up for those who don’t have a voice and standing up for those that are marginalized, who are considered different and are not feeling supported in society rather than the ones that are well established and have the power already, let’s say. I’dJohn:Just like to begin by quickly saying clearly this is not a prayer breakfast.This is the present government lending its ear and its authority to a movement within the province that wants to replace secular law with one religion’s rules, which is Christianity. As a Christian minister and leader for 65 years I’ve been in the Christian community, the Jesus that is being portrayed by the right wing in this province is not the Jesus of the Bible. This is Jesus that’s manipulated to fit a particular lens on the world. My first comment would be that this breakfast was not inclusive, that it was who was targeted to the right wing conservative movement within the province. We did have a United Church ministry who attended and his report back to our community was that a group of people who certainly have on religious view and that’s Christian and one particular agenda, which is right wing. He says another talks about banning abortion, eliminating made, promoting anti-trans view in the culture and opposing the anti-hate law.All of these things are religious questions and issues and concerns. And the fact that these things are talked about without recognizing the interreligious culture of Alberta is really important was at a breakfast last week in Calgary and there were nine different religious communities gathered, 250 people with interfaith, which is far more representative of Alberta and certainly of the world. Christianity is one religion among many. And it was wonderful to hear that all religions are about human rights, all Christians, Buddhist speaks, et cetera. And we need to be standing up and speaking out where these kinds of narrow religious quote unquote statements are being made. Just in short, it wasn’t interfaith. It was not representative of even the Christians. The United Church certainly is more progressive than some of the other churches, but we certainly honour and respect and work with the Catholic community, the Baptist community, the Seventh Day Adventist community, and the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.The diversity even within Christianity is something that we have to honour and respect and be engaged with. It was faulty and two basis just to end this. It wasn’t inclusive of other world religions and it wasn’t inclusive of the diversity of the Christian faith itself.Jenny:Brilliant. One thing you hit home with me is this, if we look at the goals, if we look at the goals and the objectives of this event and try to actually tie that back to Jesus, back to the teachings of the New Testament, where are the examples of those things being fulfilled? To me, it’s the idea of the co-opting of Jesus and what he stood for that is just so important to underscore for people. Thank you. And just the fact that it’s not interfaith even, it’s not representing Christianity as a whole, let alone any other religion. Thank you for that.Leslie:I am a believer in free speech and the right to gather and I value diversity. What that means is that not everybody is going to think the way I do and that’s okay with me. I think healthy debate is important. I also have values so that’s what disturbed me about the event because it seemed to be championing and in an exclusionary kind of way, a certain way of being and living and thinking as our letter, the faith leader letter says, Alberta is home to people of many backgrounds, many faiths, many ways of living a good life. That’s what disturbed me was that the event seemed to be very much excluding some people and setting one way of being and thinking and living up as Not only the best way, but the only way. I think that that’s shortsighted.Jenny:Yeah, thank you. It’s very important to represent all people and all faiths in the province. So thank you so much for taking a stand for that and making it be known. Leslie, Can you chat a little bit about the role of faith leaders that you see today, especially in these uncertain times that we are in? The importance of terms like plurality and diversity, which you already mentioned, please.Leslie (00:30:28):Absolutely. I think it sits with that word leadership. Faith leaders are leaders. And I think one of the most important things that leaders can do for us is give us a vision of the kind of world that we want to live in and the kind of people that we want to be and that we aspire to be. And I really appreciated the values that were spoken to by the faith leaders in their letter of welcome and humility and inclusion. If you believe in diversity, then it is diversity for all in all circumstances and faith leaders can lead us in seeing the opportunities for doing exactly that. And of course, faith leaders can encourage all of us to participate in different events that practice the values and the vision that they speak about and that we ascribe to them and that we try to be like in a Christian faith, we have a model there of someone who absolutely practiced inclusion and we have an understanding in the writing that’s left behind about the importance of what’s called God’s preference for the poor.If we understand poverty in a broad kind of way, then I think our faith leaders can help us see all the ways in society from social structures and policies that result in people being “poor”, that it isn’t just economically poor but held back and barriers to success in all kinds of ways. That’s what I mean when I say the poor. I think the faith leaders have a real role in translating what that phrase “preference for the poor” means in this troubled world. That’s what I would expect. Faith leaders are role models and cheerleaders and in all kinds of ways are talking about what we should be doing and show us what we should be doing by the way they live their lives.Jenny:Yeah, that’s wonderful. I’m glad for you to underscore this concept of preference for the poor. Sounds like a faith leader’s role is to help ensure that those barriers and those potential exclusionary issues are addressed and that that is the focus is to try and make sure that that is something that is supported and lifted through the church. Is that right?Leslie:Yes, exactly. Exactly. Another phrase that we can turn to coming for abundance, that we’re expected to live a life of abundance and personal alive, alive in all the different ways that we can be alive. Church as one of the holders, wisdom holders has a role to play again in terms of interpreting what that means day-to-day. What does that abundance mean and how do we celebrate that abundance but also make that abundance available? It has to do with access, access to abundance. If we believe that the abundance is there and I do, then how do we help every one of us access that abundance and break down barriers and build ladders and lift people up, lift people up? Our job is to lift one another up.Jenny:That’s wonderful. Yes. This term abundance is so particularly important right now in these uncertain times. The thought of individualism being at a peak right now, people feeling isolated, not necessarily feeling in community with their, say their neighbours or their organizations. To me, that’s one of the main issues is this thought of competition and this thought of individualism and that can lead to less abundant thinking and rather scarcity thinking. It’s just so important to help people see that.Leslie:What happens when 5,000 people share what they have? There is enough if we know how to share and if we know what exactly the structures are that will promote that kind of sharing and that’s what we need. We need those ideas and values of sharing and the collaboration that sort of the other side of what you’re talking about, the individualism. In the West we learn from our historians and our philosophers that we have a very strong culture that emphasizes individual freedom and that’s a good thing. It was a good thing at its time given the context that it was developed in. But I really like the phrase that says, “You know what? Your freedom to swing your arms stops where my chin begins.” And I think it’s important for us all to think about not only our own s, but our collective chin and other people’s chins and how much more abundance we receive when we’re in it together, when we’re all in it together, again, trying to lift one another up as opposed to me trying to get to the top and climbing over whoever is there so we can accomplish so much more together collaboratively as a team, thinking more about in this group, whatever this group is, who’s in the best position right now, who has the resources, who has the energy, who has what’s needed to do what we can all see as needed for the group right now.That’ll change day to day depending on what’s happening in each person’s environment and life. But if we think of ourselves collectively, all working for the collective good, then it’s a constant conversation and negotiation. “Am I in the best position to do this? Are you? And if you are, then great. I’m happy to let you do it. I can help you if you need my help. “Thinking that way instead of being in competition as you put it.Jenny:Yeah, that’s so great because I’ve thought of often sometimes it is better to relinquish that leadership role if somebody else is more knowledgeable or better suited, like you said, in terms of relationships or whatever that looks like. And you’re right, it is a constant check-in question. And I love that you underscored the idea of collective good and how that helps us feel. It’s that feeling of reward that you just don’t get from those individual opportunities I think the same as you do when you accomplish something as a team.Bill:Leaning back into the years that I was in the United Church, we had a minister who regularly just kept looking for other sources. It wasn’t only the Bible. It was that plus, plus, plus. And one of the things that she tapped into was just the ground level taking care of each other. I believe that was a fantastic thing for me to experience, that the leader of our United Church would regularly challenge us to think a different way, to accept different things. This plurality is just a lovely richness that adds to what people ... And so I don’t believe that it’s the job of the spiritual leaders to tell people what they should believe. It’s the job of the spiritual leaders to invite them to think fully, to think wholly, to think in small ways completely away from the easy way. It’s easy to love your neighbour if it’s the same person as you, but we are surrounded in this world by other people and the word other should be a keynote that we got to communicate to the other people, not to the people who are in our basket, if you want to call it that.I believe that real hospitality is another message that I’ve heard before. There’s mystics in the Middle Ages that basically welcome people as innkeeper, take that as a model. A real good innkeeper invites everyone into their place, feeds them all, clothes them all, takes interest in where they came from and that’s the way I see us. I think we’re in keepers saying how diversity helps the RCWP group that I’m in also takes a look at First Nations wisdom and First Nations attitudes. We’ve gone way beyond the territorial acknowledgements to think about this being the world that we’re sharing with people who have been here for 20,000 years and we have screwed up pretty badly and we still have the choice to get together, listen to each other, benefit from each other, and not just exploit each other.Jenny:Oh, that’s wonderful stuff. I had the opportunity to interview Harley Besting, who was an elder of the Piikani Nation. And the way he spoke to me, I feel like our conversation resonated for months afterwards. It wasn’t as if he answered my questions. It was more about having me think about what he was saying and leaving me with some stories that would linger rather than telling me directly the things that I was missing. I love this concept of real hospitality and being in keepers for people and not potentially shaping, I think is what you’re saying, people’s thoughts, but rather just being open to how people come to the same or different ways of seeing a similar issue. And yeah, I just love the concept of accepting, thinking differently and forcing ourselves to think of another way rather than just the comfortable way that we generally like to think about our issues.Love it.Samaya:Well, I was talking with a colleague of mine the other day and at the end of the day, I think ultimately our job is to help people make meaning out of their lives. Right now we are living at a time of such polarisation and a sense of othering. It makes me curious about how is it that we are creating a world, creating a province, creating a city, creating a society where every single person is honoured for who they are, for their inherent worth and dignity, for just existing for being who they are. And those are the people I’m really wanting to reach out to to say, yes, you matter, you matter in this world, you matter in what happens. We are bombarded with a lot of misinformation. How do we help people make meaning of that? How do we help them stay true to who they are, the integrity of who they are and participate in our public life, in our public discourse?We do live in an interdependent web and when one part of the web is hurting, we are all at risk. The web becomes weakened when one part of it is not as strong as it could be. To me, it’s how do we strengthen the ties that bind us together as human beings? And there’s a lot of room in that for so many different worldviews, many different religions, many different ways of being in the world and it is beautiful and complex all at the same time. When I went to seminary, it was always your job as a faith leader is to afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted. And we’re constantly living in that tension of challenging the status quo so that we can become better as a society, so that we can become better as human beings as well as providing that comfort for people who are really suffering from how society is minimizing their worth and their dignity.And so that’s the struggle.Jenny:I think of as a parent trying to make sure that your kids are living up to their full potential, but also not pushing them too hard. That’s why I talk about having that balance between support and helping people develop their ... I love hearing being better human beings, making meaning in this world where we are experiencing so much polarization and othering of each other. Yeah, I think that’s really such a great place. And I wonder, there must be practice in this with respect to holding that space for people being able to be in that tension.Samaya:Here at Calgary Unitarians where I get the privilege of serving these people and we’re having so much fun together in a lot of different ways, it’s just a delight to serve them. My biggest message for them has been always, do you have a spiritual practice? And if you do not have a spiritual practice, get one. I don’t care what it looks like. It could be a mantra as you were brushing your teeth. It could be as you are out there walking your dog, whatever it is that works for you. And somebody said, “Well, why, Reverend, do I need to do this? I’m a humanist. What is this thing that you are talking about? “ And I went, my answer was what we’re doing is we’re developing a spiritual muscle so that when things happen in the world, we don’t either freeze and stop action or react and make the situation much worse.When we have the capacity and have developed the spiritual discipline of really focusing in on who I am as a being in this world, when we have that, we then open up a third response. It gives us that breathing space. We learn the techniques to slow down what is happening and respond in a way that acknowledges the flourishment and the betterment of us all. That’s been my biggest message for Calgary Unitarians. It would be my biggest message for anybody is, do you have a spiritual practice? What is it? What does it look like? Because that gives you the spiritual and emotional muscle to respond differently when events in the world are driving us to be filled with anxiety, to be fearful. It opens us up to a new way, a third way, which is a beautiful way.Jenny:Beautiful. Yeah, I think of the instinctual versus reactive versus gives you that opportunity for the responsive mindset. And when you say a spiritual practise, I’m going to say in anticipation of this discussion, I’ve been reflecting on potentially my lack of spiritual practice and I used to have, this is going to sound silly, but I used to have a gym class that we used to call our religion. We used to say- Absolutely. And when I think of the potential underlying reason for that label might be just that regular accountability to each other and that sense of belonging and the sense of accomplishment together. Is that a good way to ...Samaya:Absolutely. And I also want to throw in another ... When I worked with youth, because I was always talking about spirituality, I was like, okay, a lot of my youth, they played soccer. I said, “When you are on the soccer pitch and you’re in that zone where it’s just you and the ball and the game and there’s no room for anything else, that’s a spiritual moment. You are in the flow.”When I was rock climbing, that’s a spiritual ... There’s no room for anything else other than me and the rock and it is like that. How do we develop those practices? And it could be the gym, it could be anything along those lines. That’s why I say I don’t care what it is. It could be walking your dog. Some people actually, that is part of their spiritual practice. They’re out walking their dog morning and night. That is a reset for them throughout their day to sort of, who am I in this moment? What have I got left to do? How do I want to be for the rest of my day? It pulls us into that capital S self of who we are. It connects us with that capital S self. Some people call it that, some people God, some people spirit, whatever your name is for it, it connects us with that and it helps us to feel like we belong to something greater than ourselves and that sense of belonging is something that we all hunger for because we’re not coming from place of fear or anxiety or anything along those lines.We actually come from a place that is true to our hearts and an integrous place.John:And we’re living in a very challenging time. We came out of COVID not long ago and are in some ways still learning what do we learn both the positive and negative of that pandemic that affected all of us. And that was challenging for many people to then have the challenge of the United States and what’s gone on in our relationship with the United States and its place in the world. That’s a challenge economically and emotionally, I would say. What is the role? I mean, I think we need to be an oasis in a world of conflict and division. That doesn’t mean we stick our heads in the stands. It actually means that we encourage people to know they’re not aloneIn this challenging time. I think we need to encourage people to understand that in Christianity, the Jesus that is presented in the gospel is one that’s about peace and inclusion and welcoming of the other. Jesus clearly takes the 613 commandments of the Hebrew Bible down into the trend that become the 10 commandments into the sermon on the mount, which is the attitudes that call about the blessedness of those who more and blessed or the peacemakers, blessed are the meek, et cetera. The philosophy and essence of Jesus gets set up when he gets asked, “What’s the greatest commandment?” And he just clearly says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” And I underline the word neighbour as yourself because a lot of what is being preached is division and hate and judgement and clearly those are all things Jesus was again.It’s a challenge for leaders, but they have to also say to themselves and look themselves in the mirror, which Jesus am I preaching the one that reflects the ideas I have or the ones that reflect Jesus’ vision for the world. It’s a challenging time, but I’ve been doing this 38 years, it’s never mattered more. I’ll say that again… I’ve been doing this 38 years and it’s never mattered more because we are called to be speaking up and out so that passion is lived in the world. I think the world yearns for good Christian religion to be spoken and preached and taught and it’s up to us to ensure that we are having people familiar with the Bible, not just saying, “Oh, that’s what it says without actually reading it or speaking to it. “ It’s calling us up and out. Interestingly enough, the word blessed is not a passive word. It means get up, get up and speak out is not just a political thing. It is a compassionate way to encourage people to embrace the world and all of its diversity, which frankly is a gift. Jenny:Wow, thank you so much calling us up and out. I’m assuming up from our our seats, let’s say, up from just potentially being… John:You know what, COVID kept people indoors and there’s lots still indoors. I think we have to get off our couches and say this matters. My biggest concern right now as I think about the separatist movement in our province is that people are saying, “Oh, it’s just going to go away or it’s not important or we don’t believe in that. “ Well, I think we have to get up and out and say, “Yes, we love our country. We’re part of this country and let people know that have a very small, narrow, non-historical view of the Confederation to speak up and out about this. “ This is really important that we engage with others, not to beat them up, but to help understand and educate each other about the gift of this country and our place, in it,Jenny:Incredible. And I could not agree with you more. We absolutely need to take this separatist movement seriously. You spoke earlier about what’s happening in the United States and I will say the clear coordination between the United States and the separatist movement, it is not something to be taken lately. As you said, I loved that you underscored 38 years. There’s never been a more important time. I could not agree more. I’ve been living my adult life since 2000 and really feeling like it’s now or never to uphold the things that we want to see for Canada and for our communities. Last question for you. Okay. Last question for you, Leslie is, and this is about, again, appreciating that faith leaders or spiritual leaders have a very important role to play in terms of helping the social and environmental justice movement more broadly. How do you or your organization, how do you ensure that you are supporting those efforts or getting involved in those efforts, let’s say?Jenny (00:55:49):Thank you.Leslie:I think the faith leaders stay in touch just by virtue of their own networks. Many of our faith leaders of all different kinds are connected to groups that are thinking about and acting in social justice kinds of ways. Our faith leaders are already connected to those people. They make those opportunities known to us. If there’s a campaign, a letter writing campaign, we write a letter. We write a letter as a group. The Lethbridge Inclusive Catholic Community Fellowship has already done that with regard, we’ve written a letter to our government representatives expressing some of our concerns about proposed recent legislation. We can do that. We can attend if we know that there’s a rally and a protest, a gathering that’s in support of things that we believe in. We can go to those. I mean, I think it’s important generally that we’re not just armchair cheer.I think we have to be out there. We have to be doing something. We have to have action and those faith leaders because of the people they know and the networks they move in and the congregants too. I mean, all of us have our own networks and our own ... We watch podcasts, we find out about things and so we can each act in our own little community as well as participate in the big ones.Jenny:Wonderful. Yeah. This letter is a perfect example of an action that you guys took together collectively. That’s really great to hear that you’ve written letters with respect to policy and things like that and that yes, I think it is just a matter of connecting and having those relationships and listening when your members or others from the public could bring something forward and assessing whether you support it and put boots on the ground. As you say, it’s just so important for people to see these places being represented and understand that it is a place that we can go to when we are concerned about something deeply.Samaya:You can check out our website, CalgaryUnitarians.ca. You can also reach out to me as the minister, [email protected]. I won’t give you my phone number, but email will work just fine. I’m pretty responsive. We will be at the rally on May the 29th. We’re going to be there with Calgary Alliance for the Common Good because we’re a founding member of CACG. And please come out and come to the rally, come find us. We’ll be there with our Calgary Unitarians banner and email me. I would love to hear from people.Jenny:Wonderful.John:I think we have to encourage people that it matters if they show up. I think that’s the one sort of all I would say for all people if they’re able to be there and to lend their voice and support to say these things matter. I am working within the United Church of Canada to say that we are the United Church for Canada, not just of Canada. The United Church people will be hopefully present to let that be known. It’s a matter of engagement. Politics is got such a bad reputation, but it used to be something of service for the common good. The word politics means polish, which is the affairs of the city. So everything’s political. The coffee drink, the car you drive, the lawn fertiliser, everything is political. So let’s not say it’s a bad thing and keep it separate. Let’s say what is this call Helping us too. And so my hope is that we encourage people to see a bigger picture and a more loving and compassionate feel themselves and their place in the world. So it’s got to be done with love and joy and not hate and fear.Jenny:Love that. Bill: I believe that we start out with understanding that there’s two really strong motivations in human life. One of them being love and the other one being fear. I believe that if we get down to the roots of love, then we are going to try to embrace other people. We’re going to try to get out of our comfort zone because we know that we’re being invited to do that as opposed to an atmosphere of fear where you say, “Well, I kind of understand this group’s point of view, but I really don’t understand these other guys because they’re really out there.” By starting out with what we have in common and working together on what we know is our root values, we’re going to get on the right track. And I guess we just have to keep telling ourselves we aren’t in search of the answer that we’re going to publish to everybody else.We’re actually walking down the same road with a lot of different people. We’re looking for guidance and we get guidance. Yeah, we get guidance divinely. I meditate. I’m very quiet and I know that that helps my prayer life, if you want to call it my prayer life. We keep walking the good road. This is another message that comes from the First Nations version of the New Testament, which is another source. It’s reading the same Bible except it’s reading it through the eyes of the people who have been here for all these years on Turtle Island. And it’s lovely. It’s lovely to think about it in an open way and then you get down to the message first and then you backtrack to, okay, this is how it applies. The other thing that is really key to me after having seen Buddhism in Thailand and seeing Islam in Turkey, let’s get past what we’re different about and let’s take a look at what we do for each other.What is it that our group does to help people who are disadvantaged? How do we equalize a very unequal world? And you know what? It’s not an enormous task that we can’t do. It’s something that we can make choices in our little zone and just watch the ripples go out from there.Jenny:Coming in with that expectation of how do we equalize a very unequal world is a really powerful place to come from. And understanding that it’s our care for each other that ultimately is how we should be measured.Bill:Two messages that mean a lot to me right now. And one of them is connection. I want to see connections between me and my grandson and me and the wacko guy who lives down the block from me because I can choose to build those connections. I don’t have to ignore them. I don’t have to say it’s too tough for me to do. The other message that I’ve kind of gathered in this journey lately is the idea that there is plenty for us. We have enough of a world we can make this world work without saying there’s going to be winners and losers because there is enough. Enough is one of the key words that I try to start with every day. I actually got it tattooed to my arm that I won’t show you, but yeah. That’sJenny:Incredible. I love it because yes, this idea of scarcity and that we’re somehow in competition for everything when there is enough is such a beautiful message to leave with. Thank you, Bill. This has been wonderful. I’m so glad we had a chance to connect and I hope we have an opportunity again in the future.Bill:It’s been a pleasure. Thanks for asking.Jenny:You talked about our interconnectedness. The way I was describing it offline was these pillars of society and just understanding that faith, that spirituality is a pillar of a healthy society and for us to be making sure we look to leaders in this space and understanding that there are really meaningful ways to move us forward if we slow down and just think about how we can include each other’s perspectives.Samaya:Have a spiritual practice.Jenny:Yes. I heard that too. Thank you so much.Leslie:Thank you, Jenny.Jenny:Thank you so much, Leslie. I am so appreciative of your time. Lethbridge, I find has a very strong and healthy faith community, let’s say. It’s really nice to have an opportunity to speak to you and to hear more about what you’re doing.Leslie:Thank you so much, Jenny. I really appreciate the opportunity. All the best to you.Bonus questions: what do you suggest people do to help regain a sense of community?Jenny (01:05:30):I’m going to ask one extra practical question of you just because you raised it earlier. A common concern I have, and I know others do too, is around, like you said, our neighbours, us being divided. I’ll be specific. My neighbour had flags out of many kinds that were hateful. We’ve lost relationship with them. Or what do you suggest people do to help regain a sense of community?John:Well, what I say to my community is this, you begin with the phrase, “Help me understand.” The phrase, your neighbours, help me understand why you want these particular flags up. Help me understand what’s driving this. It is an engagement to have people articulate why they’re feeling the way they are. That’s step number one, I think. The second is you’re going to have a flag that you can fly too. It begins with conversation. It will probably end with disagreement, but hopefully it’s done respectfully. And I know that. I mean, I flew a Canadian flag in my house last year. I’m going to get it out again. It never happened in my lifetime.Jenny:Right, me too.John:The tragedy in this is I’ve never had to defend why I live in Canada to other Canadians. Easy.Jenny:Absolutely.John:If you want to know who really gets this, talk to an Uber driver. They’ll tell you what’s like to live in a place that is not safe where governments have influenced in a negative way. It’s really asking people to pay attention and I encourage people to do that.Jenny:Wonderful.John:Thanks so much.Jenny:Yeah. Thank you. Take care for now. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The episode is features Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), about Alberta’s first province‑wide Day of Action scheduled for Friday, May 29, framed as a broad, democratic protest against the current provincial government’s direction and a starting point for a longer‑term movement.Gil describes the AFL as Alberta’s oldest and largest worker advocacy group, an association of 27 unions representing about 175,000 workers in public and private sectors, founded 114 years ago in Lethbridge by coal miners and tradespeople to fight for the eight‑hour day, health and safety, and minimum wage. He shares his background as a rural Alberta farm kid turned journalist who became active in his union and eventually AFL president.Gil explains that unions in the AFL decided in December to create a province‑wide day of protest on May 29 because they and many Albertans felt “things were going off the rails” under Premier Danielle Smith’s government. The immediate trigger was Bill 2, which forced striking teachers back to work and stripped their constitutional right to strike, but they quickly saw broader concerns: workers’ rights, two‑tier healthcare, attacks on education, cuts to supports for disabled people, and targeting of Indigenous communities and vulnerable LGBTQ+ kids. He characterizes the government’s approach as “MAGA North” tactics of divide, distract, and scapegoating, and says many Albertans are “quietly horrified” by this direction. Traditional democratic tools like petitions and letters are being ignored, he argues, while the government uses a “flood the zone” strategy—constant policy attacks and chaos—so he believes a unifying protest movement is needed to bring together people with many different concerns.Warm up your protest voice by singing to the “Injustice” Minister, Mickey Amery, at his office (920 36 Street NE) from 12:00 to 1:30 pm. Here is the chorus, feel free to bring a verse or two!May 29 is deliberately on a Friday to move from symbolic weekend demonstrations at an empty legislature to at least some level of disruption while MLAs are actually at work. Instead of a single rally in Edmonton, they chose a decentralized, grassroots model: protests “everywhere,” with local committees in 14 communities, including Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and smaller towns. They launched the Fight Back Now campaign and website (fightbacknow.ca) as the organizing hub for May 29 and potential future protest days, inviting both labour and non‑labour civil society to lead and participate. Gil notes that in Calgary, for example, there will be a large rally at Riley Park at 5:30 p.m. and a smaller protest at Justice Minister Mickey Amery’s constituency office at noon, targeting the “injustice minister” for enabling a separatist agenda.Then ride your bike down to Riley Park!Event schedule:* Gather in the NW corner of Riley Park (8 Ave and 12 Street NW)* Celebrate with dance music* Optional: Bring your bike and join the Critical Mass ride at 6:30 pm* Meet many groups working on diverse causes* Hear from expert speakers* Take part in the solidarity song writing contest! Perhaps we’ll have a full Mickey song to share.Gil and I argue that the UCP’s current agenda lacks a democratic mandate: the 2023 election was close—decided by roughly 3,000–6,000 votes in a handful of Calgary ridings—and the party did not campaign on two‑tier healthcare, exiting the Canada Pension Plan, or separatism. We highlight that the government’s first major bill was the Sovereignty Act, which was not part of the campaign platform. Gil calls the government “founded on dishonesty” and says many UCP voters now feel betrayed because “this is not what I voted for,” and the May 29 protests are also a platform for those disillusioned supporters.We delve into the ideological roots of the current agenda, focusing on the “Free Alberta Strategy,” co‑authored by Rob Anderson, Danielle Smith’s campaign manager and current chief of staff, which Gil likens to a Canadian version of the U.S. Project 2025. He says the document lays out a blueprint and timeline for moving Alberta toward MAGA‑style politics and separatism, and that Smith has been following it “component by component,” starting with the Sovereignty Act. Polls show separatism is supported by only 25–35% of Albertans overall, but it is a majority view within the UCP and is especially popular among higher‑income earners (over $150,000) who feel economically insecure. Gil and I connect this to oil and gas interests, noting that many leading separatist and UCP figures come from the sector, and that wealthy investors with heavy stakes in fossil fuels oppose anything that might limit expansion, such as climate policy or energy transition.Gil frames this as part of a global “incumbent’s dilemma”: oil and gas, historically the most powerful industry in the world, now faces serious competition from increasingly cheap renewable electricity. Instead of pivoting and investing to remain competitive, he argues, many incumbents are “stacking the deck” through politics—lobbying, capturing governments, and seeking subsidies—while criticizing renewables for subsidies even as major oil projects now rely on public support. He sees the rise of separatism and MAGA‑style politics in Alberta as a desperate attempt by fossil fuel incumbents to protect their status by rigging the system rather than preparing for a different future, and warns that this is against the long‑term public interest, including that of oil and gas workers.I stress the need for responsibility beyond Alberta’s borders, especially regarding water that flows to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, arguing that separatist rhetoric shrinks responsibility to “imaginary borders” and ignores interprovincial obligations. The oil and gas industry, with the largest footprint on the landscape, must lead in land and water restoration. I want to return to the industry to focus on stewardship. I also note that subsidies like the Site Rehabilitation Program are preferable to subsidizing new pipelines with questionable markets, and uses this to illustrate how public funds could support reclamation rather than expansion.The organizing model for May 29 draws inspiration from the U.S. “No Kings” movement, which mobilizes mass protests in defense of democracy against Trump‑era authoritarianism. Gil says they deliberately adopted a similar grassroots, self‑organizing structure: the Fight Back Now website serves as a hub where local committees form, meet online, and then organize real‑world actions, with many committees now meeting independently. The goals mirror No Kings: show people you are not alone, counter the exhaustion caused by “flood the zone” tactics, and create a single space where multiple issues—healthcare, education, worker rights, separatism, minority rights—can converge into a unified movement against authoritarianism.Gil situates this within a broader historical context, citing movements like Poland’s Solidarity and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution as examples of successful citizen coalitions that united diverse groups against authoritarian regimes. He emphasizes that May 29 is intended as the beginning, not a one‑off event: the AFL recently helped convene an Alberta Civil Society Summit with about 200 participants from unions, Indigenous groups, student organizations, seniors, and racialized and immigrant communities, and they plan more protests and another summit in the fall to deepen cross‑sector networks.I underscores the importance of “organizing for power” and praises the labour movement’s experience in structured organizing: having hard conversations, clarifying expectations, and building long‑term solidarity rather than one‑time actions. I note that AFL’s role is to seed and support, not control, the movement; in Calgary, for instance, the May 29 committee has more non‑union than union members and is chaired by community activists, which Gil welcomes as evidence of genuine grassroots growth. Gil recounts that the premier’s office mocked him and predicted failure when Fight Back Now was announced, pointing to past efforts like general strike threats and recall campaigns, but he argues that thousands of Albertans were mobilized through those recalls despite artificially high thresholds, and that these experiences built a base of activists now moving into “phase two.”Gil and I frame the UCP’s rule‑changing as a hallmark of creeping authoritarianism: lowering thresholds for separatist initiatives while imposing high hurdles on citizen‑driven recall and initiative campaigns, and changing laws to shield the government from court decisions. We argue that Alberta’s political stereotype—conservative, pickup‑driving, oil‑patch “Joe Alberta”—obscures a much more diverse population, and that the UCP’s MAGA‑style project is “awakening a sleeping giant” of citizens who want to remain in Canada, protect public services, and reject authoritarianism. Gil insists that these citizens are likely the majority and that their real power lies in collective action, which the May 29 protests aim to facilitate.In the final part of the conversation, I ask Gil to address accusations that the AFL is simply an arm of the NDP and to explain why a widely expected general strike did not occur after Bill 2. Gil responds that while many union activists vote NDP, the AFL and NDP are functionally separate: only 2 of 27 affiliated unions are formally connected to the NDP, and most unions are officially or functionally non‑partisan, with members repeatedly telling the AFL not to dictate their votes. He argues that workers naturally gravitate away from a government that refuses to raise the minimum wage, attacks public services, and strips the right to strike, and that his job is to defend workers’ interests, which currently means opposing the UCP. He also notes tensions with the NDP: the AFL has developed its own “Worker Agenda,” a detailed policy blueprint on affordability, wages, public services, jobs, and the economy, including proposals like a $20 minimum wage, public auto insurance to lower Canada’s highest auto premiums, and re‑regulating Alberta’s fully deregulated power system, which he says was effectively designed by former Enron figures. He wants the NDP to adopt more “progressive populist” policies—“more like Bernie than Hillary”—but stresses that the AFL’s platform is independent.On Bill 2 and the missed general strike, Gil gives a candid account: anticipating use of the notwithstanding clause against striking workers, the AFL created a “Common Front” of AFL and non‑AFL unions and a “Solidarity Pact” pledging mutual defence if any group’s right to strike was attacked. When the government used the clause against teachers in October, ordering them back to work with threats of $500‑per‑day fines for individuals and massive fines for the union, the teachers’ leadership decided not to defy the order, partly because they had already been on strike for three weeks and lacked a strike fund. At a critical October 29 meeting, some major union leaders argued they could not ask their members to undertake illegal strikes and face similar fines if the teachers themselves were not defying the order, and “the air went out of the balloon.” Gil and AFL vice‑president Corey Longo did move a motion for a one‑day general strike and many unions were ready, but without teacher defiance the plan collapsed. Gil says he will not blame teachers, but believes the labour movement “missed an opportunity,” let Albertans down, and emboldened the government to escalate; organizing the May 29 Day of Action and future protests is, in his view, part of atoning for that failure.The episode closes with my reiterating that separatism, though a symptom rather than the root cause, is serious and well‑funded, and that the May 29 protests are a chance for people to stand together on whatever issue matters most to them—separatism, healthcare, education, worker rights, or democratic norms. Thank you, Gil, for your leadership! Failure and learning are part of the process of building a long‑term solidarity movement. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The episode of the Gravity Well podcast, with Professor Duane Bratt of the Mount Royal University, focuses on two major themes: gerrymandering in Alberta and a massive voter data breach tied to separatist movements and foreign interference.On gerrymandering, Bratt notes there are no major updates: an MLA committee has been named, but its advisory body and final maps are still pending. He expects the final outcome will differ from both the majority and minority reports and involve significant redrawing of boundaries, not just adding two seats. He contrasts Alberta’s long timeline (next election likely October 2027) with the United States, where maps are being redrawn even as they approach a November 2026 vote.The main focus is a large-scale data breach: Elections Alberta’s voters list for 2.9 million people was legitimately provided to the new Republican Party of Alberta, which had not run in the 2023 general election but had only contested three by-elections. That list was then transferred—possibly sold or given—to the Centurion Project, a pro-separatist organization that is not a political party. Elections Alberta detected the leak because they “salt” each party’s list with fake names; those fake names appeared on the Centurion list, tracing the breach back to the Alberta Republican Party.Bratt explains why this is far more serious than a “phone book,” contrary to Centurion leader David Parker’s claim. The voters list includes polling station information and other data never in phone books, and unlike phone books, individuals cannot opt out; people who would normally hide their information (judges, police, some teachers, people fearing harassment or doxxing) are exposed. He calls it a huge breach of privacy and security.He outlines potential harms: doxxing of public figures (Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney’s personal data have already been released), risks to victims of domestic abuse and child custody disputes, resale of data to companies, and use as a baseline for identity theft (names, addresses, emails, phone numbers). Politically, the Centurion Project held the list for at least a month while gathering signatures for a petition to trigger an Alberta separation referendum in October 2026; Bratt raises the possibility that some petition entries could have been filled using voters-list data without consent, especially since only signatures would need to be added.Multiple investigations are underway: Elections Alberta, the Alberta Privacy Commissioner, the RCMP, and Edmonton Police Service are all investigating. Elections Alberta has issued cease-and-desist letters to at least 600 Centurion affiliates who had access to the full list, though the true spread is unknown due to the group’s multi-level-marketing-style recruitment (each person recruiting ten more, and so on). Bratt stresses this is a massive breach with political, civil, and criminal consequences, some of which may only emerge over time.On legal exposure, Bratt notes that distributing the list can carry fines up to $100,000 and up to a year in jail, though he doubts every volunteer will face such penalties. He suggests key figures like David Parker and Republican Party leader Cam Davies could be in serious legal jeopardy, and notes that separatist leader Jeff Rath had previously directed people to Centurion before later distancing himself. Note: Parker is not complying with the Elections Alberta investigation at the moment.Bratt then details links between the United Conservative Party (UCP) and separatist actors: Mitch Sylvester, leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project, is also a UCP constituency association president; UCP MLA Jason Stephan wrote an op-ed advocating separatism; and a UCP staffer attended a mid-April Centurion meeting where Jason Kenney’s personal information was released. The NDP reported the staffer’s presence to Elections Alberta and the RCMP, yet Premier Danielle Smith has blamed the NDP for not informing her, even though her own staffer was at the meeting, which Bratt calls “bonkers.” He questions why a premier’s staffer was at a private, invite-only separatist organizing meeting and what report he provided afterward.Bratt and about 40 Alberta academics (political scientists, law professors, criminologists) are calling for a broad public inquiry, arguing that existing investigations are too narrow and focused on legalities rather than ethics and systemic issues. They want an independent, well-resourced, and fast-moving inquiry, given the planned 2026 referendum, to examine questions such as whether parties should receive voters lists at all and whether all parties should be treated equally, especially brand-new or fringe parties. Bratt cites Calgary’s 2021 municipal election, where Elections Calgary withheld the voters list from all mayoral candidates because one candidate, Kevin J. Johnston, was a known doxxer facing criminal charges; the election proceeded smoothly, suggesting parties may not need such lists.TAKE ACTION! Join the 40 Alberta Academics in Calling for a Broad Public InquiryTo: [email protected]: Request for a Public Inquiry Outside of the Government of Alberta’s ReachTo Whom It May Concern,The RCMP and Elections Alberta investigations regarding the doxxing of 2.9 million Albertans, including myself, are insufficient and are likely to not be complied with. This breach cannot be considered limited to Alberta as separatism aims extends to British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The scope of a nation wide investigation must include: Such an inquiry must be:* Independent, with leadership free from political influence;* Transparent, with proceedings open to public scrutiny;* Comprehensive, with the authority to compel testimony and documents;* Forward-looking, offering clear recommendations to prevent future breaches and strengthen safeguards; and* Ideally completed before Albertans cast ballots in any future election or referendum.Considering the investigations undertaken by the current Government of Alberta (example: the Alberta Health Services procurement scandal) have been scope-limited and conducted by individuals with connections to the United Conservative Party of Alberta, it is imperative an investigation occurs from outside the province or outside the GOA’s control.Please take this threat seriously, as the future of our country is on the line.Sincerely, Jenny Yeremiy, Calgary-BowInclude your postal codeThe conversation broadens to foreign interference and separatist propaganda. Bratt notes that David Parker has said he obtained the organizing technology from U.S. Republicans, indicating foreign tactical influence, while the underlying data in this case came from Alberta’s voters list. He points to evidence of separatist-related disinformation originating from Russia, the Netherlands, and Florida, and warns that foreign actors may now have access to the leaked list. Some foreign actors, he says, want to break up Canada (Trump has talked about annexing Canada), others like China seek to sow chaos in democracies, and some simply want to profit by producing AI videos and other content.They discuss AI-generated propaganda such as the “Sovereign Steel” video, played at Alberta Prosperity Project rallies, which portrays stereotypical rural male roles, marginalizes women (only shown as wife, daughter, and Danielle Smith), and caricatures Mark Carney as a mocking monarch. The creator, “Full Metal Patriot,” is an American who has produced similar content for the U.S. and U.K., illustrating foreign involvement. Bratt notes that while some videos are crude “slopaganda,” they still amplify existing divisions on issues like equalization, immigration, oil and gas, transgender rights, and COVID, by exaggerating kernels of truth.Bratt references Canada’s recent public inquiry into foreign interference in the 2021 federal election, which found that foreign actors focused on nomination races and misinformation in non-English/French media, potentially affecting a handful of seats even if not the overall result. He argues foreign actors (China, Russia, and now the U.S. element) have reasons to target Alberta as well. He contrasts UCP claims—via Mike Ellis and Danielle Smith—that the RCMP found no foreign interference in the Alberta referendum with CSIS’s director, who told CBC’s The House that foreign interference is occurring; Bratt concludes that foreign interference, broadly defined (misinformation, money flows, attempts to influence outcomes), is already underway even before any vote.Politically, Bratt notes that Mark Carney has commented on the breach, while Pierre Poilievre and all Alberta Conservative MPs have remained silent, unlike non-Conservative MPs who have spoken out. He criticizes separatists’ “situational ethics”: they oppose government data collection (e.g., gun registry, census) yet downplay the release of data on nearly three million people when it serves separatist goals.Within the separatist movement, the breach has triggered infighting. Longtime separatist Corey Morgan has condemned the privacy violation and warned it harms the cause; Mitch Sylvester and Jeff Rath are distancing themselves from David Parker, while Morgan and Rath feud publicly. Duane and I also discuss the Overton window and how repeated exposure to propaganda normalizes extreme ideas.They touch on definitional issues: RCMP and CSIS reportedly do not classify overt statements by foreign politicians (e.g., J.D. Vance campaigning with Viktor Orbán, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent endorsing Alberta separatism, or a potential Trump endorsement) as foreign interference, focusing instead on covert actions. Bratt notes that U.S. commentators like Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck have publicly called for military intervention in Canada to remove what they describe as an undemocratic government; while not necessarily criminal, he argues these are deeply unethical interventions, especially given Carlson’s speaking tour in Alberta that included Premier Smith.Throughout, Bratt emphasizes that not all harmful or unethical behaviour is criminal, and that a public inquiry is needed to address broader ethical, democratic, and systemic questions beyond the scope of police or privacy investigations.Want More?Have a listen to my latest conversation with Charlie Angus / The Resistance in Edmonton last week! Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

An update on the long-coming illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran and the broader Gulf Region, or West Asia. Wesam Cooley and I discuss the need for Canadians, Iranians, and Native Americans to come together—The Love Boat, let’s call it—to fight the corrupt and evil political “Epstein Class” of people, as outlined in our March conversation and again in my Sunday, May 3, 2026 conversation with Mikayla Resists. In this discussion, we uncover past errors in the post-World War I Socialist Revolution. That Coronel Larry Wilkerson, Larry Johnson, Scott Ritter and others have said the United States is being led by a mad man, and that the best analogy of where we are is Star Wars. The need for us to be rebel forces finding our own “Strait of Hormuz” choke points in order to regain control of public policy: social justice and environmental regulations.TAKE ACTION: Participate in the Friday, May 29th FIGHT BACK NOW Day-of-Action!Following the lead of historical social justice movements, the Alberta Federation of Labour is planning a workers day-of-action in Alberta. With the No Kings movement in the United States, coupled with the knowledge that former workers’ success has come through system disruption, Alberta is beginning her very own “No Queens” movement on Friday, May 29th. Have your voice heard, make your displeasure known. Have a listen to Gil McGowan and Nate Pike’s great conversation about the event on TheBreakdownAB. Until next time, Comrade Wesam, in solidarity! Find Wesam on Facebook and Instagram under @CalgaryPeoplesAssembly. The energy discussion I mentioned: Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Mikayla Resists returns to The Gravity Well to update us on what she’s been up to since our last conversation on February 4: of the Reclaiming Alberta Report. Mikayla sat in on at least two separatist town halls and one virtual meeting regarding the separatist movement. Topics covered:* The Alberta Prosperity Project to the Centurion Project hand off.* The latest meeting where David Parker described the “technology” being used, aka voter lists.* The soldiering up and educating of separatist leaders to bring in followers using an app.* Alberta’s relationships between the United States, Israel, Gaza, and the war in Iran.* TAKE ACTION: Demand Warren Dreichel’s Removal from The Edmonton Police ServiceWhile our city continues to mourn the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza, Police Chief Warren Driechel travelled to Israel to meet with the police force notorious for its human rights violations, with the Police Commission's blessing. While the trip has been framed as an "educational" expedition, for Edmontonians this trip was a betrayal. Mayor, Andrew Knack rightly noted that this trip has damaged the social fabric of our city. Yet, in the face of this outcry, Chief Driechel has remained defiant, stating he "stands by his decision."We, the signatories, demand:* The immediate resignation of Police Chief Warren Driechel, on the grounds that his actions have undermined public trust and jeopardized community cohesion.* An independent, transparent, and comprehensive investigation into the purpose, funding, itinerary, meetings, and outcomes of Police Chief Driechel’s travel to Occupied Palestine including full disclosure of any official or unofficial engagements undertaken during the visit.* The immediate suspension and subsequent termination of any current or future institutional partnerships, training programs, exchanges, or collaborations between the Edmonton Police Service and zionist policing or security agencies, in accordance with municipal, commitments to human rights, international law, and ethical governance.We know that human rights should never be taken for granted. We know that what Warren Dreichel did was wrong, and he must face the consequences of his actions. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In this episode, Kennedy Halvorson of the Alberta Wilderness Association returns to the studio (last appeared in The Future of Water in Southern Alberta) to co-host coal expert, Cornelis Kolijn with me. This conversation aims to break through coal misinformation causing calamity in the Province of Alberta, and beyond. Cornelis graduated from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He has over 40 years of experience in international mining and metallurgical coal (coke and ironmaking). He’s worked in countries across the globe from Canada to Europe to Australia and all over Asia. He worked for Teck Resources in 2019 and since then has been a consultant for metallurgical coal and coke making, including alternate hydrogen-based direct reduction process and assessing alternatives to blast furnaces. He mentors young engineers and geologists. Thank you to Cornelis and Kennedy for the fabulous conversation!ResourcesThe Alberta Energy Regulator’s Statements on Coal DemandCoal Demand | Alberta Energy RegulatorBattery Circularity and Canada’s Need to Catch UpCoal Price Volatility, Outlook, Grassy Coal Quality, Rock Waste PilesAUSTRALIA Resources and Energy Quarterly December 2025Due to decreasing global coal demand, and an increasing focus on high quality coal, benchmark hard coking coal prices are trending to sub-$200 USD/tonne.Trading Economics, on April 19, 2026Benchmark metallurgical coal prices are trending to $185 USD/tonne.Australia Resources and Energy Quarterly, September 2025Graphs showing India and South East Asia have been making up for China’s—and others—declining coal imports (left) and Australia’s high quality coal dominates the export market (right). SMS Group Insights March 2024, The Steel Industry in 2050Tables highlighting a 71% to 33% blast furnace decrease expected (left) and increasing scrap steel availability from 0.9 to 1.5 Megatonnes per year (right) between 2022 and 2050. Wood Mackenzie, Steel Value Briefing Tokyo, August 2024.Remembering that good climate policy is good economic policy, scenarios adhering to climate policy may drop global oil demand by as much as 3/4 of current global metallurgical coal demand.* Base Case consistent with 2.5oC global warming, as per Wood Mac’s Long-term of 2024Q1. Steady advancement of current and nascent technologies.* Pledges consistent with 2oC global warming, aligned with Net Zero by 2070 pledges in COP26, in 2021. Incl. policy response to current energy crisis & geopolitical challenges to global economy.* Net Zero 2050 scenario consistent by 1.5oC global warming, net zero by 2050. Aligns with most ambitious goal of Paris Agreement in 2015.Cornelis’s Expert Evidence Report on Grassy MountainCornelis expects coal quality to decline rapidly from seam to seam at Grassy Mountain. Coupling this with demand decline, he sees reclamation dollars being unavailable when needed most.A graph showing the quality of Grassy Mountain Coal being well below Prime Hard Coking Coal quality benchmarks CSR and the neighboring Elk Valley coal seams. As a consequence, Grassy's coal product will have lower market value and pricing compared to the Elk Valley's coal. CSR is the coke strength in the Blast Furnace's process conditions; Extreme Temperatures and aggressive gas-attack degrading the coke, potentially "smothering" the process.The Fluidity, this is the softening, partly melting of coal during carbonization in the oven is lower than Elk Valley's Prime hard coking coal. Usually, an optimized blend of coking coals is charged into the coke oven and heated to approx. 1100oC. Upon softening and release of gas and tar, the coal solidifies into solid coke. Low Fluidity coals are not as effective interacting with the other coals in the coal blend to form the strong coke structure required in the Blast Furnace.A graph showing the opening and closing of coal mines between 1996 and 2016. Overall mines were offline 1/3 of the time.A table highlighting the overstated economic value and employment opportunities across three mines in British Columbia between 1999-2019.Research on subsidence from underground operations in Alberta and BeyondSignificant movement and ground deformation at the location labelled P4 towards the road and Smoky River: Ground deformation due to natural resource extraction in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin - ScienceDirect.Two maps showing the pits and waste rock (left) and proposed mine plans (right) for the Tent Mountain mine. There is evidence of sluffing of the stock piles due to the topography and increased material volume and load in this Google Earth satellite image.Tent Mountain Google Earth Satellite Image Slumping Waste Rock Pile 1 Aug.2025-2Underground mining is far from “out-of-sight-out-of-mind”. Apart from the impact on the watershed, methane is likely to escape through the cracks into the atmosphere, adding to the atmospheric greenhouse gas pollution. In some mining areas (Appalachians) in the USA escaping methane caused some homes and buildings to explode. In some cases, escaping mine-gas methane is being flared. The Crowsnest coal seams can be very “gaseous”, referring to underground mine explosions of the past.Towards an Inventory of Abandoned Mines in AustraliaSouthern East Slope Geology Complexity and Thinning Compared to the Elk ValleyTwo maps showing the surface expression increased complexity (left) and thinning of the coal seam thickness (right) from West (Elk Valley) to East (Crowsnest Valley).The Joint Review Panel Report Decision, Page 19, finds the project is not in the public’s interest: https://static.aer.ca/prd/documents/decisions/2021/2021ABAER010.pdf.This Google Earth image roughly shows the original rejected mine footprint (red) and the newly proposed footprint (yellow). As you can see, very little has changed. The map also highlights the tributaries that flow into the Crowsnest River, including Gold Creek and Blairmore Creek, highlighting their direct connection to downstream water systems that will receive contaminants. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Markham is a Canadian journalist and CEO of Energi.Media, one of Canada’s leading independent news organizations. Thoughtful Energy Journalism currently averages over 6 million views/reads per month, and is celebrating its 18th year. Markham also has a sizable and growing US audience.I was introduced to Markham during the run up to the 2023 election. He was my first energy specific interview. Through his work and our continued collaboration through the Energy Circle, I have been exposed to a much more realistic view of Alberta. A view in line with my lived experience in the oil patch as a Geophysicist and liability expert. I have been introduced to and now work with many of the people Markham has interviewed: including Mark Dorin of the Polluter Pay Federation - PPF, Philip Meintzer of The Drill and Dash Report, and, of course, Charlie Angus / The Resistance. Markham introduced Charlie and I.Markham started the Energy Circle at the same time I began The Gravity Well podcast. We meet online Thursday afternoons at 3 pm MT to discuss all things energy transition, political, and water related. I am very grateful for Markham’s work, his friendship and for his coming to Calgary to host this event with me! Thank you to everyone who participated and welcomed Markham back to town.Next Event in YYCJoin the Coalition For Responsible Energy (C4RE) and me on Tuesday, May 12 from 7-8:30 pm at the Bowness Seniors’ Centre (6422 35 Ave NW) in Calgary. The Alberta Government is planning to ram the Mature Asset Strategy (MAS) through the legislature—a backroom deal that pushes the cost of oil and gas clean-up from the industry onto taxpayers. Learn more about what MAS is, how it will impact you, and our plan to stop the handout to the oil and gas industry. Let’s take action together! Meet other campaign volunteers supporting environmental and social justice. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode of The Gravity Well features a discussion about the LaRose v. Her Majesty the Queen (now His Majesty the King) climate change lawsuit on Earth Day. The conversation includes Sadie Vipond, a plaintiff in the case, and Andrew Gage, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law.Sadie Vipond is a university student studying environmental science with a specialization in ecology and conservation at the University of British Columbia. She has been involved in the case for seven years, starting when she was in grade seven or eight. The case involves multiple young plaintiffs who have all experienced climate change impacts including fires, heat, extreme weather events, flooding, and medical conditions exacerbated by climate effects.Andrew Gage works for West Coast Environmental Law and has been focusing on climate change for about a decade. His organization joined the case about a year ago when the David Suzuki Foundation stepped back, providing communications, fundraising support, and legal case development assistance. The lead legal representation is handled by the Arvay Finlay LLP firm.The case challenges the adequacy of Canada’s climate action under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to life, liberty, and security of the person. The plaintiffs argue that Canada’s Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act falls short of constitutional obligations to protect youth rights. Importantly, the plaintiffs are not seeking monetary compensation but rather a science-based climate recovery plan to hold the government accountable.The case faced initial legal challenges when it was struck down by courts for being too broad, but the Federal Court of Appeal allowed it to proceed after the plaintiffs amended their pleadings to focus specifically on the Canadian Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act. This appellate decision itself represents a significant precedent recognizing climate change as affecting human rights rather than being merely a political issue.The case is scheduled for trial in October 2024. Both sides have exchanged expert reports, and the plaintiffs will be submitting affidavits describing their personal experiences with climate change impacts. International Court of Justice rulings confirming climate change as a human rights issue will support their legal arguments.The public can follow the case through West Coast Environmental Law’s social media channels and Our Children’s Trust. Donations to support case costs can be made through West Coast Environmental Law’s website at wcel.org/climate-litigation. The plaintiffs emphasize that their goal is to start conversations about climate change as a human rights issue and to hold the appropriate entities accountable rather than blaming individual citizens.Climate change is not your fault, as my partner reiterated yesterday, the fossil fuel industry has chosen to renege on addressing the harms they’ve created. It is up to us coming together to hold them to account! Thank you, Sadie and the other 14 plaintiffs who stood up for your future and mine!Follow and support Our Children’s’ Trust for plantiffs like Sadie who has spend a quarter of her life defending your rights. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode is a discussion between host Jenny Yeremiy and Professor Duane Bratt from Mount Royal University about Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries Commission process, their one-of-its-kind report, and recent government intervention which looks a lot like gerrymandering.TAKE ACTION: Email Your MLA, the Premier, and the Justice Minister, cc’ing every elected official in Alberta. Scroll down for an example letter!On the Original Commission ProcessThe Alberta government created an Electoral Boundaries Commission in 2024 to redraw electoral maps for the 2027 election. The commission was structured with five members: a retired judge (Justice Miller) as chair, two government appointees, and two NDP appointees. They were limited to increasing seats from 87 to only 89.The commission spent about a year conducting public hearings and reviewing submissions, ultimately producing a unanimous interim report that all five members agreed upon. The report recommended adding seats in Calgary, Edmonton, and Airdrie due to population growth, while amalgamating some rural ridings in Central and Northern Alberta.The Split in the Final ReportSomething unusual happened between December and January - the two United Conservative Party (UCP) appointees completely changed their position and created an entirely different map . This resulted in two separate reports: a majority report (supported by Justice Miller and the two NDP appointees) that largely maintained the interim recommendations, and a minority report from the two UCP appointees that proposed extensive “hybrid ridings”.The minority report extended urban ridings far into rural areas - for example, a Lethbridge riding extending to the BC border and Calgary’s Glenmore riding extending almost to BC. Professor Bratt argues this appeared to be gerrymandering designed to dilute urban (NDP-leaning) votes by combining them with rural (UCP-dominated) areas.Summary continues below ad.Join Markham Hislop and I, THIS FRIDAY from 6-8 pm in Calgary at the Montgomery Community Association. Let’s talk water, energy, and any other concerns you’d like to discuss under Danielle Smith’s Alberta and Mark Carney’s Canada. Ask me questions about the recall campaign, ask Markham about guests and what he sees coming in the global electric revolution.Don’t let the ticket price be a barrier, grab a Student & Senior free ticket!Government’s New ProcessRather than adopting either report, the government announced yesterday they will recreate the entire process. They’re establishing a new legislative committee chaired by MLA Brandon Lunty, supported by another independent panel with the same structure as the original commission. This new process will take only six months instead of over a year and won’t hold new public hearings.Constitutional and Legal ConcernsJustice Miller’s majority report stated the minority recommendations were likely unconstitutional under Section 3 of the Charter of Rights (fair elections). Unlike other Charter sections, Section 3 cannot be overridden using the notwithstanding clause. If a gerrymandered map is adopted, court challenges are expected that could nullify it, potentially forcing use of the old 87-seat map despite significant population changes.Broader Democratic ConcernsProfessor Bratt places this within a pattern of “erosion of Democratic norms in Alberta,” including attacks on universities, judges, municipalities, weakening Elections Alberta, and frequent use of the notwithstanding clause. He argues this undermines public trust in electoral fairness and feeds into separatist narratives.The timeline is also problematic - Elections Alberta needs about 18 months to prepare for elections, but the new report won’t come until October 2026, just one year before the 2027 election, while also handling up to 10 referendum questions.My TakeSmith’s UCP wants to forget the ABEBC’s efforts and use the 2023 maps, this way urban votes count less than rural votes and defeat the entire purpose of the commission to begin with: to balance the population growth.TAKE ACTION: Write the PM, your Premier, justice ministers, and MLAs!Subject: Stand up for democracy - accept majority electoral boundary commission report!To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Cc: Rajan Sawhney , Peter Guthrie , Angela Pitt , Glen ven Dijken , Scott Cyr , Sarah Elmeligi , Danielle Smith , Diana Batten , Amanda Chapman , Irfan Sabir , Joe Ceci , Mickey Amery , Janet Eremenko , Peter Singh , Julia Hayter , Samir Kayande , Parmeet Singh , Myles McDougall , Court Ellingson , Nagwan Al-Guneid , Ric McIver , Lizette Tejada , Eric Bouchard , Kathleen Ganley , Gurinder Brar , Tanya Fir , Rebecca Schultz , Matt Jones , Luanne Metz , Mike Ellis , Jackie Lovely , Joseph Schow , Todd Loewen , Chantelle de Jonge , Justin Wright , Andrew Boitchenko , Nate Horner , Peggy Wright , Nicole Goehring , David Shepherd , Sharif Haji , Gurtej Singh Brar , Sarah Hoffman , Janis Irwin , Heather Sweet , Lorne Dach , Jasvir Deol , Christina Gray , David Eggen , Lori Sigurdson , Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse , Rhiannon Hoyle , Nathan Ip , Naheed Nenshi , Brooks Arcand-Paul , Rakhi Pancholi , Brian Jean , Tany Yao , Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk , Nolan Dyck , Ron Wiebe , "R.J. Sigurdson" , Devin Dreeshan , Shane Getson , Jennifer Johnson , Brandon Lunty , Scott Sinclair , Nathan Neudorf , Rob Miyashiro , Chelsea Petrovic , Rick Wilson , Muhammad Yaseen , Dale Nally , Tara Sawyer , Dan Williams , Adrianna LaGrange , Jason Stephan , Jason Nixon , Kyle Kasawski , Searle Turton , Marie Renaud , Garth Rowswell , Grant Hunter , Nate Glubish , Martin Long Prime Minister Mark Carney, Justice Ministers, Premier, and my MLA for Calgary-BowI am writing as a deeply-alarmed Albertan concerned by the UCP's clear move to gerrymander this province's electoral map ahead of the 2027 election while the clock is ticking.The 2025-2026 Electoral Boundaries Commission (ABEBC) issued a final report recommending a net gain of two new seats, one in Calgary and one for Edmonton, to accommodate population growth, and consolidate two rural ridings. The commission chair, Dallas Miller, a retired judge appointed by Danielle Smith's own cabinet, joined with the UCP and NDP-appointed commissioners supported their majority report unanimously.Suddenly, the two UCP-appointed commissioners decided it wasn't good enough, and issued “the minority report”. I personally opposed it, with a few other RecallNicolaides.ca community members, in the January Calgary public hearing. We outlined the clear attempts by my MLA Demetrios Nicolaides and neighbouring MLA, Rajan Sawhney, to gerrymander Calgary-Bow while he was being recalled.Their minority report would slice Alberta's cities into a pizza pie "urban" ridings, deliberately diluting NDP urban support across the province, eerily similar to Greg Abbott's model efforts this year in Texas. The commission chair himself warned that the minority report's approach is likely unconstitutional, running afoul of Section 3 of the Charter, which protects the right to meaningful representation. The majority report noted that the minority's recommendations appear "motivated by other considerations" rather than effective representation and sternly remarked that "our friends south of the border may have a term for this type of redistricting." https://www.assembly.ab.ca/docs/default-source/about-documents/legislative-assembly-office/other-reports/ebcfinalreport.pdfYes, it’s called gerrymandering!What makes this even more concerning is Justice Minister Mickey Amery's reversal. Before the final report was released, Amery had repeatedly stated that the government does and will not draw the boundaries and that he would respect the independent process. Once he saw that the report didn't suit the UCP's interests, he announced that "all options are on the table". As Opposition Leader Nenshi put it, "anything short of implementing the majority report in its entirety is election rigging," and he's absolutely right.The integrity of the process used to determine electoral districts is foundational to representative democracy. Any partisan interference poisons the legitimacy of the electoral outcomes. This raises the very real possibility that district boundaries will be drawn to guarantee a result on voting day rather than reflect the will of Albertans.Minority reports from government-appointed commissioners complete with alternative maps are unprecedented in Alberta electoral history. What the UCP is doing is a page ripped out of the authoritarian playbook. Canadians, and Albertans, have watched this play out south of the border, and we said that it cannot happen here. But now it is, under the UCP government.I demand:1. The majority report must be implemented in full. No cherry-picking, no incorporation of the minority maps, and no hybrid compromise that rewards bad-faith participation.2. Minister Amery must publicly commit to honouring the independent process he promised to respect before the report was released.3. The Legislative Assembly must not be weaponized to override an independent commission's findings for partisan gain.Albertans are not ignorant, we know what gerrymandering looks like and we know what a blatant power grab looks like. We will remember, at the ballot box and in the ridings that you are so eager to redraw, who stood up for democracy and who is trying to actively dismantle it.Sincerely, Jenny Yeremiy, P. GeophCalgary-Bow, Alberta, Canada ResidentHat tip to someone on Facebook I’m happy to give credit to for this fabulous summary for our leaders! Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

When Public Education is under attack, What Do You Do? Stand Up, Fight Back!To unpack the Government of Alberta’s latest assault on Public Education and what to do about it. I am joined by: Heather Quinn, the President of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) for Edmonton Public Local 37; Jay Prockter, an Edmonton Public School Teacher and district representative for Edmonton and Fort McMurray with the ATA; Trisha Estabrooks of Friends of Medicare, Former School Board Trustee and Journalist; and Brad LaFortune, the Executive Director at Public Interest Alberta.Enjoy this fabulous conversation with Heather, Jay, Brad, and Trisha, thank you four for all you do. Read more about it from Good Trouble on Substack here: Join Markham Hislop and I, next Friday, April 24th at the Montgomery Community Association in Calgary from 6-8 pm. Markham will update us on the global electric revolution by sharing his discussions and analysis with experts in Energy and Geopolitics. I will share my expertise in oil and gas development and restoration efforts right here in Alberta. This will be a great night, please share this event with your friends!Reminder: if you were a volunteer for Recall Nicolaides, message me so I may add you to my guest list! AB Resistance has issued pins for you, as thanks, too.The annual Public Interest Alberta (pialberta.org) “Common Purpose, Collective Action” conference is in Edmonton on Friday, May 8th and Saturday, May 9th at the Barnett House in Edmonton to discuss all collective action taken in the publics’ interest in Alberta and how we can find the links between us to strengthen our efforts. I will be be there, you should be there, too! I just had another fabulous conversation with Charlie Angus / The Resistance about Kevin O’Leary’s “Wonder Valley” project proposed in Alberta. The project will:* Add 7-12 million homes in terms of power usage while Alberta has the highest energy costs of all provinces * Use more than a Sylvan Lake amount of water annually, while the agriculture sector is limited to 1/4 of this amount.* Provides the USA access to our information via the Cloud Act.* Benefits United Arab Emirates (UAE) investors… meanwhile, their revenue has been halted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. * A federal impact assessment must be required, the agriculture sector cannot afford this water draw, nor can the environment. Contact the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, request a Federal Impact Assessment be done on this project and any project planned in Alberta. It is clear Alberta is not being governed or regulated well here. Correction: I said the US emissions are off by 7 per cent. I meant they’re off by 7 times. Here’s a study led out of McGill University on the subject from last year: Sevenfold Underestimation of Methane Emissions from Non-producing Oil and Gas Wells in Canada.#cdnpoli #abpoli #AIsurveillance #cloudact Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode examines Alberta’s draft South Athabasca sub-regional land use plan and its implications for woodland caribou, water, biodiversity, Indigenous rights, and long-term regional sustainability. Program director Tara Russell of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Northern Alberta explains that sub-regional plans were originally conceived to manage competing industrial and recreational uses on public lands in ways that would recover endangered and threatened caribou populations by meeting well-established habitat thresholds, including at least 65% undisturbed habitat and sufficient mature forest within each range. She notes that all 15 woodland caribou populations in northern Alberta are threatened and that most home ranges now have over 90% disturbance, leaving less than 5% undisturbed habitat.TAKE ACTION BY APRIL 9, 2026! Use the Public Engagement Guide | 2026 Created by CPAWS Northern Alberta, Alberta Wilderness Association, The Alberta Chapter of the Wildlife Society and Nature Alberta to stop the eviction of caribou TODAY!Tara describes how the new South Athabasca plan overrides the earlier Cold Lake sub-regional plan and the unreleased Wandering River plan, despite years of multi-stakeholder work that had produced precedent-setting approaches such as clear habitat targets and timelines. Their analysis, captured in a public engagement guide produced with several conservation organizations, concludes that the draft plan removes caribou recovery as an explicit objective, fails to commit to restoring critical habitat to the 65% undisturbed threshold required under the federal Species at Risk Act, and provides no transparent assessment of how its measures will affect caribou or other species at risk.The discussion highlights that the sub-region is already heavily impacted by forestry, in situ oil sands, conventional oil and gas, roads, seismic lines, and recreation, yet the plan is structured around an explicit goal of doubling oil and gas development without robust mechanisms to reduce cumulative disturbance or address water use and contamination, including tailings. Proposed improvements—such as limiting primary roads, adjusting riparian buffers, setting road-density and disturbance parameters, and restoring “unproductive” infrastructure—are undermined by broad exemptions for in situ project areas and existing operations, vague definitions, lack of incentives or enforcement, and thresholds that are not tied to ecological needs.In forestry, the plan introduces long-term harvest deferrals in high-value caribou habitat, which Russell views as a positive step, but these apply only to logging and not to other industrial activities, and the harvest schedule appears to keep disturbance above what caribou can tolerate for at least the first 40 years, with no clear explanation of how habitat targets will be met. Access management and recreation provisions similarly lack ecological grounding and enforcement: road-density targets are not linked to caribou needs, in situ project areas are exempt from access rules, and off-highway vehicle restrictions are limited to a single area despite broader impacts on wildlife and waterways.The plan’s proposed conservation area within the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, envisioned as Indigenous-led, is welcomed in principle but criticized as it would still allow renewal and potential expansion of oil and gas activities and appears to be managed under rules similar to adjacent “go zones,” with no clear prioritization of species at risk. Russell stresses the need for meaningful Indigenous leadership across all nations whose territories overlap the sub-region and for conservation designations that genuinely safeguard caribou and boreal ecosystems.Economically, Tara explains that a strategy centered on short-term industrial expansion at the cost of species loss, degraded forests, and damaged waterways cannot support long-term regional prosperity and may contravene federal Species at Risk Act obligations, especially after Alberta’s Section 11 conservation agreement with Canada expired in October without its commitments being met. Tara and I warn that continuing on this path risks ecological collapse, threatens downstream watersheds including the Northwest Territories, and accelerates climate and biodiversity crises, particularly if oil production and associated water contamination are doubled.The episode concludes by framing the South Athabasca plan as one of up to 11 sub-regional plans expected under the current provincial mandate, cautioning that if similar approaches are replicated across Alberta, the result could be the expedited loss of woodland caribou (and trout species, I must add) and widespread degradation of boreal ecosystems. Tara and I emphasize the importance of public participation in the ongoing consultation (closing April 9) and encourage use of the engagement guide developed by CPAWS and partners to push for land-use planning that genuinely centers ecological limits, Indigenous rights, and long-term watershed and community health. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode features disability advocate Zachary Weeks, who was born with cerebral palsy in Edmonton and has long worked as a spokesperson on accessibility and social justice issues, consulting on major public developments and challenging ableism and discrimination. Zachary describes his unexpected path into advocacy, shifting from training as a funeral director to volunteering with a nonprofit after facing exclusion from the funeral industry, where his potential as an advocate was recognized. The conversation centers on Alberta’s lack of provincial accessibility legislation—making it one of only two provinces without such a law—and the development of a comprehensive Accessibility Act led by MLA Marie Renaud in collaboration with people with disabilities, lawyers, nonprofits, and business groups, including the Alberta Chambers of Commerce. He explains that the proposed act aimed to embed accessibility across employment, housing, transportation, justice, healthcare, the built environment, and digital services, including accessible websites and government communications. Zach criticizes the UCP government for striking down the bill over objections to the definition of disability and concerns about “overreach” by a committee of people with lived experience, despite extensive consultations and cross-sector support.The discussion then turns to income support reforms, contrasting the long-standing Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) with the new Alberta Disability Assistance Program (ADAP). Weeks warns that thousands of recipients will be moved from AISH to ADAP under an assumption that many can work, despite the difficulty of qualifying for AISH and the reality that most recipients are unable to work. He highlights that ADAP will reduce monthly income from $1,940 to $1,740 after a temporary $200 transition top-up and will lower the amount people can earn before clawbacks from about $1,100 under AISH to $700, after an initial proposal as low as $300–$350. Zack argues that these changes, combined with clawbacks of the $200 federal Canada Disability Benefit, effectively balance the provincial budget on the backs of people with disabilities and undermine their ability to secure and maintain employment, especially in the absence of robust accessibility measures.The conversation also addresses broader systemic issues, including inadequate consultation with the disability community—where government “town halls” lacked even basic accessibility features like captioning—and a political climate that increasingly targets disabled people, seniors, and immigrants. Weeks and I connect these policy choices to early childhood cuts such as reduced Program Unit Funding (PUF) funding, framing them as part of a “race to the bottom” that harms current and future generations. We further explore the complexities of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), with Weeks emphasizing personal autonomy, the need for strong safeguards, and the ethical tension created when people facing chronic pain and poverty are simultaneously stripped of supports and confronted with rising costs and housing insecurity.Throughout, Zachary stresses that everyone is “temporarily able-bodied” and that disability cuts across all identities, making accessibility and income security issues that should matter to all Albertans. He calls for cross-community solidarity—across faith groups, LGBTQ+ communities, Indigenous peoples, and others—and encourages listeners to share knowledge, build alliances, and support efforts to secure meaningful accessibility legislation in Alberta. You can find Zachary at ZacharyWeeks.ca, his social media links are all there!Mark your calendar, Calgary! Markham Hislop is coming to town on Friday, April 24th, JOIN US from 6 to 8 pm at the Montgomery Community Association. As explained in this preview episode on Energi.Media, he and I will have a dual podcast discussion about the energy transition and water restoration needs in Alberta. The event is LIVE on Eventbrite, please get your tickets. If you are a member of the Recall Nicolaides team, please reach out to me directly if you’d like to attend. You are wanted there and AB Resistance has provided me with a small token of their appreciation for all the work you did. I just met with a handful of Recall leads and the exhaustion is real. Please reach out to anyone you know who was heavily involved in recall efforts and give them an extra word of thanks, they deserve it.Forever Canadian UpdatesI had the privilege of meeting Thomas Lukaszuk in Calgary Tuesday afternoon. Thomas is planning to commit another spring and summer to the “Unity Bus” to raise awareness and to get-out-the-vote for the October 19, 2026 referendum on separation and other heinous objectives. He will be hitting every town and city across the province. Thomas explained it is not a coincidence that the separatist petition announced they have their numbers this week as it is expected the petition signature collecting will be stopped by the courts to rightly support Indigenous rights. Please go to Forever-Canadian.ca to join this vital phase two effort.If you haven’t already, check out my conversation with him on Charlie Angus’s Meidas Canada titled: ALBERTANS FIGHT MAGA & DEFEND CANADA.Water Not CoalBecome a canvasser with the WaterNotCoal campaign underway. The pace seems to have picked up again, perhaps in light of further legislative changes to both the recall and citizen petition initiatives. The Alberta Government created a two-year black out period around the election and are allowing the MLA or justice minister, respectively, the ability to appoint a scrutineer. Go to waternotcoal.ca to get involved. I am working on a couple WaterNotCoal conversations for The Gravity Well, stay tuned!The Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE)I have been working with a group called the coalition for responsible energy, you can find us by searching cleanupyourmess.ca. We have a few town halls planned in: * Provost on Wednesday, April 22, at the Provost Recreation and Cultural Center, doors open at 6 pm. * Airdrie on Wednesday, April 29th at Inspire Airdrie from 7-8:30 pm, and * Calgary at the Bowness Seniors’ Center on Saturday, May 9 from 2-3:30 pm.Common Purpose, Collective ActionPublic Interest Alberta: Common Purpose, Collective Action Conference in Edmonton, May 8-9. They want more Calgary people! I will be there presenting on a participatory democracy effort. Charlie Angus is a keynote speaker at it.MARK YOUR CALENDAR: May 29th Alberta Day of Action!The goal is to have 1,000,000 Albertans on the street that day. This effort is being led by the Alberta Federation of Labour, please go to: Fight Back Now! - Alberta Federation of Labour, subscribe to spread the word and organize. It’s gonna be quite something! I have an interview planned with a representative at the Alberta Federation of Labour soon. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Seb Kennedy, an energy journalist turned market analyst, has transitioned from covering renewables to focusing on natural gas and LNG, launching Energy Flux to provide insights into these markets.This discussion highlights the volatility in the LNG market, exacerbated by geopolitical events such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the US attacks on Iran leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, he shows the significant supply disruptions to oil gas and global commodities, including fertilizers and other non-energy goods, which could lead to broader economic consequences.The conversation further explores the challenges and opportunities for LNG investment in North America, particularly in Canada, where the potential for windfall profits is weighed against the risks of long-term market volatility and technical issues at existing facilities. Seb emphasizes the importance of reducing reliance on natural gas by investing in renewable energy and infrastructure to enhance energy security and resilience. The conversation concludes with a call for strategic investments to mitigate exposure to commodity cycles and support a transition to more sustainable energy sources.For more insights, Seb can be followed through the Energy Flux newsletter, LinkedIn, Bluesky and other digital platforms.Updates from meI am Jenny, broadcasting from Calgary, Alberta. I’m a geophysicist turned oil and gas liability expert turned podcast host and public activist. I’m here to create a better story for Alberta than one of pollution and populism by breaking through the propaganda machine. Please remember to like and subscribe to The Gravity Well, your doing so helps boost the voices and views of these stellar people and important issues.Recall updatesMark your calendar, Calgary-Bow! Markham Hislop is coming to town on Friday, April 24th. He and I will have a dual podcast discussion about the energy transition and the phase 2 project for Recall Nicolaides campaign. I will create and share an Eventbrite for this event ASAP! I am working with the other recall leads to collaborate on this as well as some water focused friends. Remember to go to OperationTotalRecall.ca to support the recall campaigns still underway.Forever Canadian on Charlie AngusMy Meidas Canada—Thomas Lukaszuk interview is out. It’s called ALBERTANS FIGHT MAGA & DEFEND CANADA. The best part, in my humble opinion, is around 19 mins in where Thomas explains the absolute impossibility of Alberta independence: physically, economically, and practically. Yes Thomas, our only market would be the USA and we would be absorbed by them instantaneously.Sign up for their newsletter to get involved at forever-canadian.ca!Water Not CoalBecome a canvasser with the WaterNotCoal.ca campaign which is underway. I am working on a couple Water Not Coal podcast conversations and am very much enjoying meeting the people who are going out of their way to sign at my home.The Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE)I have been working with a group called the coalition for responsible energy, you can find us by searching cleanupyourmess.ca… The Rural Municipalities Association conference is underway in Edmonton right now. There is a lot of media coverage on oil and gas site clean up happening from Real Talk with Ryan Jespersen to Markham Hislop to The New York Times.C4RE members are planning a few town halls in Provost, Calgary-Northwest and in Airdrie. Stay tuned for the dates and details!Common Purpose, Collective ActionPublic Interest Alberta: Common Purpose, Collective Action Conference in Edmonton, May 8-9.MARK YOUR CALENDAR: May 29th Alberta Day of Action!The goal is to have 1,000,000 Albertans on the street that day. This effort is being led by the Alberta Federation of Labour, please go to: Fight Back Now! - Alberta Federation of Labour, subscribe to spread the word and organize. It’s gonna be quite something! Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Michelle Robinson (Red Thunderwoman) of Native Calgarian Podcast joins me on The Gravity Well to discuss the meaning of treaties and the opportunity for all Albertans to embrace their meaning to repair them. The Treaty 6, 7, and 8 Chiefs are leading the country and the world in upholding international agreements. Alberta is home to leadership of many forms, those who aim to uphold the treaties are operating in the best interests of everyone, Indigenous and settler people alike. Michelle reminds us the treaties were signed with the crown, not the Canadian government. They are the highest level of authority on the land, above Canadian laws. Much more to learn and discover while we seek to uphold the agreements of our ancestors. A area of education and growth for me, I am excited to explore more. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Updates from me:Good afternoon, I am Jenny Yeremiy, I’m broadcasting from Calgary, Alberta. I’m a geophysicist turned oil and gas liability expert turned podcast host and public activist. Defined by Mark Dorin: a person who stands up for citizen and indigenous rights and public safety then damn right I’m an activist. I’m here to create a better story for Alberta than one of pollution and populism by breaking through propaganda. We would not be living in this tumultuous time without it. Please remember to like and subscribe to The Gravity Well, your doing so helps boost the voices and views of these stellar people and important issues.Recall updatesThere are 4 recalls of interest rounding down: Recall Mickey in Calgary Cross; Recall Jackie in Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville; Recall Justin Wright in Cypress-Medicine Hat; Recall Wiebe in Grande Prairie-Wapiti. Thank you again to everyone who stood up against this unconstitutional government!Recall Nicolaides is working on some data analysis for you, look to our socials for them! That’s @RecallNicolaides Shout out to all my recall Nico-laides, thanks Aimee for pointing this pun out! To get involved in phase two of the recall efforts, subscribe to Recall Nicolaides for now.PLEASE go to OperationTotalRecall.ca to support the final 4 campaigns. Also, BOOST their social media posts!The Gravity Well updatesLast week, you got a glimpse into my Calgary Citizens on Climate Change group, as Bob Sandford presented to us in it. Check out the episode titled Reclaiming Alberta from Water Bankruptcy. And I had a fabulous conversation with Wesam Cooley of Calgary Peoples’ Assembly, please check it out. We discuss the illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran in Reclaim the Middle East from US-Israel Domination. This illegal aggression is changing the global economic system dramatically . New limits are being exposed, fertilizer travels from that area and has been choked off. This will impact producers in North America. Wow! I am chatting with Seb Kennedy of Energy Flux on Monday about the changes to the oil and gas volumes before and after February 28th. That is going to be great.I also just concluded a joint podcast with Michelle Robinson of Native Calgarian Podcast. I hope to share it with you on Tuesday next week.Forever Canadian & Charlie Angus’ Meidas CanadaPhase two of the forever-canadian.ca is underway. Thomas Lukaszuk—former MLA, Minister and Deputy Minister for Edmonton-Castle Downs from 2001-2015, where I grew up—is now focused on re-activating, educating, and ultimately voting down Smith’s 9 referendum questions. Thomas and I had a stellar conversation on Meidas Canada, I am looking forward to watching it myself. Hoping it might be out tomorrow: Sunday, March 15.I am supporting the leader of the Calgary Forever Canadian volunteer effort, Janel’s been an organizing mentor, I am super grateful for her leadership. Sign up for the newsletter to get involved at forever-canadian.ca! I’m excited to see how this project grows!Water Not CoalBecome a canvasser with the WaterNotCoal.ca petition is underway. I have been bringing it around with me and now have a permanent signing location in Cougar Ridge, you can find it on WaterNotCoal.ca I am very much enjoying meeting the people who are going out of their way to sign, I met a wonderful couple from Drumheller on Thursday night. A shout out to Andrew and Jody, it was such a pleasure to meet you!The Coalition for Responsible Energy (C4RE)I have been working with a group called the coalition for responsible energy, you can find us by searching cleanupyourmess.ca. Mark Dorin has been increasing awareness in a big way lately. Firstly, Avi Lewis came to meet with Mark about the Reclamation Boom that Alberta is being held back from. Thank you to Avi for taking the time to understand the risks and opportunities for Albertans and Canadians in this space.In addition, Mark is making landowners aware of their right to address messes on their lands. Check out his conversation with Markham Hislop on Energi Media from yesterday.Common Purpose, Collective ActionI am co-presenting an Alberta Participatory Water Democracy (PWD) project with Colin Smith. It is directly related to Robert Sandford’s address to my Calgary Citizens on Climate Change (4C) group last week. Which I will get to in just a moment.Charlie Angus is a keynote speaker, and I am thrilled to be co-hosting a plenary, at the Public Interest Alberta: Common Purpose, Collective Action Conference in Edmonton, May 8-9.MARK YOUR CALENDAR: May 29th Alberta Day of Action!The goal is to have 1,000,000 Albertans on the street that day. This effort is being led by the Alberta Federation of Labour, please go to: Fight Back Now! - Alberta Federation of Labour, subscribe to spread the word and organize. It’s gonna be quite something!Jody MacPherson – AI Data CentersJody MacPherson, a journalist with a background in the oil and gas industry, is currently engaged in investigative reporting on AI data centers and their connection to oil and gas production in Alberta. Her work focuses on the Wonder Valley Project, a proposed $70 billion AI data center in the Grand Prairie area, and the Olds project, which is progressing rapidly. These data centers are linked to the government’s strategy to double oil and gas production, raising concerns about their environmental impact, particularly regarding water and energy usage.The projects have faced scrutiny over their approval processes and the lack of transparency, especially concerning water permits and indigenous consultation. Local communities have organized to express their concerns, particularly about the environmental and social impacts of these developments. Jody’s investigation also touches on broader issues of data sovereignty and the role of large American tech companies in these projects.Jody’s work is supported by donations through the energy mix and her Substack, where she provides additional insights into her investigations. She continues to explore the implications of these data centers, including their potential benefits and the challenges they pose to local communities and the environment. Excellent investigative reporting you won’t want to miss! If you’re interested in following them or the issue you can do so on Facebook search: Old’s Community Transparency Project.Jody’s coverage of this issue:Hidden Wonder Valley series: https://www.theenergymix.com/hidden-wonder-valley/Latest on Olds:https://www.theenergymix.com/developer-presses-ahead-with-mega-gas-plant-after-alberta-regulator-rejects-deficient-plan/Latest on Wonder Valley:https://www.theenergymix.com/alberta-municipality-bets-tens-of-millions-on-wonder-valley-data-cMore coverage on AI data sovereignty here (Canada is mentioned near the end):https://www.theenergymix.com/openai-calls-for-100-gw-of-new-power-each-year-to-secure-ai-dominance/The Energy Mix donations page: https://www.theenergymix.com/donate/Subscribe to Jody’s Substack newsletter:Send Jody news tips on Signal at: JodyMacPherson.64.Her social media links here: https://about.me/jodymacpherson.Caffeinate her to keep up with her grandson: https://buymeacoffee.com/jodymacpherson. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Wesam Cooley rejoins The Gravity Well (see Season 1, Episode 20 and Season 2, Episode 7) podcast to delve into the complexities of Middle Eastern geopolitics, including the ongoing conflicts involving Iran, Israel, and the United States, and the broader implications for global stability. The discussion also touched on the role of media in shaping public perception and the strategic responses of nations like Iran in the face of external pressures.Note: some audio issues occur when Wesam shares important information around the University of Calgary student protests. Here’s what Wesam was hoping to share: “The broader progressive movement in Alberta has allies in the anti-imperialist struggle and it’s important that we work together as allies. The movement against the genocide in Gaza is the best example of a mass movement in a critical historical moment that could have been so much more impactful, even on politics in Alberta, if it had received full support across the progressive spectrum.The Calgary Palestine movement has been battling police and state repression and defending protest rights that will affect the civil liberties of all of us. The most important of these battles relates to the police/provincial scandal around the crackdown on the University of Calgary encampment. You’ll remember that in May 2024 a group of students established an encampment at the U of C protesting the University’s complicity in the genocide, and the Calgary Police came in with tear gas and batons and violently dispersed them, putting several people in hospital. That police action was so controversial that it got referred to an ASIRT investigation, but the whole thing ended up getting covered up and ASIRT in the end declined to investigate. A later FOIP request revealed that a conversation had taken place between then-Calgary Police Chief Mark Neufeld and Safety Minister Mike Ellis where Ellis assured Neufeld that there would be no substantive investigation by ASIRT into the issue. We have it on record that Ellis and Neufeld essentially decided the result of ASIRT’s investigation before any investigation had even taken place. This was reported by Jeremy Appel at the time.In other words, we uncovered smoking gun evidence that the Smith government directly participated in an outright cover-up of what was likely the worst case of police misconduct and violence against peaceful protesters in Calgary’s history. If that had received any real attention from progressives in this province, it might have dealt a serious blow to Smith and her cronies. (Who knows, it might have been enough to even take down her government? Neufeld himself ended up resigning, for reasons that weren’t stated publicly but were most likely related to this, since the Police Commission used his resignation as an excuse to not look into this issue any further.)So when I say you have allies in the anti-imperialist movement that you aren’t utilizing, I’m not saying it in some general or sentimental way. I mean what might have been the best opportunity progressives may ever get to actually take down the Smith government is slipping through their fingers because most (white) progressives in this province still see Palestine as an “alien” issue and aren’t willing to stand with us. And they do that not only to Palestine’s detriment, but to their own as well. We’re still here, still fighting the same fight you are, and this issue is still out there if anyone wants to pick it up and help us try to blow the Smith government wide open with it.But it will require progressives to actually ally with the Palestine movement. And it seems to me that there are some “progressives” in this country who would rather see us all become Yankees than take a stand in support of Palestine.”The podcast encourages listeners to engage with these issues critically and to participate in actions that support peace and justice, both locally and globally. Here are some ways to take action: Actions for PeacePalestine, Lebanon, and Iran Rally Sunday, March 8, 3 pm at Calgary City Hall.Withdraw Canadian troops from region assisting US/Israeli aggression on IranWrite your federal representatives here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/withdraw-canadian-soldiers-assisting-us-aggression-on-iran.Daily Phone PledgeCall your MP before March 11, 2026 to confirm they are voting “Yes” to Bill C-233 to close loopholes for weapons to Israel. Use: https://armsembargonow.ca/phonepledge/ as your guide.Tell Carney: Oppose Illegal Attacks on IranJoin Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) in emailing Prime Minister Carney and Foreign Minister Anand to demand that they retract their support for illegal US-Israeli attacks on Iran and impose sanctions on Israel. Go to: https://www.cjpme.org/carney_iran.Recall updatesThe recall campaigns are down to 6: Nate Glubish in Strathcona-Sherwood Park; Recall Mickey in Calgary Cross; Recall Jackie in Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville; Recall Justin Wright in Cypress-Medicine Hat; Recall Wiebe in Grande Prairie-Wapiti; and saving the best for last Recall Danielle Smith in Brooks-Medicine Hat). Remember to tell your Brooks-Medicine Hat friends to call: 587-448-8911. It’s truly a 9-11 situation here in Alberta.PLEASE go to OperationTotalRecall.ca to sign and support the final 6 campaigns.Podcast updatesI had a fabulous conversation with Mary Stuart of Desmog regarding our premier’s addresses from May of 2025 and Feb 2026. Desmog is a global news organization focused on cutting through the climate misinformation machine. Yesterday, I posted an episode with the address that Robert Sandford offered my Calgary Citizens on Climate Change group called Reclaiming Alberta from Global Water Bankruptcy.Forever CanadianPhase two of the forever-canadian.ca is about to be start, the goal is to educate, activate, and ultimately get Albertans out to vote down Smith’s 9 referendum questions on October 19, 2026. Go to Forever-Canadian.ca to join in.Water Not CoalThe WaterNotCoal.ca petition is underway. It’s very well organized and great community spirit around it! Go to WaterNotCoal.ca to join.MARK YOUR CALENDAR ALBERTA: May 29th Alberta Day of Action!The goal is to have 1,000,000 Albertans on the street that day. This effort is being led by the Alberta Federation of Labour, please go to: Fight Back Now! - Alberta Federation of Labour, subscribe to spread the word and organize. It’s gonna be quite an accomplishment. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

After I provide updates (see below) on the growing grassroots movement in Alberta, this episode features a discussion led by Robert Sandford, a senior government relations liaison for the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, focusing on the global water crisis and its implications for Alberta. The speaker highlights the concept of “Global Water Bankruptcy,” a term used to describe the unsustainable overuse of water resources, which is becoming a critical issue even in water-rich regions like Canada. The report co-authored by Bob and released by the UN emphasizes the need for Alberta to acknowledge its water management failures and to protect its natural water-generating capital to avoid severe consequences.The discussion also touches on the broader implications of climate change, with references to recent scientific findings predicting accelerated global warming and its potential impacts on water resources and weather patterns. Bob criticizes the current Alberta government’s policies, which are seen as neglecting environmental concerns in favor of industrial growth, and calls for a shift in focus towards sustainable water management and democratic engagement.Additionally, the conversation explores the interconnectedness of water security with food security and economic stability, stressing the importance of collaborative efforts to address these challenges. Bob advocates for a reframing of the sustainability narrative, arguing that the term has been diluted and misused, and emphasizes the need for honest acknowledgment of environmental realities to drive meaningful change.Bob concludes with a call to action for Alberta to lead by example in addressing water and climate issues, suggesting that this could also serve as a catalyst for broader democratic renewal in the region.Updates from me:Good afternoon, I am Jenny Yeremiy, I’m broadcasting from Calgary, Alberta. I’m a geophysicist turned oil and gas liability expert turned podcast host and public activist. I’m here to create a better story for Alberta than one of pollution and populism by breaking through propaganda. We would not be living in this tumultuous time without it. Please remember to like and subscribe to The Gravity Well, your doing so helps boost the voices and views of these important issues.Recall updatesOK, first let me update you on the recalls. The recalls are down to 6: Recall Fir in Calgary-Peigan; Recall Peter Singh in Calgary-East; our Healthcare Minister and MLA for Red Deer North, Recall Lagrange are complete;Nate Glubish in Strathcona-Sherwood Park; Recall Mickey in Calgary Cross; Recall Jackie in Fort Sask-Vegreville; Recall Justin Wright in Cypress-Medicine Hat; Recall Wiebe in Grande Prairie-Wapiti; and saving the best for last Recall Danielle Smith in Brooks-Medicine Hat). Remember to tell your Brooks-Medicine Hat friends to call: 587-448-8911. It’s truly a 9-11 situation here in Alberta as our government now looks to mount more than $100 billion in debt.PLEASE go to OperationTotalRecall.ca to support the final 6 campaigns. It’s getting harder with the aggression from the separatist agenda. Lots of women are leading these efforts. I am so grateful to everyone who took the leap with me. Our community is 30,000 people strong, and growing! You can check out my interview with Radio Canada about the recall outcomes in the substack post which will accompany this episode.Podcast updatesI had a fabulous conversation with Mary Stuart of Desmog, please check it out. Desmog is a global news organization focused on cutting through the climate misinformation machine. Desmog’s founder, Geoff Dembicki, is an Albertan and the author of The Petroleum Papers, which is being made into a series, btw. The book outlines the climate misinformation machine centered out of Alberta since the mid-90s using organizations like the Canadian Taxpayer Federation, founded by none other than Jason Kenney. When you consider his influence on our province please understand that he started in 1995 not 2019.Remember, I have the pleasure of speaking with Charlie Angus on Meidas Canada. Please check out the few episodes I’ve done with him already, the latest being one on Danielle Smith’s address to the nation, titled: RECLAIM ALBERTA - DANIELLE SMITH IS LOSING IT.We speak about Danielle Smith’s addresses and the many grassroots movement in Alberta! Like… Forever Canadian.Forever CanadianPhase two of Forever Canadian is about to be start with a new partner the Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta (ACFA). Thomas Lucaszuk and the Forever-Canadian.ca campaign team are now focused on activating, educating, and ultimately voting down Smith’s nine referendum questions. I am supporting the leader of the Calgary effort, Janel’s been an organizing mentor to me. Sign up for their newsletter to get involved! Water Not CoalBecome a canvasser with the WaterNotCoal.ca petition is underway. I have been bringing it around with me and now have a permanent signing location at the Calgary Waldorf School in Cougar Ridge. I’ve already had 3 people sign and TWO offer to get me a local lineup! Tons of fun, get involved. It’s very well organized! Again, go to WaterNotCoal.caCommon Purpose, Collective ActionI am co-presenting an Alberta Participatory Water Democracy (PWD) project with Colin Smith. It is directly related to Robert Sandford’s address to my Calgary Citizens on Climate Change (4C) group last week. Which I will get to in just a moment.Charlie Angus is a keynote speaker, and I am thrilled to be co-hosting a plenary, at the Public Interest Alberta: Common Purpose, Collective Action Conference in Edmonton, May 8-9.MARK YOUR CALENDAR: May 29th Alberta Day of Action!The goal is to have 1,000,000 Albertans on the street that day. This effort is being led by the Alberta Federation of Labour, please go to: Fight Back Now! - Alberta Federation of Labour, subscribe to spread the word and organize. It’s gonna be quite something!Bob Sandford–Global Water BankruptcyOK! Now onto Bob Sandford, I am so grateful to my friend James for introducing me to Bob Sandford. I first came into contact with James and Bob on World Water Day in 2024. He and Kevin Van Tighem presented together at a World Water Day Virtual Event in 2024. Highly recommend you listen to it, especially in light of Bob’s Global Water Bankruptcy report released in January.Bob is the Senior Government Relations Liaison for the Global Climate Emergency Response team within the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, joined the Calgary Citizens on Climate Change (4C) meeting last week to explain how the Global Water Bankruptcy impacts water decision-making in Alberta.This is the first glimpse into both the new reality, sustainability has failed, climate emergency talk has failed, we are now aiming to avoid water bankruptcy. I am super excited and ready for the mountain of work and opposition that is ahead of us. It will be up to you, dear listener, to convince the public to care about this.Before I share Bob’s presentation, I wish to offer my regret and disappointment to the people of Iran and the broader gulf region. The illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran will have drastically detrimental impacts on the global economy, the ecology, and of course supply chain for both food and water. Tune in again today at 5 pm MT/7 pm ET, I will be rejoined by Wesam Khalid to discuss this in detail. There is a LOT to unpack as I haven’t spoken with Wesam since May of 2025 before the 12-day war which we were told ended in World Peace. Not so much!I am proud to share this discussion with Bob and look forward to continued discussions with him. Please listen to the end for Bob’s heartfelt compelling call-to-action. Have a great rest of your day everyone. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In this episode of The Gravity Well podcast with Jenny Yeremiy, Mary Stuart of Desmog Canada joins me to break down Premier Danielle Smith's addresses to the province from May 2025 and February 2026. DeSmog is a global organization working to clear PR pollution blocking climate action, including in Canada. Get your updates on grassroots movements in Alberta, focused on environmental activism and social justice. I update you on recall petitions against separatist movements against unjust government actions, such as the use of the notwithstanding clause by the justice minister, MLA for Calgary-Cross, Mickey Amery. Visit recallmickey.ca to upend him. Have your friends in Brooks-Medicine Hat text or call 587-448-8911 to remove Danielle Smith from her seat. Go to OperationTotalRecall.ca to support a recall campaign near you. Join waternotcoal.ca to gather signatures to stop coal mining in the Eastern Slopes. Or, if you aren’t a part of the Forever-Canada.ca already, join it to learn how to ensure the Alberta Government’s referendum is met with an informed Alberta public.Take ActionUse this post to write to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board ([email protected]), let them know you oppose funding genocide and ecocide (via fossil fuel expansion). Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In this episode of The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy, I give the week’s highlights in Alberta politics before sharing my in-person interview with Dr. Younes Alila of the Department of Forestry and Environment at the University of British Columbia. I remind you to sign your recall petition, you can find your Member of the Legislative Assembly at operationtotalrecall.ca. The episode also highlights the importance of public education, the teachers’ strike, and the role of teachers in political engagement. I emphasizes the need for collective action against government policies and the significance of using scientific evidence and indigenous knowledge in decision-making. The podcast is available on YouTube and other streaming platforms, I encourage you to like and subscribe to spread awareness of the valuable work being done in Alberta and beyond. Younes’s interview starts at ~24:30.The Gravity Well UpdatesI had three stellar conversations recently. First, with Mikayla Resists who’s been attending and sharing separatist signing locations and events to call out the misleading and treason. Andy Sytsema walked us through what Project 2025 is and what it would mean for Alberta if we were to fall to the USA. And Grande Prairie teacher, and former chair for the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s central bargaining committee, Peter MacKay on what teachers have done and continue to do to reclaim Public Education in Alberta. Please listen to those conversations.What we do in the resistance matters, it’s already making a difference. As Peter MacKay reminded me, the teacher’s strike prevented an early election in the 2025. The polls were suggesting Smith’s Government of Alberta was set to gain even higher popular support last fall. Those polls did not factor in the overwhelming public support for the teacher’s strike. They tried hard to villainize teachers but failed. Well done teachers. It is the time to be political, and you have rose to the occasion! Remember, Alberta needs a better story than one of treason and tyrants. I am proud to share the people, places, and plans to Reclaim Alberta. Join your nearest OperationTotalRecall.ca team or join The Gravity Well community.Minister Nicolaides Lashes out at City NewsCalgary-Bow MLA, Demetrios Nicolaides is upset with himself over his decision to fly the Alberta flag on Mount Kilamanjaro.As Tania Vanderland asks in this the City News article which set Nicolaides off, “It is curious to see him use this platform to raise the Alberta flag,” she says. “And it is also curious that he chose to do that as well on this Mount Kilimanjaro trip, which is a different issue that he was trying to raise awareness around.”The recall petition for Nicolaides failed to reach the required benchmark of 16,500 signatures by nearly 10,000. It was the first of 26 launched against members of the legislature in the final months of 2025. Twenty-four are against members of Smith’s caucus, including herself. Two are against members of the Alberta NDP.However, Vanderland says the failed recall bid wasn’t a total loss, as it led to political engagement.As for the flag, she wants to know why Nicolaides chose the one he did and feels, given he is a provincial minister, it is an appropriate question.“Why didn’t he raise a Canadian flag?” she asks. “Or was it necessary at all to use that platform and that moment to raise a flag? You know, I understand the trip was about his sister.””I appreciate Tania’s curiosity but Nicolaides feels quite differently. A letter (photo below) from his office explains he will make no further statements on the matter with CityNews. That they need to remove the story and apologize. Oh my! It’s important to note that recent changes made to family violence legislation in Alberta have increased the likelihood for more violent behavior by cutting the family violence death review committee. Remember, Minister Nicolaides and MLA Angela Pitt pay no mind to the more than 8,700 Albertans who formally expressed their objection to them as representatives of their constituencies. Many recalls are wrapping up this weekend, do your best to give them a final boost at OperationTotalRecall.ca.Take ActionAlberta is Canada, Canada is Alberta RallyAttend your local rally for Alberta in Canada tomorrow, Saturday, February 21. I will be in Lethbridge on Sunday to sign the People’s Petition against Neudorf as he faked his own recall campaign.Let’s bombard the CPPIB meetingI will be at the BMO Center on Monday, Feb 23rd at 6 pm. The Edmonton event is on Wednesday, February 25. The link to register for either is here: https://www.cppinvestments.com/public-meetings/.There’s a better story to be told by you for Alberta and Canada. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In this episode of The Gravity Well, I focus on the crisis in public education with guest Peter McKay, the former chair of the central bargaining committee for the Alberta Teachers’ Association and a Grand Prairie Middle School teacher and advocate. The conversation highlights the systematic underfunding of public education in Alberta, which has led to larger class sizes and insufficient resources for disabilities and immigrant students. The podcast also addressed the Alberta government's use of the notwithstanding clause to bypass negotiations with teachers, which has led to a lack of enforceable class size and composition conditions. The episode concluded with a call for teachers to become or remain politically active and engaged, emphasizing the need for grassroots efforts to address the challenges facing public education and other public services.The teachers’ strike has changed the direction of the political conversation in Alberta and Canada, let’s keep the conversation going. A fabulous conversation you won’t want to miss! Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode begins with highlights from my collaboration with Charlie Angus / The Resistance in the “Reclaim Alberta” feature. In the latest episode: Charlie and Jenny address concerns about foreign interference and misinformation by the fossil fuel industry. Charlie highlights the importance of grassroots efforts to pushback against the impact of deregulation on the oil and gas industry. It is evident the resistance is growing.Andy Sytsema of Taking Alberta Forward, an online presence and community Andy built to pushback against “Take Back Alberta" misinformation. Andy shares a background in the oil and gas industry who calls for transparency and integrity in government and advocates for universal public healthcare, education, social services, and the environment. He researches and writes online often about issues that matter to Albertans, in this episode he shares information around Project 25: its connection to Christian nationalism and executive overreach in Alberta’s politics. The podcast also covers various recall campaigns in Alberta, encouraging public participation and highlighting the importance of democracy activism. The conversation concludes with a call to action for a rally celebrating Alberta and Canada, emphasizing unity and community engagement on February 21, from 10 am to noon. I will be at the rally at Calgary City Hall.This weeks’ actionUse this EcoJustice letter writing tool to send an email to your MLA calling for a public inquiry into the $130 billion oil and gas liabilities not dealt with. Demand a public inquiry to keep Alberta’s Polluter Pays principle alive. Add: “No More Pipelines” until the liabilities are funded.Expect a canned reply from your MLA like I received from Demetrios Nicolaides: Dear Ms. Yeremiy,Thank you for taking the time to write and share your concerns regarding Alberta’s Mature Asset Strategy and the management of historic oil and gas liabilities. I appreciate your perspective on this important issue.Managing inactive oil and gas wells is a challenge faced by energy-producing regions worldwide, and Alberta is committed to addressing it responsibly. Our government’s approach is guided by the polluter-pays principle, ensuring that companies—not taxpayers—are responsible for cleaning up their sites.Since introducing the Liability Management Framework in 2020, Alberta has made progress. The number of inactive wells has decreased by nearly 20%, from 97,000 to 78,000 as of December 2024. Industry is also meeting and exceeding annual closure spending requirements, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into cleanup efforts. For example, in 2023, companies spent $769 million on closure work—10% above the required amount.The Mature Asset Strategy builds on this progress. It was developed after consultations with municipalities, landowners, and industry to ensure a balanced approach. Key recommendations include:* Preventing insolvent operators from continuing operations* Ensuring municipal taxes and landowner leases are paid* Accelerating the closure of non-commercial wellsites* Supporting the polluter-pays principle without relying on public fundsOur goal is to protect taxpayers, uphold environmental standards, and maintain Alberta’s reputation as a responsible energy producer while supporting economic growth and good-paying jobs.Thank you again for sharing your views. Your input is valued as we continue working to ensure Alberta’s energy sector remains strong and accountable.Regards,Demetrios NicolaidesMLA, Calgary-BowHow should I respond? Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode of The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy features Mikayla, the founder of the Alberta Civic Integrity Project, who discusses her involvement in resisting fascist forces in Alberta. Mikayla shares her experiences on the picket lines and her efforts to hold the government accountable through rallies and recalls. The conversation highlights the challenges faced by Recall campaigns in Alberta, emphasizing the high thresholds required for success and the importance of civic engagement.The podcast also addresses the separatist movement in Alberta, with Mikayla detailing her interactions with separatists and the misinformation surrounding the movement (example: treaty misinformation countered by Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation courtesy of Jody MacPherson. The discussion underscores the need for dialogue and the importance of standing united against divisive forcesA Fabulous Note on Recall CampaignsCheck out this fabulous post by Jon Auger on the Canadian Politics… Feed Back Facebook page:RECALL SIGNATURES ARE VOTES WALKING AWAY“Alberta, here is the reality hiding in plain sight. Recall petitions were built with thresholds so high they are almost impossible to win, but that was never the real story. The real story is what the signatures reveal. In Calgary-Bow alone, 6,519 people went out of their way to complete a formal, verifiable civic act saying they wanted their MLA gone. That petition “failed.” But those 6,519 names are not a failure. They are a record. They are neighbours who crossed the line from frustration into action, who put their identities on the record in a way far stronger than a poll answer or a social-media post. This is why recall matters for the next election. A recall signature is not a ballot, but it is something politically louder: documented evidence of a voter in that riding who is unlikely to support that MLA — or the party they represent — when the next vote comes. That is a behavioural signal campaigns and parties understand very well. Multiply that kind of civic action across dozens of ridings and you are no longer looking at paperwork. You are looking at a living map of political disengagement from incumbents that no one can spin away. And here is the part that turns this from observation into message. If you care, if you are already talking about this with friends and neighbours, then adding your name where a recall petition exists in your riding is the clearest way to be counted. Not because you expect it to “win,” but because every signature strengthens the record showing how many Albertans have already decided they expect something different. The higher those numbers climb, the louder that message carries into every campaign office, every doorstep conversation, and every ballot box in the next election.”This weeks’ effortsI am dedicating The Gravity Well podcast to the recall and other citizens’ led efforts to uphold democratic rights and institutions, creating a better story for Alberta than one of traitors and tyrants. I’ve hosted two livestreams so far: solo and with Mikayla Resists. Next week, I am hosting the former Chair of the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s bargaining committee, Peter MacKay: Wednesday, Feb 11 at 4:30 pm MT/ 6:30 pm ET.This week, I am supporting the: Recall Sawhney, Recall Fir, Recall Red Deer, and Recall Mickey campaigns. I will share these activities for you on my social media. If you are a doorknocker and up for supporting the Recall Peter Singh campaign with me on Saturday, Feb 14 from 12-3 pm, please let me [email protected] and [email protected] know. Thank you to Lindsay and Tobi for joining me there last weekend! Like Doras’ exploring! I had a great visit with Henry in Calgary-NorthWest and Chelsea in Calgary-Peigan this week. Healthy and spicy conversation both. They feel the revolution is upon us, too!Next, I am SUPER proud to be a part of the Charlie Angus / The Resistance community. Charlie is hosting me on Meidas Canada as a regular contributor. If you haven’t watched them already, I was on in December, the episode is titled: THE BATTLE FOR ALBERTA - RECALL MOMENTUM GROWS !!! And released yesterday with its new name the first report titled: RECLAIM ALBERTA - THE FIGHT BACK AGAINST MAGA.There's a better story to be told for Alberta and Canada. I am excited to share the people, places, and plans to Reclaim Alberta. Join your nearest OperationTotalRecall.ca team. Put up your Canada flags to stand with Treaty 6, 7, & 8 Chiefs and First Nations. Join the fun!Your Action for this Week: Write your MLATo the MLA for Calgary-Bow and Education Minister, Demetrios Nicolaides,I, Jenny Yeremiy, a Canadian born citizen, and an Albertan, stand with First Nations.They are protecting ALL proud Canadians in Alberta, and the safety and security of ALL Canadians.I respect and will defend Treaty 6, Treaty 7 and Treaty 8, alongside First Nations Chiefs and people with millions of non-First Nations people who also respect these Treaties.Reconciliation has undoubtedly taken hundreds of steps backwards as a result of the actions of the separatist movement, a movement enabled by you under Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party.In addition to this, I am not at all comfortable paying Danielle Smith’s salary or the salaries of her separatist caucus members who are using their positions, at Canadian taxpayers’ expense, to divide our nation. And ask that Members of the Legislative Assembly and fellow premiers denounce her leadership by stepping aside or requesting an inquiry into foreign interference around separatism, respectively.Issues can be resolved with dialogue.... but removing Alberta from Canada should have NEVER been on the table in the first place. Not on Alberta taxpayer’s time, or dime—and not at the detriment of First Nations (opposite of truth and reconciliation) and Canadian people. This entire dilemma has grossly and negatively impacted not only First Nations people, but millions of Non-First Nations people living in Alberta, and our neighboring Provinces and Territories, citizens throughout the country.The anxiety and distress caused to date is immeasurable.Your immediate resignation from the United Conservative Party is urgently requested.Sincerely,Jenny Yeremiy, Calgary-Bow resident, Albertan, Canadian, Treaty Rights DefenderCourtesy of Sarah Johnston (source: First Nation chief calls on Smith, UCP to resign).Cc [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Prime Minister of Canada: [email protected] Alberta Premier: [email protected] British Columbia Premier: [email protected] Manitoba Premier: [email protected] New Brunswick Premier: [email protected] Newfoundland and Labrador Premier: [email protected] Nova Scotia Premier: [email protected] Ontario Premier: [email protected] (or use the online form at correspondence.premier.gov.on.ca) Prince Edward Island Premier: [email protected] Québec Premier: [email protected] Saskatchewan Premier: [email protected] Northwest Territories Premier: [email protected] Nunavut Premier: [email protected] Yukon Premier: [email protected] Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In this the first episode of third season of The Gravity Well, Jenny provides updates on her activism in Alberta, including her work on recall campaigns and efforts to address provincial concerns. She shares her background as a geophysicist and liability expert, highlighting her transition from the oil and gas industry to focus on restoration efforts in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. Jenny discusses her passion for environmental restoration and her wanting to be working within the fossil fuel industry to achieve these goals.The podcast also covers various recall campaigns across Alberta, with Jenny expressing gratitude for the contributions of numerous volunteers and canvassers. She highlights the importance of community involvement and encourages participation in citizen assemblies to address public issues such as public school funding, coal mining, and public health.Jenny addresses the challenges faced by teachers in Alberta, including the impact of the Back to School Act, which restricted teachers’ rights to strike, negotiate, and work in safe conditions. She emphasizes the need for public engagement and action to address these issues.The podcast concludes with a call to action for listeners to get involved in recall campaigns through operationtotalrecall.ca to uphold democratic values. And to focus on water through the Eastern Slope Watershed Protection Assemblies to begin with to safeguard and reclaim public interests in Alberta and beyond. Here’s that great action you can take, feel free to edit and send to any UCP Caucus & Alberta MLA you see fit!Write to Assistant-Minister of Multiculturalism & MLA for Calgary-North, Hon. Muhammad Yaseen via: [email protected] Dear Hon. Muhammad Yaseen–Assistant Minister of Multiculturalism and MLA for Calgary-North,I am writing to you as an (add if applicable: Calgary-North constituent or) Albertan who is genuinely frightened.I am watching what is happening in the United States, studying the steps that brought them to their current reality, and increasingly recognizing those same steps being taken here in Alberta. What we are witnessing south of the border is not sudden—it is the outcome of years of political decisions made when party loyalty was placed above the common good.I wrote to you or your leader asking that you protect minority groups—specifically trans youth—who already face disproportionately high rates of suicide, discrimination, and violence. I asked you not to support legislation that would strip them of their rights. I asked, directly, who the next target of the Notwithstanding Clause would be if it was used so readily against a vulnerable minority.You did not respond. Instead, you voted in favour of using the Notwithstanding Clause against teachers in Bill 2: the Back to School Act (Oct 27, 2025), which imposed terms on striking teachers: ordered them back to work into unsafe conditions without arbitration. Then on December 10, 2025, you voted in favour of that legislation I wrote you about — the Protecting Alberta’s Children Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 9, on Dec 10, 2025) — which invoked the notwithstanding clause to shield multiple anti-trans laws from Charter challenge.This is not an abstract concern. It is recognizing a pattern.We are watching law enforcement in the United States become increasingly militarized and brutalized against civilians. Alberta itself has a troubling history of law enforcement struggling under strained services and a lack of preventative support. Yet you voted in support of creating an additional provincial police force rather than strengthening support and accountability within our existing systems — through legislation such as the Public Safety and Emergency Services Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 4, 2025) and prior clauses enabling an independent provincial police service.We are witnessing the murder of protesters, the abduction of children, and the detention and deportation of legal citizens in the United States. And yet, when separatists in Alberta openly praised joining the United States as a “51st state” and called for legislative changes to allow an otherwise unconstitutional separatist petition to proceed, you voted in favour of Bill 14: Justice Statutes Amendment Act (2025), which amended the Citizen Initiative Act and the provincial referendum framework to remove the safeguards that had prevented such petitions from moving forward.At each of these moments, through your privileged position of power, you have voted in ways that bring Alberta closer to the political conditions we are watching unfold in the United States—and further from the safety, freedom, and democratic stability we cherish in Canada.You cannot undo the votes you have already cast.But you can still show Albertans that you are unwilling to let the UCP lead this province further down that path. Demonstrate your lack of support for separation and the above by stepping aside from the UCP caucus and party. You can use your voice to state clearly that you support conservatism rooted in democratic restraint and respect for rights—not separatism, authoritarianism, or governance by override. Not the pollution of our drinking water, not an Alberta Police Force. Not the stripping of our Canadian Pension Plans. Reinstate the rights of municipalities and restore their funding. Redirect fossil fuel funding towards public schools and hospitals.You can resign in honour, sending a message to your party that these are not the values you—or your Calgary-North constituents—stand for.I am asking you, sincerely and urgently, to stand up for us so that Alberta does not become the 51st state, by name or by nature. Look to the state of Puerto Rico to know what this will look like for Alberta and Canada by extension.Truly,Jenny Yeremiy, P. Geoph and Calgary-Bow, Alberta, Canada resident and citizen.Adapted from Julietta Sorensen Kass’s letter issued to you. Cc Premier of Alberta | UCP Leader Smith [email protected] Cc MLA for | NDP Leader Nenshi [email protected] & [email protected] Cc MLA for Airdrie-West | APTP Leader Guthrie [email protected] & [email protected] Cc Your MLA for Calgary-Bow | Education Minister Nicolaides [email protected] Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode about the future, is the last of the 2025 mini-series on Water in Southern Alberta. It features experts J. Bruce Smedley, a 50-year engineer, and Kennedy Halverson, a conservation expert with the Alberta Wilderness Association. We discuss topics such as irrigation, resource extraction, and water security. The conversation highlights the over-allocation of water resources, the need for comprehensive water management, and the importance of biodiversity conservation. The podcast advocates for a dedicated water preservation agency to address these challenges and emphasizes the role of public pressure in driving much-needed change. A wonderful conversation!Introduction of Kennedy Halvorson and a Re-Introduction of J. Bruce SmedleyWelcome to The Gravity Well Podcast with me Jenny Yeremiy. I host The Gravity Well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty 7 and Metis districts 5 and 6. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples were created to honour the laws of the land maintained balance with nature and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide The Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants either individually or collectively do not necessarily represent those of The Gravity Well. This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see in here, remember to like and subscribe.Good afternoon, Bob. Thank you so much for being here again with me. How are you doing today?Bob:I’m doing okay. Fine, have a cold.Jenny:Try to get around that. Yeah. Thank you so much, Bob. Good afternoon everyone. I’m rejoined here with Bob for what is potentially our last water in Southern Alberta podcast, potentially of the well likely of the year, and potentially there may be more in the new year. Let’s see. We’re hoping to potentially have a conversation with Bob Sanford, but we’re going to bring in some of his thoughts into this conversation from Cop 30. Stay tuned for any of those details. This is episode 12 in this mini series. On this episode is on the future of water in Southern Alberta. We’ll be chatting with Bruce Smedley, who participated last year in episodes 18 and 22, and Bob and I are thrilled to welcome Kennedy Halverson of the Alberta Wilderness Association as well. We’ll get to them in a moment. Reminding folks, we have covered irrigation, resource extraction, the Water Act and licence transfer system, water modelling watershed and lake stewardship, dry land irrigated and ranch farming insurance. And then after a summer break, we returned to meet with Dr. Brad Sta Fox to learn about land use limits. Dr. David Sauchyn on climate change, Dr. David Swan and Jason Unger on water security, and Dr. Judy Stewart and Cheryl Bradley about Aquatic and health. Sorry, aquatic and riparian health. It’s been quite a learning experience. I’m so appreciative of you, Bob, for your leadership through this. This wouldn’t have been possible without you, and I’m super grateful for all the work you’ve done and for everyone that you have brought forward. And for all I’ve learned, this has just been remarkable.Bob:Well, back at you, Jenny, for all your organizational skills. Speak to this is totally disorganized on most days.Jenny:Yes, you’re very humble. You have done so much work in this and you have kept us all on track to do this. Like I said, this has been an incredible experience and I’m just so grateful for it. Okay, let’s welcome first Bruce Smedley back to the studio. Thank you so much, Bruce for being here again with us.J. Bruce:Well welcome to be here. I do appreciate it and I appreciate the work you’ve done so far in the podcast to date and I urge people to watch them. There’s a lot of information there.Jenny:Thank you, Bruce. Bruce has a master’s in, excuse me, and bachelor’s in chemical engineering. He studied in both British Columbia and Alberta. He has over 50 years of industry, government and global bank experience, which is a trifecta. It’s quite incredible in both the public and private sectors. Bob and I know Bruce from the 4C group, so that’s our Calgary Citizens on Climate Change group. We meet Thursday mornings to help each other learn and attempt different strategies to help inform people about these critically important issues and how to move ideas forward together. He also last year during episode 22, which I do encourage you to watch as well in the context of this work, he brought forward the idea of an integrated water resource preservation and restoration agency. So I’m sure we’ll discuss that. Welcome back, Bruce. Thank you for being here. Okay, so Kennedy, thank you so much, Kennedy for joining us.Kennedy Halverson is currently with the Alberta Wilderness Association. She has a BSc in chemistry. She did a stint of honeybee research that convinced her to be that work at climate controlled laboratory bench. It led her to work with the climate controlled laboratory bench. Fast forward through a graduate degree in environmental studies focused on native plants and pollinator conservation. Kennedy has worked in research and projects on food policy for Canada, finding flowers at York University. Before joining the Alberta Wilderness Association, she helped develop a bumblebee pathogen sampling protocol for environment and climate change. Canada, it’s just wonderful to have you here, Kennedy. I was saying before we went live that I get the opportunity to see you in such a different space. You spoke so well at the coal hearings in Southern Alberta and you’ve just been such a big voice for conservation in the province. It’s just such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you.Kennedy:Thanks for having me. Yeah, no, hearing the cast of people who’ve been on the episodes preceding me, they’re all people I really look up to in this field, it feels a little big shoes to fill to be here to talk. I don’t know if I’ll say anything new that they haven’t already set, but we’ll see.Jenny:Funny enough, you came up actually several times, Kennedy, with your expertise, I appreciate your humility, but you are very, very on equal footing in this conversation, so thank you. Why, before we dive in, we forgot to mention, I would love to just hear a little bit about how you came into this work. Kennedy, it sounds like you started having interest in bees and that’s what led you into the work that you do now. Is that right?Kennedy:Yeah, yeah. I definitely started at a biochemistry bench and realized I did not want to stay in a lab my whole life working on proteins. I needed to work on something a little bit bigger and then I was with honeybees and salmon and then I got an interest in our native species and that led me into conservation. And I wasn’t able to do a master’s in biology because the prof that I wanted to work with, she didn’t have any spaces left for that. But she said take a master’s of environmental studies. And I said, sure, I’ll do that. I’ll do it on native plants and pollinators. And it ended up being a really happy accident because I think it gave me the opportunity to work in a lot of different disciplines that now inform my conservation work today. And water is one of those things that pops up everywhere. When I was working in food policy, water is a really important input to agriculture. It’s an important for health anyways. It pops up everywhere. I just keep finding it. And then when I joined AWA as a conservation specialist, I was given the waterfowl to work on and have been immersed in water policy ever since.Jenny:Fantastic. Same for you, Bruce. What brought you into this climate work? Initially IJ. Bruce:Fishing. I do a lot of fishing around the province and I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time. I’ve fallen out of a canoe several times and thought that I should maybe go to a row boat and float down the Bow river south of Calgary. And I just have a great appreciation for a lot of the water systems. I used to ski on the glaciers, I’ve watched their progress over the years. I have that history from a technical point of view. I started out in wastewater treatment systems for meat packing plants, actually in British Columbia. I worked on that for a while. I worked on the pulp and paper industry. I worked in the cattle industry. I worked on a lot of oil and gas projects over the years. And at some point in my life I got asked to go to Thailand and give a talk. And since then I’ve travelled the world on behalf of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to look specifically at the interface between people and the projects that they were funding and the consequences on the community and on the culture and that as they relate to these projects. I’ve had a lot of interesting projects to look at in and in a lot of industries as well.Jenny:Yeah, you bring such a broad perspective to this dialogue, Bruce. I’m much appreciated. Okay, Bob, I will let you lead off the questions, please. Thank you.What is working in water management, use, and protection?Bob (00:09:45):Okay. I’ll start with a pretty basic question. In terms of the future, what are the strengths and weaknesses in our system of managing water, using water, protecting water here in southern Alberta? Just basically what are the good things that we’ve got that we want to make sure we strengthen, at least keep? And what are those things that we really want to improve upon? I’ll start with you, Kennedy.Kennedy:Yeah. I think some of the things that are strong with how we manage water right now is we do have some good legislation in place that if it was implemented fully, I think we could have really good water protection in the province. Things like the Alberta Land Stewardship Act is a really interesting act in that it enables us to essentially plan out on a regional scale how we’ll have industries work and what areas we’d like to protect, things we’d like to prioritize in the region. And I think if it was implemented fully and maybe through a more environmental lens, we could have really strong environmental policy that does protect our watersheds. But I think maybe a reoccurring theme, and what you’ve probably come up on in your other conversations is that a lot of the legislation we have meant to protect our watersheds and protect the ecosystem services they provide is not necessarily being implemented fully or there’s a lot of loopholes or ways around protecting water.Bob:It’s very important to have some sort of regulatory system that actually provides that umbrella to work under. Is that what you’re saying?Kennedy:Yeah, absolutely. I also would say too, in addition to having a good regulatory system, we want to have the data available to make those informed decisions. Recently, the Alberta government has been doing pretty extensive engagement on water availability in the province where they were asking folks how we can make more water available. And while that’s on its own, maybe a little bit of a, maybe not a correct, like we’re not going to make more water available, there is a closed amount of water in the system. It did show a lot of people’s opinions on waters and how we should manage it in the province. I recently submitted a FOIP request to get the feedback from that engagement because the government hasn’t yet released it publicly. And one of the things they noted, the environment and protected areas staff in their summaries within that FOIP request was that there’s a recognized need for stronger water use reporting and measuring in the province, but that’s not happening right now. Right now they have, it’s something like less than 10% of water users actually report their water use. When that’s the dataset you start with, it makes it really difficult to make informed water management decisions because we just don’t have the necessary data. Not only do you need a good regulatory system in place to ensure it, you need to have the information so we can make those informed decisions and we’re not just, we’re flying blind there.Bob:Yes. That’s one of the things that we noted when we looked at the licences that are out there, particularly older licences, licences don’t have that kind of reporting and measuring. And even the ones that do, it’s not even on a daily basis. It can be monthly, maybe even yearly. Bruce, in terms of the system we’ve got out there for managing water, using it, protecting it, where do you see the strengths and weaknesses?J. Bruce:Well, I think the strengths are in the people that are involved looking at the podcasts and the people involved in the papers. I read even the history of where we at. We’ve certainly put a lot of energy into water management in the province. We have one of the most, I would say, managed rivers anywhere in the world really in terms of the power dams and the rest of it. I think that’s certainly a strength. The problems I find is we don’t have the time and we don’t comprehend the situation we’re actually in. And we’re trading our demand for really our supply model. We should be looking at the river from the point of view of how much water is actually there that we can actually utilize over a very long time. And yet we manage it from the point of view of the water we want rather than the water we have. In a long-term sense, I’d like to see a much stronger organizational process that’s current and responsive in a very short time. And I equate that to things like how quickly our weather’s changing and how far out we are from the norms in terms of the possibilities of what the weather might be in the future, and we don’t have a system for alerting us to those kinds of effects.Bob:Yes. Go ahead, Jenny.Jenny:Oh, thanks. I just wanted to add, yeah, I love, thank you for bringing in the land stewardship laws right away, Kennedy. Yes. To me, it’s such a well constructed story and it includes all the components, it has all the stakeholders mentioned in it, but it’s not being applied and it’s not being looked at from the lens of an environmental integrity standpoint and being upheld to those standards. It’s just a concept and it keeps getting, I hear things like, oh, it’s too complicated. Well, we don’t really have much choice to not be looking at the complicated nature of the landscape and addressing it. Thank you, Bruce, for bringing in the fact that it’s the strength of the people. We have to look to the people who know this information, who are willing to actually get into these challenging conversations because quite frankly, that’s what it’s going to require.The Pitfalls of Water Allocation(00:16:22):And to understand that management is not going to be a real solution and that we have to look at the problem from an actual ecosystem stability standpoint rather than a what can it deliver for us standpoint. Thank you guys for those wonderful introductions. If we can talk a little bit about, I think, Bob, this is where you wanted to go next, and you can stop me if I’m wrong, but to talk about allocation, can we get a little bit into how are we doing this wrong? A little bit about the allocation process and what are the pitfalls that we’re creating with it? Kennedy, can I start with you again?Kennedy:Yeah, yeah. I guess the situation in southern Alberta was recognized as really as 2007 that we had essentially over allocated our rivers, which means we’ve licensed out more volume than they can withstand. The whole basin was closed to any future water licences. The only way you can get water now in the basin is if you get a water licence transfer. The issue is that we don’t have anything in the water act to essentially restore balance and return flows to our rivers in a meaningful way. Oftentimes you’ll hear, especially from industry that, well, we’ve over allocated the basin, but we don’t necessarily use all of our allocation every year. But the allocations have been set based on the average natural flow of our rivers. That’s the flow we expect to come through our rivers every year, but that’s not necessarily the flow we get every year.We’ll often get years much higher, years much lower. You can imagine if you’ve already over allocated a basin, it’s a year of low flows, industry’s going to use the regular amount they use, you suddenly get circumstances where you’re using 50% of the river flow for industry. And we know from really good research that you need to have a certain amount of flow in your rivers at all times to maintain their function and their structure, which is called the instream flow needs. When you have those years of really heavy use, which are often years of drought conditions of dry conditions, we can have times where we don’t have enough water in the rivers to meet the instream flow needs, which is something that threatens their long-term health and security. If we’re planning long-term in the future, we need to figure out a way to rewrite our rivers so that their needs are constantly being met and then we can balance use after that, which is, it’s like a wicked problem, I think is what, there’s a term called a wicked problem where it’s such an insurmountable problem that people don’t even want to begin dealing with it, but by not dealing with it, we’re making it worse essentially.Yeah. I’ll stop there.Jenny:Yeah. I was listening to a podcast from the Climate Town podcast series from last year talking about water, and they were talking specifically about FITFIR and explaining how the water licence transfer process encourages full use because if you don’t use it, you lose it. To your point about exasperating a problem, we are not only discouraging overuse, we’re actually encouraging it in the face of limitations as we learned from Dr. Sauchyn. I’m sorry, Bob, you were going to add something there. Go ahead.A Comprehension ProblemBob (00:20:13):Well, Kennedy, you hit on something that Stelfox said when we talked to him that when people are confronted with these unpalatable choices, they tend to ignore them. Let me start with Bruce on this question then. Is the problem really a technical, an engineering a biological problem, or is it really a political problem? Is that where things start to fall apart?J. Bruce:I think it’s a comprehension problem. I think that we’re focusing so much on our own needs that we’re not really focusing on the needs of the river. I would start there, then I would look at this whole issue of how do you manage this system given that we have to be able to predict what the weather’s going to do and the variation that we might get in a different year and have some kinds of indicators of whether we’re going to have enough water or not have enough water. And then the allocation applies after that. We’re putting the cart before the horse here in terms of allocating. Rather than having fixed allocations, we might even have consideration for not so much irrigation for instance, or we may actually want to change the crops we’re growing and the extent of which we’re actually growing crops. I think we have to look at a much more comprehensive idea of what’s really happening here.Bob:Kennedy, what are your thoughts on that?Kennedy:Yeah, I agree with Bruce on that. If you think about this area, it’s an area that has these really rich soils because they had thousands of years of native grass growth that enriched the soils. These soils look and appear as if they would be good to grow crops, but the limiting factor has always been precipitation, it’s always been water, irrigation was the solution to that. But we’re now using this massive input of water every year to sustain crops in this region. Even doing so, we’re growing crops that are water heavy, they consume a lot of water. We’re not growing drought tolerant crops. We’re growing things like sugar beets that we’re forcing crops to grow where they wouldn’t naturally grow at the expense of our rivers. Lots of the argument will be that irrigated agriculture is this massive part of our agricultural industry, but really only 5% or a little bit more than 5% of all agricultural land is irrigated, and yet they have 44% of the water licences in Alberta.This is the last time I looked at the math, it was in 2022, 1 fifth of the water we used in Alberta went to 5% of these irrigated lands. And they don’t necessarily, the majority of our agricultural industry comes from, or the economy comes from our dry land crops. We’re just removing so much water onto these irrigated acres to grow food that we don’t even necessarily eat. And I guess it begs the question is, is where we’re irrigating now appropriate knowing we’re heading into this future where water scarcity and water security are going to become much more common. I think we do have to start managing our water like it is this commonly held public good, but it is really difficult in the current system we have, because right now water is primarily held by people, a small minority of licences that have held that water for a really long time. Trying to figure out how we move forward is, yeah, it’s very difficult.Jenny:And just to add that the geography of it is bizarre too, that the most senior licence holders are downstream of most of Alberta too. It’s just such a wild thing to think about in terms of that allocation. Sorry, Bob, go ahead. Lead into your next…Water Over-AllocationBob (00:24:52):Well, I was going to get back to this allocation, the over allocation problem back in the 1990s, the provincial government basically said, we’ve got to deal with it somehow. And they basically put a cap on irrigation acres in southern Alberta. They changed their mind in the early two thousands with the new water management plan that’s out there, and they basically put a cap on everybody as Kennedy mentioned by saying that you now can’t get any new licences, you have to rely on the transfer system. Those are similar approaches. They’re obviously trying to put some sort of a limit, but they are very different in terms of who gets affected because with the first approach, the irrigation industry would certainly be limited unless they could come up with more efficient use of water.On the second approach, everybody gets affected, but the irrigation industry, particularly because they hold senior licences, get an advantage because now they can transfer water that maybe they weren’t using or they no longer need because of efficiencies. Which of those two approaches do you think is better? Because they are very different in terms of the impact on people. Certainly municipalities now are paying a lot of money, although we don’t know how much because it’s all confidential to get water from whoever has it available. Bruce, which of those approaches do you think is better? Or do you think there’s a third approach that might work better than either one of ‘em?J. Bruce:I don’t like either one. I think that they point to resource conflict. For me, it means that eventually we’re going to reach a point where we have to decide whether we want agriculture or cities and we should have an allocation process that’s maybe much more, if you will, weather centered and cost effective for where we live and how we want to live. Otherwise, we are going to end up with Phoenix, for instance. They’ve allowed housing to get out of control down there, and they’re debating whether they’re going to bypass the city entirely with water because they just haven’t got any more for the growth that they’ve allowed to have happen and Calgary’s facing the same entity. I also think that we don’t do urban planning at all in the context of the water. We have availability or the kind of weather we actually have here. I mean, when you get four insurance companies leaving the province, they’ve obviously indicating that there’s something wrong with their mismanagement of our insurance industry relative to what we’re building and the weather we’re getting. Those issues are the kinds of things I look into.Jenny:Yeah, I was really interested by Judy Stewart’s comments last week about how the municipalities have, they should have the authority to be making water decisions, and yet every level of government has the ability to overwrite the municipal decision making process. Yes, therefore it’s not happening for that reason. It’s just being avoided altogether. Really good point. Sorry, go ahead, Bob.Bob:Yeah, I’ll put it to Kennedy. Bruce doesn’t like either of those solutions. What are your views?Kennedy:I think they were not so much solutions as they were knee jerk reactions to a really bad situation where it was like, we have to stop something and this is how we do it. And I think what at least the 2006 or oh seven decision shows is recognizing that there are ecological constraints that we all live in. There’s only so much water in this river. There’s only so much water that can be taken out of this river for use. I think that maybe something better would be looking at how we can all work with the environment instead of against it to ensure that the water that is here and moves and flows in a way that is more conducive to our lives. One of those things, like Bruce has mentioned, we’re going to have changing weather patterns increasingly in the future.In southern Alberta, one of the things we expect is we expect when the snow is going to melt, we expect when we’re going to get our highest flows in that June time, we’ll have our lowest flows in the summer. And that’s how water is currently managed all throughout the year. Those are the predicted time periods that we base our agriculture on. Knowing in the future that we are now going to be seeing a lot less snow falling and more of our water is going to be coming as precipitation throughout the year, we know that our snow is going to start melting earlier, we’re going to have higher peak flows earlier. Those are all things that we need to be planning for. But they also, those climate predictions show a really worrisome case for things like our agricultural industry.It means that the water that they usually hope and expect for in June and July is going to be coming closer earlier June, earlier in May, and they’re not going to have it in those mid-summer months where it’s really hot and their crops need it the most. We need to be thinking about how can we store and slow water on the landscape that doesn’t, what’s the word, intensify the climate system even worse, which means not using these conventional sort of human infrastructure grey approaches, but using our natural ecosystem approaches. I think a solution to me would be investing in our ecosystems. We invest in infrastructure like dams and reservoirs, moving that money and looking towards our headwaters and how do we make our headwater forests more resilient? How do we retain wetlands on the landscape? How do we increase complexity to the streams and tributaries that feed our rivers? How do we restore beavers to the landscape? All these things are things that could be done very simply that would help also fulfil our commitments to supporting biodiversity while also making us a more water secure region.Biodiversity and Water Supply LossesJenny (00:31:57):That’s wonderful. Kennedy. I think if we can lead in then to some of the ways that we could do that biodiversity, it’s just so as Bruce was saying, this is such a complex problem, when we talk about water, it also brings in the thought of biodiversity loss. Those two things go hand in hand. If [there is] lost water, we’ve lost ecological or habitat, let’s say we’ve lost biodiversity, we’ve lost water. These are all the ways that you’re saying that we should reverse the bus and start investing in those things. Can you speak a little bit about the loss of biodiversity? Can you help people understand, I mean, I could use an example of the cold lake sub-regional planning I was involved in, and I know that we were 96% disturbed and needed to move back to, I can’t remember what the percent was we were looking for, but if you can just speak to some of those kind of the logic behind the land stewardship laws and how that is meant to move us back from that footprint. Thank you.Kennedy:Yeah. Yeah. I think when we think about biodiversity loss, you could think about it sort of both spatially and temporally. Spatially it’s important to have intact ecosystems and big areas of them, but it’s also important to have connected ecosystems. One of the things, a really great data source I always go to is the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. They have really great layered data that you could visualize on a map that shows all of Alberta. I think right now it’s something like 30% of, I think Alberta is human footprint is impacted by human footprint, and that is largely concentrated in southern Alberta where agriculture and cropland dominates. But while I guess only 30% is human footprint, you can see on the map visually that human footprint extends to every point in the province, which means that we are fragmenting habitat.That’s one of the ways we’ve lost biodiversity. And then on a timescale, you can also look to species and species populations. Some of the species we have that we think of as bio indicators, these are species that are really intimately tied to the ecosystem that they’re in, and their health reflects the health of an ecosystem we’re seeing declines in their populations. Bruce mentioned earlier that fishing was where he got his start in water, and I don’t remember these times, but maybe he can recall a time the bull trout in Alberta is Alberta’s trout, and it used to be one of the most populous fish species in our river systems. And now the bull trout is a threatened species. It’s increasingly on a decline, and one of its major threats is the fragmentation of its habitat, which means its streams and rivers are getting chopped off, and then it’s also the degradation of its habitat.Our land use is too close to the streams it uses, and its habitat quality is decreasing in such a way that it can no longer thrive. When we look to this increasing habitat loss and fragmentation and the species decline, we know that we’ve lost biodiversity in these ways and it has really real implications. I think a lot of people will think, well, what does it matter if we lose one fish species? Well, the bull trout is one fish species, but it’s emblematic of a whole ecosystem. And if its health is declining, if it’s health in our headwater streams and in our southern tributaries, if it’s not there, it indicates that our southern tributaries are suffering. It shows that we really need to do something to repair it because inevitably as ecosystems work, it’ll cascade up that food chain and we’re there at the end. Right. Investing in species health is investing in our health.Jenny:Wonderful. Bruce, did you want to add to that?J. Bruce:Yeah, I think Yellowstone is probably a good example of that. They brought back, I think it is the wolf, to bring the whole habitat of Yellowstone back to its former self, and I think it shows that every species has its value in maybe having ended up in this part of the world after centuries of working with other animals and you end up with this kind of habitat. And I think that’s what we have to get back to. We have to get back to appreciating all of those various otherwise insignificant aspects of even just losing one bull trout. I mean, it’s important to keep those habitats as sound as we can. I think the other concept I like to look at is that we are not separate from the water. We are in fact water.I weigh about 150 pounds and a hundred pounds of me is water. You’re almost 60% water as an individual. You’re not much different than a trout, really a different outlook on the outside, I guess. But for me, we have to appreciate this in a much more cohabitation kind of way with what is our ecosystem and what we have to do to preserve it. And it’s the little things that add up to the big things like too many roads, no planning for drainage and putting houses in the wrong place. There’s all kinds of issues that we could address to deal with that balance, if you will, or that cohabitation of this particular part of the world.Jenny:Wonderful. Bob, did you want to lead into the next?Is reversing biodiversity loss possible?Bob (00:38:12):Yeah, Bruce, you mentioned the wolves in Yellowstone, and they’re basically the keystone species there, particularly in terms of managing, naturally managing wildlife. We’ve become in a sense, the keystone species in terms of managing things here in the Southern Alberta because it is such a managed system. Our governments and land managers actually capable of changing their behaviour to reverse the loss of biodiversity. And if so, how will that happen? Let me throw that out to Kennedy first.Kennedy:I think if it happens, it will only happen if it’s forced. Right now, I don’t see any amount of data or information speaking to our current government to change how things are done, and I think that it will take a lot of public pressure or a massive natural disaster event to really get people to commit to action. I think we can look to something like the floods in Calgary in 2013. That is something that really changed how people thought about water and plan for water. And I think, or even I guess, yeah, the wildfires in Jasper as well, when we see how quickly the systems we built up can be taken over by these natural events that have been made more severe because of climate change, I think it really shows that while we believe we’re managing the land, at the end of the day, nature bats last, which is something Lorne Fitch loves to say. I think things like that are what really forced change, unfortunately.But it’s one of those things that we just don’t have another choice moving forward. We have to be building cities that are resilient to climate change because unfortunately, we have not taken action fast enough to stop climate change. In the context of water, that means making cities that are not these concrete jungles that do not allow water to actually infiltrate into the ground. It means not draining our wetlands endlessly and keeping them as these natural reservoirs on the landscape that do filter and store and slow flows. There are many things we could do, and we’re choosing not to do them because they do not pay us back immediately. But I think, yeah, something needs to happen to reframe our mind and recognize that we’re investing for our own futures. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe Bruce will have another answer.Bob:Well, I think before Bruce jumps in, Brad Stelfox mentioned the same kind of thing when we asked him a similar question, and it was basically, he used an example in India, I think it was, where basically a crisis happened in terms of their managing the land. They became much better than that. We had a crisis here with the flood, the big flood in Calgary and the one that came a couple years before that. Bruce, are we really faced with a situation from your understanding of human behaviour? Are we really faced with a situation where you have to have a crisis first before people will actually make significant change?J. Bruce:It would appear that’s the case. I don’t think it necessarily has to be the case. I don’t see anything happening in this province from a political point of view that suggests that we’re on track to have much of a future. I get a sense that we can do and manage and plan our futures much better. There’s certain areas of the world where it’s been very successful to do that. There’s a little island off the coast of southern Japan that had been there for thousands of years, and they have a maintained population and survive very well. It can certainly be done. I just think we have to find what our real objectives are, whether we want the capitalism, the way in which we apply it or whether we want to have a future for our children, it becomes a kind of a social culture, cultural entity rather than a political entity.Bob:Well, in a way, the people in the future, in terms of our support or benefit to them, it’s how much they’re in debt to us for what we did now, I don’t think it came out quite the way it was supposed to, but the crises are there in terms of global warming, in terms of our own use of water and land. We’re going to expect to see more frequent, more severe droughts, floods, and weather events. I think you both Bruce and Kennedy, you both have identified the kinds of things that we already have that can help us deal with those kinds of things. But can we actually move beyond that? And I know that Bob Sanford said, and I’ll just get the proper quote here so I don’t misquote him here if I can get my computer to move. He said that in terms of climate vulnerability and water security, Alberta is essentially ungoverned and therefore totally unprepared. Do you sense that, and if so, what can be done to improve the governance with all these wonderful people? We have all these wonderful laws, we have all these wonderful systems we have. Do you agree with him? And if you do agree with him, how can we make the political model, I guess, work better? Bruce, I’ll start with you.J. Bruce:Yeah, we can do it better. I get to see it feeling that we’re chasing resource extraction in this province, whether it’s coal, oil or anything like that for a short term economic gain and to maybe satisfy investors somewhere else in the world. But we’re not really looking at again, what this province is capable of sustaining the fact that we can be continuing to produce hydrocarbons at the rate at which we’re doing and in the way in which we’re doing it and not appreciate what we’re going to be left with. I mean, at one time I worked on the tar sands, on the reclamation part of the tar sands, and nobody was interested in actually following through with any of that. The government wasn’t interested. The Energy Resources Conservation Board wasn’t interested, the investors weren’t interested, the oil companies weren’t interested. We end up with probably the largest black spot on the globe in Northern Alberta. I mean, you can see it from space. The only other place I’ve seen it is actually in Indonesia. There’s a tailings coming from the gold mining there. It’s about the same as what’s happening in Alberta. I think that we either have to do it in a different way or we have to follow through on our commitments to actually appreciate the environment while we’re doing it.Bob:Okay. Kennedy, are we essentially ungoverned from a climate and a water security point of view?Kennedy:Yeah, it’s tough right now. I think I’ve seen a lot of, really a lot of our water legislation worsen at least, especially in the last year, which makes it seem, which will govern it worse. And then the reports we get coming out from people like the auditor general that says Alberta has little knowledge of how much water it uses, if it’s meeting its conservation objectives, those things all suggest that we are ungoverned. And I think that’s, that’s the same for climate. This is not a province that prioritizes addressing the climate crisis, unfortunately. But what I think is a good thing is that there’s a lot of people who are not the government who do know these things and are working very hard to try to address these things. We have had and have some very brilliant scientists that work here. We have water leaders like David Schindler who has passed, but people like that, we have people from I guess Saskatchewan that help a lot like John Pomeroy.We have leaders here who are internationally recognized for their knowledge on water and watersheds and water systems. And then behind that, we have many different groups like the people we see here today and many different associations who are concerned about water. I think that the people power and the knowledge that we have outside of that are things that give me hope that we can change how we manage water in the province. But I do think it starts with really increasing maybe just general public knowledge of the situation we live in and we live, especially in southern Alberta, we’re in a dry arid landscape. We need to act like we are in a dry arid landscape. Even at the municipal level, places like Okotoks that recognize and have always planned for having limited water supplies, I think that’s something we need to see on a widespread scale for municipalities in southern Alberta. Yeah, maybe the change starts at a grassroots level.Key TakeawaysJenny (00:49:13):Wonderful. Yeah, I think this is a great time to shift into some of the takeaway ideas that we each have. I’m going to offer some things that I do really appreciate. First of all, Bruce, and I’ll tip it to you next, the thought about having an actual entity that is dedicated to water preservation and restoration. To me, we talk a lot about management. We’ve heard the word management throughout this conversation, but we don’t have a specific group of people that are dedicated to that. Aside from what you described, Kennedy, these individuals and organizations that are working to help inform the public and essentially get that tipping point of people who are asking for this to be a priority by this government. Because fundamentally that’s what’s needed is we need the public to acknowledge that this is happening. Bruce spoke, or sorry, Bob mentioned the example that Brad Stel Fox used.It was not only… it was a place in India that they had had shortages and they had gone in and drilled water wells and they had created irrigation and they had done all sorts of things and then it all collapsed. Like he said, it was down to rubble. That’s how bad it was that they were actually trying to regain soil in the area. That’s how bad it was. I don’t want us to go there. None of us want us to go there. This is a battle, quite frankly, of the people to establish what is actually needed. And I’m going to say something that I heard a toxicologist, Mandy Olsgard, say to a public audience in Nanton, which was, this is not going to happen unless we make it happen. This isn’t a priority. We’ve heard it through from Bob, we’ve heard it from Kennedy, I’ve seen it.We’ve all seen it in terms of what’s happening with the water decision making in this process. It’s getting more lenient rather than more conservationist, and it will break. There is no question I’ve heard from specialists like Dr. Cathy Ryan at the U of C say, they are not clear on when the water table might break, meaning we could prevent trees from being able to catch root, and that means you would lose that soil like what just happened in India. These are real situations that we are facing if we don’t turn the ship around. I will tip it to you first. Bruce, can you expand on what that looks like for you? That group, for example, if we were to establish it, what does it look like? And Kennedy, you can think about how you might add to it too. You go ahead, Bruce.J. Bruce:Yeah, a couple of aspects to it. I’m talking about an institution that is separate from government in the sense that it is fully funded by government for some significant period of time, but it isn’t up to the government to decide what the future is. It’s time that all of these specialists get together and work on this problem and make recommendations to the government that we expect the government to actually fulfil. And I think it’s, it’s not the politics so much as it’s the understanding that this is a very complex system and we have to trade things for other things, and we have to balance our investments or our funding, our dollars. We have to make things practical, inexpensive, and function well. And the only way I can see you do that is to bring the various parties together in one place where they can work on these problems and come up with a specific answer that maybe then take to the government to actually make it happen. I’m quite concerned that the government is not telling us things that we should be knowing right now rather than telling us what they want us to hear. I think this province is in a different state than we are all imagining that it is right now.Jenny:Agreed. And you help me remember, I wanted to expand a little bit on what this action looks like. Kennedy, you mentioned we’re irrigating in a landscape which we know can’t tolerate that long-term. Therefore we need to be thinking about drought tolerant crops. We need to be thinking about water preservation and restoration rather than conservation in terms of those water management systems. And then also local food systems. If we were to reduce our expectation of growing on the landscape, in some cases we have the capacity to have greenhouses in Calgary, especially with the amount of natural gas we have. There’s a massive opportunity there to couple those things and provide some, alleviate the landscape, if you will, while we recover that landscape. And again, this isn’t coming from a place of wanting to take away from those who are managing the landscape. This is trying to help them prevent them from witnessing and suffering that collapse. Let’s be real. We’ve talked about it a couple of times in this conversation that there are farmers who are committing suicide because they are experiencing such severe changes on the landscape that they don’t know how to handle it, and this is therefore a way to provide them support. Sorry, I went off there, but I wanted to get that in the conversation. Go ahead, Kennedy. Please offer your thoughts in this space.Kennedy:Yeah, I guess maybe just even speaking to that a little bit, I think the recognition is, and I think farmers would know this firsthand, especially in the area that it is requiring more and more inputs to grow crops. And this ask for them to continually grow more and more is not possible. You hit your limits eventually. We can’t keep putting fertilizer and pesticides and water, and there’s only so much where you plateau, and it is not necessarily sustainable if this is what is required to grow crops in these regions. It’s not sustainable. I think, I don’t even know how you begin to do this, but you need to somehow figure out what is a just transition for these people as a way to recognize that there’s some areas in the province where we’ve decided to grow agriculture, where agriculture is not an appropriate land use because it requires such intensive inputs and the loss is so heavy in drought years. And how can you essentially help those people either continue their livelihood until they’re done and then you transition that land out of use for agriculture, return it to native grassland, which is something that would be a climate solution. Native grassland is drought resilient. It helps store water on the landscape as well.It would return licensed water back to the rivers. I think a lot of the climate conversations is just figuring out what does that just transition look like for people who work? Things that just are not sustainable anymore in the reality we live in. And I don’t know, I think it just has to start. It has with some sort of legislation and political will and public power, but I don’t obviously have the solution for that. But I do really love the idea of a dedicated water preservation group or a climate core people that would go around the province and find areas that are biodiversity hotspots are ecosystem services like priorities for conservation. In Alberta, that would be places like our remaining native grasslands, our remaining wetland complexes, the Rockies and Foothills, which are our water towers. Focusing those areas for conservation would help us in a lot of ways. But yeah, I think it’s tough to say how that gets done with so many competing interests and without the political will there.Jenny:Yeah, I love the thought of looking, I think of it as like the 80-20 rule. If we just focus our efforts on the most bang for our buck, that’s where we can really see the change and then people will get behind this concept more broadly. I love that idea, Kennedy. Bob, did you want to make sure that we covered off all the questions that you had in mind or any comments that you wanted?Bob:We’ve covered the questions I wanted to ask. And Jenny, that was a great question at the end here because it’s touched on several of the things we’ve already talked about on the other podcasts, including what is the role of these watershed planning and advisory councils? Because Bruce’s agency that’s funded by the government, but independent looks a little bit like them. The WPACs don’t have all the regulatory responsibility that they should have. In fact, they have none. And in terms of the just transition Canada, you’ve hit upon the issue of do you move the water to the people or do you move the people to the water? And maybe there is a more significant cap that you have to put on Southern Alberta that encourages, as you said, Kennedy, with a just transition to locate where the water is, rather than try to make more out of the little bit of water that we have. Very interesting question at the end, Jenny, very good responses from you, Kennedy and Bruce. I’m very appreciative of all of you in terms of joining this podcast, joining this series, and helping us figure out what the future of water management might look like. Thank you.Jenny:Yeah, anything that we missed, please Bruce, if you have any final thoughts, I’d love to hear them from both of you as well. Please goJ. Bruce:Ahead. Yeah. Part of this agency I’m talking about is to hold people accountable and to know who’s collecting the information and why we’re not getting the results we’re supposed to be getting. If we distribute the responsibility, then we end up with not understanding what’s happening and why it’s happening and why we’re not meeting our future water needs.Jenny:Yes, I think like you’re saying, you can’t solve a problem. You’re not including in your logic. I think to back up the bus and make sure we have a tendency of, like you said, Bruce, especially right now with this government to hide things or not leave the outliers out of the discussion. And rather, we need to have all of those outliers in the discussion.That we can make sure that we’re incorporating all of those issues at once. And when I think we’ll realize, I think of Bruce was saying, or Bob was just saying, these watershed councils, they’re already in place. They’re already on the watershed. If we can just empower ourselves to support them in a meaningful way, I think there’s a big opportunity there for us to make use of a system that’s already in place. Kennedy, did you have any, oh, go ahead, Bruce. Was there anyJ. Bruce:We need to do it in a timely manner too.Jenny:Yeah. Thank you. Kennedy, any final word before we wrap?Kennedy:No, I think that covered everything. Yeah, that I have to say today. I think a lot of good questions and discussion.Jenny:Yeah, Kennedy, you brought it. I have to say that was phenomenal. Thank you guys so much. And this is also from my friend, my client, who would like to say thank you folks as well for a brilliant chat. He’s not wrong. Okay. Thank you. This has been incredible, Bob. Again, I’m so appreciative of us having done this, and I am excited to see what comes next. We will take action with this. Thank you very much for your time, everybody. And remember, please to like and subscribe to the gravity wall. Sorry, Kennedy, that’s not cool. Get the word can get out about this and that we can get enough public pressure to make sure that this stuff gets done. Okay. Have a great rest of your day, everyone. Take care for now.J. Bruce:Thank you both. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This episode features Professor Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, who has focused his career on understanding air pollution and climate problems and developing renewable energy solutions. Jacobson criticizes carbon capture technology, arguing it increases CO2 emissions and air pollution, and is primarily used to justify continued fossil fuel development. He advocates for a transition to 100% renewable energy, which could reduce world energy demand by 54% and eliminate a significant number of air pollution-related deaths.Jacobson highlights the inefficiency and high costs of carbon capture compared to renewable energy solutions, which offer greater health, environmental, and economic benefits. He also addresses concerns about the mining required for renewable technologies, noting that it is significantly less than that for fossil fuels. The transition to renewables is feasible and beneficial, particularly in resource-rich countries like Canada. Jenny adds that ecological services need to be restored to genuinely reduce carbon emissions and address water and land contamination and degradation, with renewable and battery technology deployment. Want this, fellow Canadian, as the alternative is clearly a lie.Introduction to Stanford University Professor Mark JacobsonJenny (00:05):Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast with me, Jenny Yeremiy. I host The Gravity Well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty 7 and Metis districts 5 and 6. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples are created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature, and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide The Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants either individually or collectively do not necessarily represent those of The Gravity Well. This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see and hear, remember to like and subscribe.Good afternoon, everyone. Today’s interview is very meaningful to me. I’ve mentioned on several occasions now that I worked as a geophysicist and liability expert in the oil and gas industry in Alberta for over 20 years. I worked in the office next to the individual who is credited with the birth of the Pathways Alliance. The Pathways Alliance is a project intended to offer mitigation for CO2 emissions to justify future fossil fuel development in Canada. It’s the biggest project of its kind in terms of concept and justifies things like LNG and Oil Sands development plans. On that note, I am thrilled to be having a discussion with Professor Mark Jacobson today of Stanford University. Welcome to the stage, Mark.Mark (02:12):Hi, Jenny. Thanks for having me on.Jenny (02:14):Yeah, thank you so much. As I was saying off stage, I have to go through an extensive introduction of Mark, bear with me, Mark as I do so. Mark Jacobson has been a professor at Stanford University since 1994. His research has crossed two fields, atmospheric science and energy. Mark’s career has focused on better understanding air pollution and climate problems, and developing large scale clean renewable energy solutions to them. He’s developed and applied three computer models: atmosphere, biosphere and ocean, and has used their simulations to understand air pollution, weather, climate, and renewable energy systems. He’s developed roadmap maps to transitions in countries, states, and cities towards a hundred percent clean renewable energy. Mark has also published 191 peer reviewed journals and articles. He’s given over 800 talks. He founded and has directed the Atmospheric Energy Program at Stanford. He’s published seven books. Four of those are related to atmospheric work, and the last three are related to his energy work. And based on all of this, Mark is ranked as number six in terms of publication since 1980. Wow. Thank you so much, Mark, for taking the time to be with me today.Mark (03:32):Yeah, thanks for having me on.Jenny (03:34):Yeah, if you don’t mind, actually, I didn’t mention off stage, but I’d love to hear a little bit of what brought you into this work. What’s been your journey to this? A lot of people will say it’s just a love of nature or whatever. What brought you into the climate field? Can you say?Mark (03:50):Well, when I was a kid, when I was playing tennis, I travelled to Los Angeles and San Diego, and especially in San Diego, the air pollution was so bad. I thought, why should people live like this? I wanted to solve that problem ever since then. And I focused my studies and my research on doing that. For the last 36 years as a scientist, I’ve been trying to understand and solve large scale air pollution and climate problems through clean renewable energy. Part of my work has been to understand the problems. That’s where computer model development came in. And then overlapping the last 25 years now, I’ve been trying to solve the problems. When you’re looking at solutions, I mean, I first look at carbon capture back in 2008, and nothing’s really changed since then except it’s been implemented. Trying the policies, trying to implement it have been expanded a bit, but no actual benefit because as I’ll talk about, carbon capture only increases carbon dioxide. It should be called carbon release, not carbon capture. No kidding.Jenny (05:01):Yeah. I was saying to you, I also have had exposure since that time about, actually, I worked two fields in Canada that doing what we called CO2 flooding at the time. That’s what we would call carbon capture utilization and storage, I suppose. But we would see breakthrough, what we would call breakthrough from one well to another instantly, almost within a week. To me, the idea of capturing this carbon and sequestering it long-term is not a practical solution. Rather, the site cleanup and storage or cleanup and closure of sites would do both things. Well, actually three things, as you were mentioning with the water system, the land system, and the air pollution all in one. Anyway, that’s how I came into this work as well, Mark. Let’s start with why are we talking about carbon capture and storage? If you can just remind people what was the intention of this technology to do in terms of justifying new fossil fuel development, let’s say?The Justification for Carbon Capture and Storage (Hint: there isn’t one)Mark (06:04):Well, the justification was that, well, really it’s fossil fuel companies wanted to keep their fuels moving, being sold. And because of all the policies that were being put in place, they had to come up with a way to keep doing that and also pretend to keep selling fossil fuels, but then pretend as if they’re actually helping to solve the problem. They came up with this idea carbon capture, where you add equipment to, let’s say a coal plant to where the carbon dioxide emitted from the coal plant gets absorbed and then basically captured as a gas, and then that CO2 is compressed and put in a pipeline and then piped somewhere. In theory, they were saying most of it would be piped for storage and be put underground and stored forever. In reality, 82% of all their carbon captured worldwide to date has been used to just drill for more oil through what’s called enhanced oil recovery, where the carbon dioxide is piped to a nearby oil field. The CO2 is then mixed with the oil, it bonds with the oil, makes the oil less dense, more of it floats to the surface faster. And for every ton of carbon dioxide, you get a couple more barrels of oil.Even if you’re just that process alone, by the way, 30 to 40% of the CO2 captured during this enhanced oil recovery process is released right back to the air during the enhanced oil recovery process. And then the additional barrels of oil you get, depending on whether they replace existing oil or their new oil, there’s 20 to 80% more of the CO2 gets released to the air by burning this oil. You end up with 50 to 130% of the CO2 captured just going back to the air just from enhanced oil recovery, which I, again, 82% of all the CO2, that’s what happens to it. Right there, you’re having no benefit. And that’s not even the worst part of it, which we’ll probably talk about later. I’m just saying right off the get go, it’s a useless technology that is only designed to keep the fossil fuel industry going. There’s no benefit whatsoever to humankind.Jenny (08:33):Right. Thank you so much. Yeah, we would call that tertiary production. That’s what we refer to it in the industry is when you’ve got, you can do just regular primary production and then you can do water flood production, which is what we’d call secondary enhanced and then enhanced, sorry, being the third that CO2 injection, whether you’re doing natural gas flooding or CO2 flooding or Yeah, that’s basically the two that I’ve been involved in. But yeah, and like I said, in all of those cases, you’re right, I’ve only been involved in where we’re using it to produce more production. We’re not actually using it to store it and be able to know that that’s being stored long-term. And the other thing, if we can, since we have a little time, I want to talk a bit about the impacts of CO2 and other, let’s call it contaminants in the natural gas system, which causes actual risks to pipelines, et cetera, from erosion. And there needs to be, or yeah, corrosion I should be saying in those pipelines based on these additives, if you will.Mark (09:43):Well, with the carbon capture, the things they add a whole set of new pipelines. And for example, there was a proposal to add carbon capture equipment to ethanol refineries in the upper Midwest in the US to a few dozen ethanol refineries. And then once they capture that CO2, what do they do with it? Well, they were going to build like 2,500 miles of pipelines, CO2 pipelines, just to carry the CO2 to some in North Dakota. And first of all, aside from the fact that you’ve got to build these pipelines, you’ve got to invade people’s land to put the pipelines in, and farmers don’t want pipelines in. It is like an invasive thing. They have to go through thousands or hundreds to thousands of individual homeowners and landowners to try to get them to agree to put a pipeline. And if they don’t want to agree, then they’re trying to get a forced court order to do this.It’s really an invasive process too, and it’s just crisscrossing this pretty landscape with these pipelines, and then you need more energy. I mean, the main problem with carbon capture, aside from the fact that most of it’s used for enhanced oil recovery, which is just ridiculous in the first place, is that it increases CO2 and air pollution and fossil mining and fossil infrastructure and worsens people’s health and increases cost of energy for everybody. You might ask, well, how does capturing carbon increase carbon dioxide? Well, it’s really simple. You need energy to run capture equipment and to run the CO2 through pipelines and compress it. And it’s so much energy. It’s about 25% of the energy of a coal plant is needed to add carbon capture to a coal plant. So that means if you add carbon capture to a coal plant, you need 25% more coal.And when you have 25% more coal, you’re burned 25% more coal, and you have 25% more air pollution. Right away you have more air pollution and you have more mining of coal, and the cost of this equipment is high and it’s going to be passed on to customers. For example, there was only one coal plant in the US where carbon capture was added, and that was in Thompson, Texas called the Petra Nova Project, and that cost 1 billion for the carbon capture equipment. And what did they do to provide the energy for the capture equipment for the coal plant? They built a gas plant to run the capture equipment for the coal plant. You have to imagine how ridiculous this is. They not only built a gas plant next door to the coal plant, then they have to build pipelines to pipe the gas.They have to mine the gas. There’s leaks of methane. They’re burning gas while they’re to produce electricity for the running, the capture equipment. None of that CO2 is captured by the way, just gets released to the air. None of the methane that is captured, none of the coal mining emissions are captured, including leaked methane, including the combustion emissions. You have all this pollution continuing and you have more pollution now because you’re burning gas now and mining the gas, and you have the CO2 that’s being emitted, and plus the methane equivalent of CO2 that’s being emitted is right there virtually the same as the CO2 that’s captured. You’re really doing nothing. In fact, some people say, well, why not just use wind or solar to run the capture equivalent? Then you’re not emitting anything. Well fact you’re up or you are emitting because that’s the best case.Let’s say you use wind or solar, that means that the wind or solar cannot replace the coal plant. If you have wind or solar to run carbon capture equipment, why wouldn’t you use that wind and solar just to replace the coal plants in the first place? It turns out that you can eliminate more CO2 by using the exact same amount of wind or solar that would run the capture equipment just to replace a portion of the coal plant, and you’ll reduce more CO2. By not using that wind or solar to replace the coal plant, you’re actually then increasing CO2 because you’re using it for a lower carbon purpose. And plus, if you use wind or solar to replace the coal plant, you eliminate the air pollution from the coal plant. Whereas if you use carbon capture equipment, you just keep that air pollution from the coal plant. If you use wind and solar to replace the coal plant, you eliminate the mining of coal. If you use carbon capture, you maintain the mining of the coal.And then if you use wind and solar and eliminate the coal plant, wind and solar are now cheaper than coal. You reduce your cost. If you use carbon capture, you not only have to pay for the wind and solar on top of the coal plant, but you have to pay for the capture equipment. In this plant in Thompson, Texas, it costs 1 billion to add the gas plant and the carbon capture equipment to the coal plant. Who pays that $1 billion? Well, and by the way, this plant was shut after three years because there was so many. And all the CO2 that I was captured was sent for enhanced oil recovery, by the way. Who pays over three years that billion dollars? Well, it’s rate payers, and who pays the highest fraction of their income for electricity? It’s low income rate payers. It’s low income rate payers that are saddled with these huge bills for carbon capture equipment and the pipelines and the energy requirements for it. It’s just a complete ridiculous scam. I mean, it’s a scam that pretending as if they’re doing somethingJenny (15:38):Right. Yeah. I heard it’s justifying demand because you’re expanding and therefore you need this demand. It’s increasing mining. It’s not actually getting all the emissions. The other thing, I don’t know if you like this analogy, but I’ve been saying, you’re having people increase smoking and you’re just capturing the secondhand smoke. I think that’s a fair analogy. Yes.Mark (16:04):Yeah, that’s one way to put it. Yeah.Natural Gas is Worse than CoalJenny (16:07):And then to justify. If you could expand a little bit on the gas piece, because like I said, I’m a geophysicist and I feel like sometimes it’s easy to lose the plot in the lies that are spread around. For example, I remember talking about this natural gas transition. One of the things that’s talked a lot about in Canada is LNG is a clean energy, not clean, sorry, green energy solution. To me, when I think back on it now, as you were just describing, we have all of this leakage between, well, first of all, you have to actually drill the wells, and then you have a bunch of emissions that are associated with that. Then you have leakage from the wells themselves. You have leakage from the pipelines, you have leakage from the transport systems. And the only place where you’re actually potentially capturing emissions is from the stack itself at those facilities, correct?Mark (16:59):Yeah. Well, when you have gas or coal or oil, you’re mining and especially gas, which has mostly methane, it’s like 90% methane, and methane is like the third leading cause of global warming. But per unit mass, it’s actually on a 20 year timescale. It’s like over 80 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide. The average methane. It’s not only leaks, it’s forced emissions. I mean, the word leaks is kind of a misnomer. I mean, there are leaks, but they’re also gas companies will release methane intentionally or gas intentionally into the air, either through flaring or just releases to relieve pressure on the pipelines anyway, the average leakage rate across all types of gas mining is around three and a half percent, and it’s up some places up to nine, 10%. Other places it might be 2%, but it’s like on average it’s around three point half percent.(17:59):And that’s a lot of methane that’s coming out and never going to be captured. And you need, if you’re using gas, for example, to run capture equipment through by creating electricity or something, then you’re going to be mining more gas, and you’re going to have more leaks, and you’re not capturing that. That just goes into the equation of why this is useless. It’s not actually helping anything. And the CO2 that is captured, first of all, the industry claims, oh, they get 95% capture rates of the CO2, and that just has never occurred anywhere. In reality, the real life, in theory, with perfect conditions, you could get 95%, but all real projects across all capture types is the range is 10 to 80%. The capture rate, it’s because sometimes they capture equipment is off, sometimes it’s down. Sometimes they can’t move the CO2, they turn it, they don’t actually capture anything for a while.(18:57):And a lot of them, half of them are less than 50%. You have really low capture rates. First of all, not high capture rates, lots of huge amounts of leaks upstream that are never accounted for, big energy penalty to run the capture equipment. But again, in the best case, you’re using renewables. You don’t even have these mining. In the best case of using renewables, you are preventing the renewables from replacing a coal or gas plant. And by doing that, you actually then increase CO2. You’re always increasing CO2. Carbon capture always increases CO2, no matter what they’re capturing from the stack, because they’re pretending as if the energy they’re using couldn’t be used better for something else.(19:42):And it’s like when you just draw your boundaries very narrowly, you get one result that you then try to advertise, but that’s not actually what’s happening. In reality, what’s happening is now you can’t use that wind or solar to replace fossil fuel source. It’s the same thing with direct air capture. When you’re using clean renewable energy to power, direct air capture, you’re just creating a new demand for energy that would otherwise not be there. Now you’re just making more demand on the grid, and then now you can’t use that electricity, that renewable electricity to replace a fossil source. You have to now need some more. If you don’t have, because there’s limited amount of renewables available, you just have to start burning more fossil fuels to replace the renewables that you’re using for your capture equipment.The Primary Energy Fallacy: a 38% reduction in world energy demand.Jenny (20:26):Right? Yeah. Just quit smoking altogether. Right. I’m going to go back to you were talking about, it’s called the primary energy fallacy where people assume that we, it’s this, the amount of energy we’re using today is the equivalent of what we need in the future versus what if we switch to a renewable? Maybe if we can get into, let’s say we killed this. We think this should be abandoned technology, what should we be doing instead, Mark, what does the renewable transition look like? You’ve talked about a 38% decrease in world demand based on an renewable transition. I don’t know what that number means in the context of where we’re at in this conversation, but if you could just expand on how we would reduce energy demand if we were to move in another way, please.Mark (21:16):Yeah. Well, we developed plans for states and countries and provinces to transition to a hundred percent renewables across all energy sectors. The idea is simple. You electrify as much as you can and provide the electricity with wind, water, solar, which is really wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and the electrification process itself, you can eliminate about 38% of world energy demand because like an electric vehicle uses one fourth, the energy as a gasoline vehicle to go the same distance, but averaged overall energy sectors. That’s about a 20% reduction of demand. Electric heat pumps use 75% less energy than combustion heating and electric conduction cooktops use 60% less energy than gas to do the same thing. When you average across all energy sectors, that’s another 14% reduction of demand. If you electrify industry, that’s another 4% or so, you’re up to 38%. But then, well, actually it’s a little more than that then.(22:21):But then there’s another 11% of all energy worldwide is used just to mine transport and refined fossil fuels in uranium. And we don’t need to do that if we have wind and solar and geothermal hydro because those are renewable resources where the wind comes right to the turbine, solar comes right to the panel, water comes right to the reservoir, geothermal gets replenished by heat from deep in the earth. We can eliminate another 11% of energy worldwide, and then we can, on top of that, we can get end use energy efficiency improvements beyond business as usual for a few more percent. We can actually get a 54% or reduction of world power demand just by electrifying and providing the electricity with wind, water, and solar. That’s without people changing their habits.(23:09):The fuel under the fossil fuel paradigm where they use carbon capture, well, you don’t get any of that 54% reduction because you keep burning fuels, inefficient fuels. You keep using gasoline, you keep using gas heating for buildings, you still burn coal and oil for industry, and you still mine transport and refine fossil fuels and uranium. You barely get any change of your energy, but you then increase your energy needs because you need to run the capture equipment. You need 25% more energy than you did for electricity generation. Your energy demand in fact goes up. It doesn’t go down 54%, it actually goes up. Again, this is like the fossil fuel industry wants to trick you into thinking that they’re doing something useful when they’re just preventing you from doing something efficient, and this is really dangerous. And then you can really see the opportunity cost here, because then when you electrify provide the electricity with wind, water, and solar, you are eliminating the air pollution deaths from the fossil fuels.(24:21):And worldwide, they’re about seven and a half million premature deaths from air pollution, from fossil and bioenergy fuels. And we could eliminate like 90% of those deaths just by transitioning to clean renewable energy. And same thing with global warming agents. You can eliminate them just by electrifying providing the electricity with clean renewable energy, whereas you’re hardly reducing CO2 with carbon capture. When you compare those two scenarios, which we did in a paper recently, where you compare the scenarios of electrifying providing the electricity with wind, water, solar versus not electrifying, but just using carbon capture or direct air capture, what you find is the social cost is about nine to 12 times higher of going the carbon capture route than wind, water, and solar. A lot of that’s due to the air pollution, health cost. A lot of it’s due to the higher carbon emissions from carbon capture, direct air capture, and the rest is due to the higher energy costs from carbon capture, direct air capture. On the order of a factor of 10 higher costs, and that’s no matter how you slice it, you get factor of 10 higher costs. Yeah, if you want to keep paying higher social costs, dying more, having more damage to the climate, having more damage to your environment and paying higher bills, electricity, heat, everything, bills, yeah, go for that carbon capture, it’s just a scam. It’s a greenwashing scam that does nothing but raise costs for everybody.Jenny (25:59):Yes. Thank you. That was great. I heard, well, I mean, this is an increase of nine to 12 times magnitude of harm essentially to people versus something that would half the harm by more than half the harm that we’re experiencing in terms of our pocketbooks, but also in terms of the impact in air quality and land degradation and water stability, let’s say. The one thing I wanted you to expand on, if you don’t mind, is when people make the argument of, oh, well, but then you’re just mining a whole other industry to be able to justify this transition. That’s the argument in the industry is that there’s this whole mining aspect for renewables and for the electrical transport system, let’s say, which is just not attainable, et cetera. I’ve seen the numbers that this system uses 5% of the material usage that the fossil fuel system does. Can you elaborate on that point, please?Addressing the disinformation around renewable (vs. fossil fuel) miningMark (27:01):Yeah. Well, fossil fuels use orders of magnitude. I mean, you have to mine fossil fuels every day for eternity to keep using fossil fuels because in the case of wind, solar, et cetera, wind comes right to the turbine, solar comes right to the panel, you eliminate fuel binding altogether. Whereas the main mining from fossil fuels is fuel mining, which is done every single day, and it’s just orders of magnitude, larger mining for fuel. Now, when you have renewables, yeah, you have to do some mining one time at the beginning, like for lithium, for batteries, for example. But first of all, batteries, you put ‘em in a car once and that car is now they’re going 20, 25 years and then they get recycled. The lithium, you can recycle a hundred percent of the components up to a hundred percent, but say 97 to a hundred percent of the components in a lithium battery can be recycled, and they are being recycled now, and they will be more in the future.(27:58):That same lithium can be reused in 20 years, 25 years for another car or for stationary battery storage. And whereas meanwhile that if you’re going the fossil fuel route, you’d be mining gasoline every day for those 25 years plus the next 25 years plus the next 25 years. You have one time mining versus continuous mining. Basically over a hundred year period to drive, if you converted all the vehicles in the world to lithium-ion vehicles, this includes passenger vehicles and trucks and buses, you’re going to be mining 10,000 to a hundred thousand times less fueled over that a hundred year period versus for mining fossil fuels for fossil fuel vehicles. It’s, its like a speck that you couldn’t even see in a sea of dots of how small the mining is compared to the mining you need for fossil fuels. In the US we drill 50,000.(29:05):Well, actually in the Great plains of both the US and Canada, we drill 50,000 new oil and gas wells every year. In the US we have a million active oil and gas wells and 4 million abandoned ones. And the fossil fuel industry occupies about almost 1.2% of all US land. The ethanol industry for corn is another 1.24% of land. We’re close to 2.4% of US land is used just for energy with fossil fuels and ethanol. If you electrify everything, provide the electricity from clean renewable sources, we’d need on the order of 1% of us land. We’d reduce land use if we go to the wind water, solar route versus keeping with fossil fuels. And you have to keep growing that fossil fuel land every year because you need more fossil fuels. A lot of that’s land is not only for the mines, but for the pipelines.(29:58):There’s millions of miles of pipelines crossing the US for fossil fuels and hundreds of thousands of gas stations. You need to keep growing the land needed for fossil fuels, whereas with renewables, there’s a little bit of growth, but it’s much slower because it’s really one time mining and one time infrastructure, and then it slowly grows as population increases. It’s not a comparison. There’s just in terms of health benefits, in terms of climate benefits, in terms of cost benefits, in terms of reduced land use, and also in terms of jobs worldwide, we estimate over 25 million more full-time jobs produced versus lost when we go wind water, solar versus a fossil fuel economy.Jenny (30:45):That was fantastic, Mark. Yeah, thank you. It’s so fascinating. Again, these stories all seem to weave together in terms of it is a lie to say that we need this carbon capture and storage, let’s say, to justify additional production. And you think of all the reduction in all of these areas. Like you said, I’m picturing all of these ships going across the oceans daily to provide this constant source of fuel versus you do a delivery of solar panels and wind turbines, and your ongoing shipping system is, I’ve heard that the global supply chain system is changing rapidly right now because of this massive demand shift in material movement. Can you speak to that at all, or are you familiar withMark (31:47):I can’t really say much about it. I haven’t looked into that issue too much.What does renewable deployment look like?Jenny (31:51):Okay. If you wouldn’t mind just expanding a little bit on what does a renewable deployment look like? You mentioned you’ve been in countries and cities, and can you speak to, I’m in Calgary, Alberta where there is, I would say we’re, I don’t know what we are right now. I want to say we’re 80% fossil fuel dependent or something like that in our electrical system. I think maybe it’s not as bad as that anymore. I’m not sure. But what does a transition look like just in terms of renewable deployment? How do you go about doing that work forMark (32:27):Jurisdiction? Well, in Canada it’s pretty easy because you have so much land and so much resource. In the south of Canada, there’s a bunch of solar, especially in the summer. In fact, there’s a community, Drake’s Landing that for a couple decades. There are homes where there’s solar collectors on the garages of homes that would take heat from the sun store it underground and soil for up to six months. You have long summer days and you can store that solar heat for up to six months and then use that heat to provide a hundred percent of home heating in the winter. That’s a district heating system. You can use sun, not only for heat, but also electricity generation as well. But there’s, there’s solar in the south, there’s wind pretty much everywhere, but the selected places, there’s hydro in a lot of places in Canada. There’s enhanced geothermal everywhere, which is a new commercial technology where you can just dig down into the earth. If you dig deep enough, you get high enough temperatures to heat the heat water that then provides electricity because you can use a turbine to generate electricity with high enough temperature, heat when you evaporate a fluid. And so now you can do that anywhere. You’ve got hydro, you’ve got geothermal, you’ve got wind, you’ve got solar, and it’s combine that with battery storage for electricity. You already have hydro storage and a lot of hydroelectric dams.(33:59):Then there’s heat storage and there’s cold storage, but you require electrification of buildings, electrification of transportation, electrification of industry. That’s what it looks like. Electrifying, going to electric vehicles, going to electric homes, going to electric industry, providing the electricity from clean renewable sources, which there’s plenty of in Canada, we’ve done a plan for Canada and actually several plans for Canada, and they all are, it’s one of the easiest countries to transition from a technical and economic point of view.Key Takeaways: Reclamation and Renewable DeploymentJenny (34:30):Fascinating. Yeah, I was thinking about all of these oil and gas sites that are powered by a solar and battery system today, and thinking about how those could be redeployed, like you’re saying, those are generally mobile sites as well. Anyway, I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of very easy things that could happen. In fact, I’m almost convinced that we have all the solar and battery technology we need, if not more, where I live, if we just looked to it and deployed it properly. Thank you so much for that. I’d like to, if you don’t mind, just explore a little bit with you because of my experience and site cleanup enclosure, when you’re talking about landmass, for example, you talked about how if we just reduced, went away from both fossil fuel and ethanol types of energy use towards renewables, let’s say a third of the land would be used.(35:25):And I look at that as an opportunity to potentially use some of these contaminated lands as another potential deployment of solar and then be able to keep, because they would be tied into the electrical system already. I guess what I’m saying is I see an opportunity to be doing renewable deployment in marriage with site cleanup en closure, and I look at, as somebody, as an industry professional would love to see, instead of drilling a well, we are abandoning wells. Instead of putting in a new pipeline, we’re removing a pipeline. Instead of deploying new facilities, we’re removing them and et cetera, et cetera. Instead of mapping reservoirs, we’d be mapping contamination plumes. These are the types of activities I see in terms of jobs. When you talk about jobs and those opportunities and that, what if any work or thoughts do you have in that space, Mark, about trying to marry those two activities together in terms of reducing the footprint from fossil fuels while deploying renewables?Mark (36:29):Yeah, there’s a lot of places that we can put renewables that don’t take up new useful land. Aside from just putting solar on rooftops, but you don’t need new land or putting solar on agricultural fields where you can combine agriculture and solar in what’s called agrovoltaics, where you space the solar out. You can put wind and solar on degraded land. Contaminated land, and you can reduce even the land use of wind and solar by putting solar, combining it with wind at the same place. There’s wind. You don’t take any land on the ground with wind. They’re just a pole in the ground. But you do have what’s called spacing area, and people equate spacing area while you’re just occupying all that land where you’re not, you’re actually allowing farmers to grow their crops underneath, or you’re still open space or grazing land or ranch land, or if you’re offshore, there’s no land at all. But you could combine solar and wind and battery storage at the same location. And then when you do that, you provide more stable power because wind and solar are complimentary in nature. When the wind’s not blowing, the sun is off and shining during the day and vice versa.(37:41):And by combining the two, you actually get smoother overall output, especially if you add batteries, then you can smoothen the output even more. Yeah, there’s a lot of opportunities in taking these degraded fossil fuel lands and turning them into renewable energy fields. And you can even add geothermal in there too, because that doesn’t take that much land either, especially if they want to keep drilling, just drill for geothermal, and that’s a better drilling.Jenny (38:10):It is, yeah. But I’ve seen that industry a little bit. I think there’s some potential in the regulations that would help make that industry more attractive. I think if anything, there’s been some handcuffing happening between that deployment versus drilling for new fossil fuels and also for renewables. Our province did a whole, what’s interesting to be considered almost like a removal of landowners rights when it comes to renewable deployment versus where they’re forced to receive fossil fuel development on their lands. They can’t pursue a renewables. It’s pretty remarkable despite the handcuffs that this technology is finally making its way that technology, I mean, solar, wind, and batteries and renewable, other renewable sources. Thank you so much for all of this, mark. This has been tremendous. Is there anything in this conversation that you’d like to add? I’m just going to close with that. Thank you for reminding folks why carbon capture and storage is not a legitimate solution. It actually increases emissions. It doesn’t address the primary problem, which is methane emissions, and it is justifying a growing energy demand world in a situation where there is an opportunity to half it and also provide some social and environmental justice along the way. Anything else you’d like to add that I missed in this?Mark (39:43):No, I just suggest we keep our eye on the ball and focus on what works and not ignore these greenwashing planes about carbon capture, direct air capture, also blue hydrogen electro fuels. These are all constructs of the fossil fuel industry. We just want to focus on clean, renewable energy, electrification. That’s what works. We don’t have much time. Let’s just do that and we will get solved these problems together.Jenny (40:09):Yeah. Thank you so much. It’s because of people like you that I’m aware and working on this with you. Thank you for spending some time with me this afternoon, mark.Mark (40:17):Yeah, happy to.Jenny (40:19):Thank you. Take care for now.Mark (40:20):Thanks. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

The Water in Southern Alberta podcast miniseries covers topics such as irrigation, resource extraction, water security, and climate change, featuring experts like Dr. Brad Stelfox and Dr. David Swann. The series seeks feedback to provide summaries and recommendations for legislative change.This episode features Cheryl Bradley, Judy Stewart, and David Barrett who bring diverse expertise in environmental management, law, and aquatic health. Cheryl Bradley has been involved in water management planning in southern Alberta for decades, focusing on river conservation. Judy Stewart, a retired lawyer and poet, emphasizes the importance of water management in municipal planning. David Barrett, a researcher at the University of Calgary, studies aquatic ecosystems and advocates for water protection.The podcast discusses complex water management issues, including the impact of irrigation on river health, the role of municipalities in land use planning, and the need for comprehensive data collection to monitor water quality and flow. Concerns are raised about recent amendments to the Water Act, which may increase director discretion and affect water conservation efforts.Introductions to Cheryl Bradley and Dr. Judy Stewart, and a Re-introduction of David BarrettWelcome to The Gravity Well Podcast with me, Jenny Yeremiy. I host the gravity well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty 7 and Metis districts 5 and 6. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples who are created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature, and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide the Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants either individually or collectively do not necessarily represent those of the gravity well. This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see and hear, remember to like and subscribe.Good afternoon, Bob. How are you today?Bob:Pretty good. And you, Jenny?Jenny:I’m well, thank you. Yes, I’m excited. This just keeps getting better. We’ve been through the first half of this In May, we did seven episodes. We spoke about irrigation, the history of irrigation, resource extraction, the water act and licence transfer system, water modelling, watershed and lake stewardship, dry land, irrigated, ranch, land, farming and insurance. And then we returned just this month to talk with Dr. Brad Stel Fox. We spoke about land use limits, Dr. David Soin. We discussed coping with climate change. Yesterday we met with David Swan and Jason Unger to talk about water security. Encourage everyone to listen to each of those podcasts. We are looking for feedback and input for all that we want to do with this work. At the end of the day, we want to provide a summary, a written summary, and some recommendations to people that are focused in these areas and have the power to potentially make enact change in legislation. Was that a good summary of what we’re up to, Bob?Bob:That’s great, Jenny.Jenny:Wonderful. Okay. Just a reminder to everyone, please like and subscribe to The Gravity Well so that the time and effort that people put into this is worthwhile. It does matter you paying intention and engaging and sharing this with your community. Thank you for that. Alright, let’s get going here today. I am super excited to invite first off, Cheryl Bradley to the stage. Thank you so much for being with us, Cheryl.Cheryl:Thank you very much for having me. Jenny and Bob, this is a very important topic in southern Alberta.Jenny:Thank you. Cheryl has represented environmental interest in numerous water and watershed management planning processes in southern Alberta for four decades. She has also engaged in regulatory processes regarding water allocation decisions. She began her career as a professional biologist studying cottonwood forests along the rivers in southern Alberta, and has facilitated the development and strategy for their conservation. Cheryl lives in Lethbridge now, and I’m proud to say I had your husband on the show last year to speak about water and restoration in Alberta. It’s just such a pleasure to meet you both and to have the opportunity to speak with you. Thank you for being here.Cheryl:Thank you.Jenny:Can you offer a little bit more of your background? What brought you into this work before we bring the others through?Cheryl:It’s a love of rivers. I love to paddle rivers and I have paddled a lot of rivers in southern Alberta and I enjoy healthy wild places. I really spend a fair bit of time in the eastern slopes, which is the headwaters, which is where 80% of the flow in our rivers comes from. And I just love to think about the connections of rivers flows and the life that’s in them and along them because they’re intimately connected and I enjoy trying to understand that.Jenny:Wonderful, wonderful. Okay, I’m going to go ahead and bring on our next guest. We welcome Dr. Judy Stewart to the stage now. Thank you for being here, Judy. I’m just going to switch the settings here. We’ve got Whoops. No, I want to do this one. That’s what it was. Excellent. I’ll bring myself here. Okay. Thank you Judy for being here. Judy was a research fellow at the Canadian Institute of Resource Law and is now the chair of the Policy and Legislative Committee for the Bow River Basin Watershed Council. She’s a retired lawyer and is now a poet and lives in Cochrane. Welcome to the studio. Judy, would you please elaborate a little bit on what brought you into this work for us, please?Judy:I guess I spent most of my life as a child in water. I’ve been immersed in water my entire life. As you say, I live in Cochrane and the beautiful bow river flows by who could not want to be involved in water management activities. I’ve been very, very blessed my entire life with having connections to water and the watersheds that I live in. And I see this as an opportunity to give back something of the way I’ve lived my entire life to society and especially to my community. It’s something I live with every day and I enjoy. I am not a paddler, I’m not a swimmer, but I certainly spent a lot of time in water getting thrown in there and playing in it. We didn’t have lakes where I grew up. What we had was some rivers and creeks and ponds, dump ponds and woodlands and swamps. I grew up in Quebec where there’s lots of swamps, and it’s a different immersion than what Cheryl’s talking about. I guess that’s what you could say. I’ve had to defend water bodies my entire career as a lawyer. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find mechanisms and legal platforms to protect the water bodies in my community and elsewhere. I think that’s a launching pad for everything else I have to say today.Jenny:Incredible. I’ve had the opportunity to see you, Judy, at work in the Bow River Basin Council meeting. You held a meeting, I believe it was in May of last year when we were very concerned about water shortages and it was very well run. It was probably one of the best meetings I’ve been to in that. Thank you for everybody who keeps in this work as you retire so vital for the knowledge to be ongoing, and I appreciate you learning as we go. Thank you so much. Okay, lastly, I’m happy to welcome David Barrett to the stage. Thank you so much for being here, David. David actually participated, this is a return of David to the stage here. He participated in the series I did with the Calgary Environmental Roundtable for the municipal election. Unfortunately, David did not get into a position, but obviously he’s doing very important work at the U of C, I’m really excited to talk about that.David is a researcher who’s focused on the aquatic health. He manages the aquatic ecology lab where they undertake a wide range of research, including looking at the impacts of municipal wastewater on the Basil food web of the Beau River. And he has a number of different projects. He’s done a number of different projects, excuse me, in the Athabasca oil sands region and other cold lake aquatic research. I’m sure you and I need to go for lunch and talk about that. But instead, can you please elaborate a little more on what brought you into this work, David, and yeah, just anything else you’d like to add.David:Absolutely. Yeah, similar to Judy and Cheryl, I’ve long been immersed or around water. I’ve worked in rivers, lakes, ponds, wetlands, the whole gamut. I’ve been really privileged that I’ve had the opportunity to work in the Arctic in southern Alberta, in BC, all around. And it’s just so important. Water is life and if we do not protect that, if we are not advocating for water, there’s so many just different knock on effects that happen after that. I’m really excited. I said to you, Jenny, I think my expertise is dwarfed by that of Judy and Cheryl. I am excited to also be taking in a lot. I’ve also been involved with the Bow River Basin Council on state of the watershed reporting and a few other things. I’m also deeply immersed in this world.Jenny:Wonderful. Yes, I love how humble everybody is in this work too. It’s impressive. Okay, I’m going to let Bob take over here. Bob, you can lead us off with our first questions, please.What are the water conservation objectives?Bob (00:10:01):Okay. Let me get down to a basic acronym problem. Cheryl, can you tell me the difference between WCO’s, IF’s, all the other acronyms that are out there that people use to deal with the aquatic and riparian environment?Cheryl:Well, I’ll try. I wouldn’t get caught up on the acronyms, but we do use them in water management in Alberta. The first attempt we had to keep flows in the rivers to make sure we kept rivers flowing was to define what are called instream objectives. And they were a guideline for operators of dams and diversions in the 1950s, sixties, seventies when there was a lot of dam construction on rivers going on in Alberta. Those instream objectives, we call them iOS as an acronym, are minimum flows that need to be released through a dam to either allow for assimilation of wastewater past municipal communities. And in two instances, they were defined to be what we call the 80% fish rule curve that protects habitat for fish. It’s a minimal protection so that fish don’t die in rivers. And those instream objectives apply on the old man river below the old man dam and on the Bow River from above Bassano Reservoir where we have prime trout fisheries.They are the minimum that you need to be able to assimilate waste and in some situations keep fish alive. Those are instream objectives. Instream flow needs were something that we started to evaluate and use in the early two thousands as we were developing as those Saskatchewan River Basin and water Management plan. And they’re an integrated aquatic ecosystem need. They consider that what you need to maintain the river channel, which is a variety of flows. You have need to have flood flows and then you don’t want to dry out the channel completely. They considered water quality. What aspects of the flows would address diluting pollution and keeping the river of a good quality? They look at it riparian vegetation. When I say riparian, that’s the plants that grow along the river in the green zone. They roots benefit from being able to get water that the river provides.And they also looked at fish habitat. That’s the instream flow need. And what was determined by a group of very competent scientists who were experts in channel maintenance, fish habitat, water quality, and riparian vegetation, they determined that the rivers should have about 80 to 85% of their natural flow throughout the year. When there’s high flow, you get 80%. When it’s a low flow, you have 80%, but also we sometimes need to make the minimum flow or that low flow higher then the 80% because of the pollution that we’re putting into the river. These are the ideal flows that we would be managing to keep in the river. The water conservation objective is defined in the water act, which was revised in the 2000 and it’s a compromise. The water conservation objectives are developed through multi-stakeholder consultation as part of a river basin water management planning process.And they’re a combination of what ecologically science-based instream flow needs are and what society demands for our uses of water. For example, in the Saskatchewan River Basin water management plan, water conservation objectives were defined as 45% of natural flow. They’re better than instream objectives, but they’re well below instream flow needs. But it was determined that that was what we could reasonably try to achieve given how much water we had extracted from the river. There’s no guarantee that the river will stay healthy with the water conservation objective, but it would be a great improvement over managing our rivers as instream objectives. The Saskatchewan River Basin and Water Management Plan sets water conservation objectives as something we should aspire to achieve in the future. Does that answer your question, Bob?Bob:That’s an excellent description of some fairly complicated acronyms and a complicated process that’s very helpful. Now, I don’t know if I should give this one to Cheryl or Judy because it’s a legal question, but it’s also an environmental question. The WCO have something to do with the transfer system that’s out there where people can buy water rights. How does that work with the water conservation objectives?Jenny:Are you able to speak to that, Judy?Judy:I can tell you water conservation objectives are considered when the government does a water transfer approval. Certainly they look at the applications with a fine tooth cone, make sure that the water conservation objectives is one of the matters and factors that have to be considered. I’m not sure if the water conservation objective is always a adhere to or followed, and I’m not sure if the monitoring and reporting on water conservation objectives, whether they’ve been able to achieve them once the licence has been issued. I’m not sure how that falls through. But often the water conservation objective becomes a condition that is in the transfer agreement and it’s also a condition that you see in every single licence, granted under the director everywhere across the province. Whatever that water conservation objective is becomes a condition of approval. But I’ll let Cheryl correct me on anything I’ve said here that’s out of line.Cheryl:Well, I think you’ve represented it accurately. Judy Water, the only tool that we were given in the South Saskatchewan River basin and water management plan to restore flows to rivers was what we called conservation holdbacksOn when licences were transferred. Every time there’s a transfer, the director can take 10% of the volume transferred and put it under a water conservation objective licence that should stay in the river. Now that’s the only tool that we have. And that tool has not been effective. It’s way less than 1% of mean annual flow has been restored to the rivers based on taking holdbacks on transfers to meet a water conservation objective. And I should say that water conservation objectives were not a condition on licences that were held before. The water management plan was approved in 2006, and when the plan was approved, the basin was closed to any new licences. Essentially all the licences in the South Saskatchewan River Basin do not have to meet the water conservation objective.Bob:In terms of that 10%, it seems like they haven’t been doing a very good job of even taking that 10%. I know that in the old man on average, it’s about 5% that they’ve taken out of those transfers. Despite the fact, if I’m correct, Judy, the current act says that you take the 10% unless there’s some compelling need for not taking it, that basically the 10% is the default setting. And it seems like they’re finding lots of exceptions to that.Judy:You’re right about that, Bob. The government hasn’t always taken into the 10% and there is no requirement to take it. It’s something that’s negotiated these days. And what Cheryl was explaining is very, very important because the licences that were issued years and years ago, for example, to the irrigation districts, didn’t have this wonderful WCO that we negotiated during our consultations over the closure of the basin and the creation South Saskatchewan Management Fund. But what is important to bring out is that when water is transferred, the transferee then has a WCO imposed on the transfer. The transfer might have conditions that are quite a little bit different than what the original recent show. It’s very complex. The director has to go through all of these negotiations and through the public process dealing with the transfer upstream or downstream and the use of the water that’s going to be made. And I think quite frankly, Bob, the transfer system and all the permutations and the contribution holdbacks and whether they’re effective or not, that is subject matter for a completely different discussion because it is complex and you almost need a director to help us understand how these approvals are given. And one of the things I did,Bob:Judy, Judy, Judy, we had a previous podcast on the transfer system with a person who deals with transfers as well as Arlene Kwasniak. I was trying to get at this issue of the compelling need for not taking the 10%. And David, I gather that you’ve been working to a certain extent on these water amendments and they aren’t going to change that criteria, aren’t they?David:I was just going to flag that actually in April of this year, they removed the requirement on most of the water licences for that holdback. It’s now unclear what decisions are leading to any back being imposed the amendments, the Water Act amendments, and I would defer to Judy and legal experts, but from what I understand are giving a lot more ability for the director’s discretion, essentially amendments as opposed to saying you shall or environmental protected areas shall do this. A lot more of that discretion is being moved to the administration side of government for better or for worse. But I did just want to flag to that 10% holdback on most transfers is actually being removed as of April. And there is, as Judy was saying, general mentioned too, the efficiency or effectiveness I should say, of those holdbacks as a whole different kettle of fish. If you’re holding back 10% on a tiny water licence, can you even measure that? Volume is a big question, but again, that’s perhaps a different discussion. Okay.Bob:Jenny, I think this leads to a question about the rights of Rivers.What are the data gaps in water quality and quantity monitoring and objectivesJenny (00:24:26):Wonderful. Yes, let’s get into that. Actually, I wonder, I’m going to let David potentially lead off this question and then I’ll get to Judy, but my thoughts are around, can we talk about data gaps or some of the gaps that we know about with respect to the legal system so that we can then talk about what are some ways that we can apply some new types of legislation?David:Sure. Again, this is a broad thing that I’ll try to touch on in a number of factors. First and foremost, I do want to emphasize that predominantly our water management system is very western science based. It’s very much this value, this water quality parameter needs to not cross this threshold. There are, I should say, development of both aboriginal flow needs that are actually part of the legislation up in the Peace— Athabasca area or the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, I believe has aboriginal base flow or extreme flow requirements. It’s entering into the conversation, but again, most of our discussions about what data we need to collect are really, really heavily based in western science methods. That’s a gap. I think initially we do need to be working with partners, communities, indigenous communities that have different forms of data that can be used in this decision making process in the South Saskatchewan. There’s some areas that are really strong. I am based here in Mohkinstsis, in the City of Calgary. The City of Calgary does have a very extensive watershed monitoring team, and I actually, I always sing their praises. They’re doing work well beyond the City of Calgary as far as again, western data science collection. They do some excellent work on that front. Still isolated though, right? It’s still very concentrated in and predominantly upstream of Calgary.We haven’t done a lot, the province, I should say, hasn’t done a lot on say that riparian area, and Cheryl can talk way more about that than I could. But as far as say macrophytes, the plants growing at the edge of the river, mapping, understanding how those are shifting over the years, how they’re impacted by flow, that kind of thing has been done very sporadically, I guess is the best way to put it. It’s often relying on outside partners to conduct it, right? Whether that be academics, whether that be community organizations, water stewardship groups, Alberta somewhat uniquely, really heavily relies on a lot of these watershed stewardship groups to complete some other, to fill in the gaps I guess on a lot of this, which provides some really interesting opportunities for that community input, but also can lead to some challenges with consistency. I’ll stop there, Jenny, unless you have specific other points and I’ll let the others jump in and add more.Jenny:Yeah, I was wondering about the data quality issue and Cheryl, I can potentially flip this to you, but again, I’m peripherally a part of the Bow River Basin Watershed Council, one of the committees, which is the coordinating committee. I get to hear what everybody’s doing in the southern part of Alberta. And one of the comments was around we don’t really have good well monitoring data for quality extensively. In fact, there are several gaps. I wonder, Cheryl, can you speak about, I hope you said water quality was one of the things you did want to talk about. If I’ve mistaken it, let me know.Cheryl:Yeah, water quality isn’t my forte, but I do know the opposite. I do know that you need sufficient flow in a river to keep it alive.My focus over much of my involvement in water management planning has been understanding that and helping with others understand that we cannot separate the water from the living system, but we do it all the time. We look at water as a resource that we can pull out of a river or withdraw from a lake and use it and put it to our use without understanding how that’s impacting the river. One of the fundamental measures of health of the aquatic ecosystem, including the riparian ecosystem is the flow. We do do constant flow monitoring from a couple of dozen flow monitoring stations in the South Saskatchewan River Basin. We do keep that data. The problem is that when are shrinking the rivers and we’re measuring their demise, we know that we’ve down in medicine hat which is below the confluence of the bow and the old man, the summer flow, the mean summer flow is now 30% less than it was when we started keeping flow records in the early 19 hundreds. And in Lethbridge along the Old Man River, we’re closer to 40%, 50% less flow during the primary irrigation season than would’ve happened naturally. And I guess that’s another point I want to make is that we record flows, which are the actual flows in the rivers, and from that information we calculate what the natural flow would be if we didn’t have all these dams and diversions. That’s a very important distinction for us to understand too. And like our apportionment agreements with Saskatchewan require, we pass 50% of natural flow,We have to calculate what the natural flow would be in order to understand if we are meeting our apportionment agreements. I am probably deviating a bit from your question, but with respect to water quality monitoring, I have talked to individuals, and David probably knows this better. In our rivers there are long-term water quality monitoring stations, but they just grab a value maybe once or twice a month.And some you can by just once or twice a month, you’re going to miss big events or something that’s released into the rivers that shouldn’t be released. I’ve been puzzled that we don’t have of water quality, at least total dissolved, solid monitoring on a continual basis as we do monitor the flows. I mean we could set those up together and the amount of sediment you have in a river tells you a lot about the water quality. There are a lot of gaps, Jenny. It’s very hard for us to get a handle on trends in water quality in the rivers of the South Saskatchewan reasons.Legalizing Rights of NatureJenny (00:33:07):Yeah, this is a prevalent issue that happens in all areas it seems where we are doing monitoring. I hear the word monitoring and I think monitoring is not mitigating. I keep hearing that in my head. We’re doing this monitoring, we’re doing this measuring, we’ve got gaps in the data and then there’s no objectives that are actually getting us back on track. Like this 10% number. You guys didn’t even actually say what it means. What does it translate to in terms of restoring that and considering we’re seeing a loss in these river volumes over time, it’s not enough. We’re not doing enough to keep the instream flow objectives needs, excuse me, in place. Okay. Judy, with all of that background, can you speak to some of the legal ways that places have added rights of nature into law so that there is an opportunity to make sure that we are actually meeting objectives in this way and some of the ways that the approaches that people are using? Thank you.Judy:Okay. This is very complex. As you know, land use is primarily done through land use. Planning and management is done through the municipal governments unless it’s public land or federal land. Municipalities are tasked with managing the land but not having very much of a say on how water is meshed. The water runs through and is part of the landscape in every single municipality in Alberta. And yet very little is actually done by municipalities to make sure that the watershed and the water features water bodies are protected during land use planning. But municipalities can actually do a lot. If you go back to the framework for water management planning that was put out in 2000, there is a strategy for protecting the aquatic environment that was written right into that document. And it’s available saying what kind of data that needs to be collected and updated and kept current and reported upon.That includes quantity quality, it includes looking at the fish and the health of the fish. It’s the vegetation, all of the structure of the river, how it’s being affected by erosion, sedimentation, all of those things are part of aquatic health management. And yet municipalities are not charged with having to look at any of that. And most municipalities, except for City of Calgary or city of Lethbridge that have a lot of money, can’t afford to have an environmental manager on staff. They have to hire consultants who cost so much money. Often they just rely on reports that come in from the consultants who are part of the development industry. There’s so much data that’s missing for every single parcel of land that’s developed in this province if it’s on private land. There’s all this complicated discussion about how we manage the land, but it doesn’t include maybe more than four sentences about how we manage the impact of land use on our water.We look at this system and say, what’s missing? What’s missing is the understanding of the connections and how critical it is for people to understand that everything we do on the land impacts the water, everything, everything we do, including walking trails, including how we flatten the landscapes, you’re stripping and grading and compact the land and then allow all this water to flow off these impervious surfaces into our water bodies unimpeded in many cases without any other infrastructure to sustain it. What can we do? That’s your question. But what we can do is we can look at our planning documents, and I have the perfect one here and I’m going to bring it up because it was so critical. I don’t know if you can see it, but it’s Alberta Land Use Framework and it was probably the most important public consultation that was ever done in this province.And it was done extremely well. And out of the land use framework came our regional land use plans that asked us as citizens and as communities to consider that we should start doing land use from a regional perspective. And they gave us the watersheds as the location for us to focus our ideas. And everything has been working quite well until you look at how municipalities are required to implement aspects of the plant, the regional plans. And quite frankly, they’re not. They’re required, not required. They’re expected to do certain things, but even if they don’t do it, no one cares. There’s no penalty, there’s no accountability, there’s no monitoring or reporting required at the municipal scale. And yet that’s where all of our human activities are affecting the aquatic environment and drastically, I know in my own community, there is a drastic impact on the Bow River. Thank goodness it’s such a short stretch of the river because we have a very negative impact on our aquatic ecosystem here in my town.And I think what we can do for the positive thing is we can work with our municipal councils and teach them that they have the most important tool available of all. They have the land use bylaw and they have these statutory plans. The land use bylaw gives us an opportunity to create these overlays of policy on how we want the land to be used close to our water bodies, and that includes our wetlands, our streams and creeks. And if those overlay of policy are put in place, just that one little rule, we would see a major change in how our aquatic ecosystem is sustained or can be more resilient over time. I’ve taken up way too much time. I tend to wax eloquent, I’ll be quiet now. The Untapped Power of MunicipalitiesBob (00:39:35):Judy, Judy, you raised some very important issues that we’re trying to grapple with because in addition to the federal legislation, the Fisheries Act, the Navajo Waters Protection Act, the provincial legislation like the Water Act and the Environmental Enhancement Act, those things are all designed to help protect the river. But you’re making a very good point that land use is one of those key factors that also needs to be considered. Just a real quick question with a quick answer. I think in this case, the Water Act contains some provision for municipalities to manage the rivers within their jurisdiction. Am I reading that right? And does that actually have any significance?Judy:I wrote a paper on that exact topic. Section 60 of the Municipal Government Act (MGA) says very, very clearly that municipalities have direction, control and management of all the water bodies, which includes all the wetland streams, creeks, everything, drainage courses within the municipal boundaries. But the big writer here is that the beginning of that section 60 says subject to every other enactment. And an enactment is a federal or a provincial law or regulation. Look at all the federal provincial laws and regulations dealing with water, what’s left for municipalities to have direction, control and management of? Even things like boating, they don’t have regulation, regulatory authority to deal with. I encourage you to get my paper. It’s still relevant. I wrote it, it was published by the Alberta Law Society on that exact section 60 of the MGA and what it means, what I did in that paper, and this is probably too complex, but what I did in that paper was show that yes, municipalities could do something.They could look at all the tools that they have available to them to protect the water bodies through land use management. I did articulate very clearly in that paper how Section 60 could be translated and married to the planning provisions in part 17 of the MGA. That’s a short answer, but it’s not a simple question, Bob. None of these questions are simple. What we have to do is start looking at ecosystem management, start seeing ourselves on the landscape instead of looking, and I would say this, maybe this will be the last thing I’ll say on this program today, but if we see ourselves as an embodiment of the water that we’re born with water a certain amount, we’re all finitely, married to a finite water system, no more is being made, this is it. If we start seeing ourselves it’s integral, integrated right into the water management system and how absolutely critical it is that every drop counts, then we may start to get on the right path to managing how we use the land and how that impacts our water and how our cumulative population economic growth is having tremendous negative impacts on the very, very system that sustains our ability to survive as a species.That’s maybe more than you wanted, but this is where we have to land. We have to land as seen ourselves there and connected to all of this.The Challenges with Irrigation ExpansionBob (00:43:18):That’s very helpful. But speaking about land use, Cheryl, one of the major factors in water management, certainly in terms of water supply in the province and the southern part of the province is irrigation. And I gather there are moves afoot to actually expand irrigation even more than it currently is. How are they going to be doing that and what can we expect in terms of its impact on the river?Cheryl:Well, that’s a big question and I don’t have all the answers, Bob. I do know that irrigation agriculture has been a major economic generator in southern Alberta ever since the early 19 hundreds. And we have over that a hundred years allocated about 75% of, I guess it’s closer to 70% for the whole basin of water, average water, annual mean water to irrigation. That’s like almost three quarters of the water flowing in our rivers is irrigation. Districts are able to secure that water. Well, no, I’m confusing it a bit, sorry about that. But it’s like 70% of the water is allocated and of that 70%, 75% is allocated to irrigation districts. It’s closer to 90% in the old man river basin. In dry years, the districts are needing to take most of that allocation, which means that very little is left for the river. In wet years, irrigation districts don’t need as much, and so the river gets to flow more fully. The critical times are those dry years in terms of ensuring we have sufficient flow in our rivers to keep them alive.Now, as I said, irrigation agriculture has the majority of allocation and now they are doing these conservation efficiency and productivity measures to use less water for acre of crop cultivated. And I have argued in several processes, government is helping to fund for those improvements in efficiency. We should be taking some of the water that’s saved and assign it to the river to make sure the river stays alive. Well, I’ve been a voice in the wilderness, so to speak in these planning discussions. And because the way our legal structure is set up for water licences, irrigation districts can use whatever they save to intensify their use. They are intensifying use with their existing allocations. They’re growing more crop land, more crop with less water, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. Now they are proposing to build, there’s nine irrigation dams that are undergoing various levels of review in the province now in the South Saskatchewan River basement.And four, those are onstream dams like on the Red Deer, the Bow and the Belly River. There’s two proposed on the Bow River and five of them are off stream reservoirs so that the districts can store more of the water so they can use their full allocation. The implications of all of those projects proceeding is in terms of the health of our rivers is really mind boggling to me. And yet we are not taking what we would call a cumulative effects approach to understanding what all of that intensification of use and additional withdrawals will mean for not only river health, but for our economy in the future. Because we’ve got a growing population, we have different industries coming into our region, and if we’re stuck in this ratio of 75% allocation goes to irrigation districts and only 15% to municipalities, maybe 5% to industry, it’s far worse in the old man basin where 90% goes to irrigation districts and only 2% goes to municipal, uses 5% for industry. We get stuck. Our choices for our future are very limited based on how our current government is managing.Bob:The upshot of all this is that if there is going to be irrigation efficiency improvements, then basically the extra water that is saved is going to be going to irrigation. You’ve been trying to get them to put some some water in the river or put some more back in the river. You talked about withdrawals. What’s the prospect for the change in return flows because there are return flows coming back into the river from these irrigation districts. How will this irrigation expansion potentially affect return flows?Cheryl:Well, of course it’ll reduce them. And as far as I can understand, there’s no, most licences don’t have a designated return flow. And besides we don’t measure return flow very well at all. There’s no monitoring if a licence does have a return flow condition, whether it’s actually being met. I think the prevailing view is that the more water you can use from your licence to grow crop, the better it is for Albertans generally without any thought of the river, what it’s doing to the river. But yes, it’s going to harm our rivers. It’s a good question, Bob, if we are intensifying use of the current allocations, and I guess one point I want to make is that irrigation uses 80% of what it’s allocated, of what it withdraws because that’s taken up by crop or evaporated from soil and reservoirs or canals. They only return on average 20% of what they take out of the river municipalities return 80% of what we take out because it passes through us and through our wastewater system and goes back to the river. There’s much higher level of use with irrigation agriculture and which we need to be mindful of that when we’re trying to figure out what uses we can accommodate in the future.Bob:And David, this gets back to the whole thing that I think Cheryl raised, if I recall correctly, and my memory sometimes doesn’t last very long in terms of if you keep taking the water out of the river, if dilution is the solution to pollution, how are you going to be able to manage the water quality, particularly because you are getting contaminants coming in from irrigation districts, but you’re also getting contaminants coming from storm water, from municipalities in particular, from wastewater treatment plants. How are we going to manage that kind of thing in the future?David:And just before I answer that too, I just want to add one layer on what Cheryl was saying that the other aspect here is that irrigation districts are often senior licence holders, right? If we’re talking about the allocation is under ideal flows or whatever, but without going into the first in time, first in right discussion because done that, and I think there’s plenty of other discussions that have been had on that. The irrigation districts are quite senior in that as well. And I would also draw attention to the letter, the direction letter for the associate minister of water, which was put out in the fall here. And it is very specifically focused on dam structures, increased irrigation, increased economic return with an area mentioned of environment or flow needs being considered in there. I just wanted to add that on. Cheryl, you eloquently put everything there.I just wanted to add that extra piece of context there. And then Bob, with regards to your question, this is a challenge, right? And Judy, you were mentioning that the larger municipalities having the capacity, whether it’s funds, whether it’s staff to do appropriate monitoring, similarly, the larger municipalities are the ones that are going to have the capacity for wastewater treatment essentially, right? And high quality wastewater treatment. In the City of Calgary here, we have very high, we have tertiary, it’s very well-treated water. That’s not to say that there’s not contaminants being released with it, nutrients and pharmaceuticals and everything else. And Bob, to your point, if that water is getting withdrawn, we have less to dilute it, right? Those considerations are not aligned. As Judy was saying, there’s municipal responsibilities for certain pieces but not others. And the effluent, the output from those wastewater plants is measured at the end of pipe, right?It’s measured right before it goes into the Bow River without, broadly I’ll say the regulatory requirement does not consider necessarily the flow. It’s based on average flows, it’s based on other calculations, it’s end of pipe. You’re right, if we’re, no matter how well we’re treating the water, if we’re just adding more wastewater that we need to release and we are drawing down flows, there’s definitely going to be negative water quality impacts associated with that regardless of how you treat it. And that’s even just considering a city or municipality that has the ability and the capacity finances to do a really high quality treatment, not just the bare minimum. If you start looking at other municipalities and regional districts that might have, or counties that have less capacity to do it again, that effect could be amplified. Unfortunately, there’s a disconnect between those different regulations and requirements. Again, I think echoing what Judy and Cheryl have already said.Key Takeaways and Comments on Changes to the Water ActJenny (00:56:25):Wonderful. Wow. You guys have shared so much with us today. I think what I’m going to do is offer some of my takeaways from this conversation and perhaps we can in each of our opportunities to do the same, think about the changes, the amendments to the water act that are being proposed right now and offer your thoughts about what we should be doing instead. I’m just going to mention, like I said, I heard multi-stakeholder engagement having not more essential focus on indigenous science. That is quite simply ecological science. Let’s be clear. Both Judy said that, you said that David Cheryl said that having more of that focus of ecological stability being the central focus of each of these conversations, I love this thought about the municipalities being this major gap. This is clearly the problem. I’m going to use gravel as for instance, they are approved in principle by the municipalities and then approved by the government without any of that review of the cumulative impacts and those things that would otherwise prevent those projects from proceeding. I think closing that gap is massive. I am curious, David, can you just remind us who the associate minister of water is? Just quickly please.David:Yeah, that’s Grant Hunter, I believe, isn’t it? Yes.Jenny:Okay. Okay. Yeah. That’s fascinating that there is, as you were saying, more authority being granted, discretion being granted to the directors across the province. And as we heard from our conversation with Davin Macintosh, there is already a very big difference between various directors as to how they allocate licences and how they approve them and transfers, et cetera. Yeah, those are some of the main things I wanted to hit home. And then also just that we could have quality testing along with flow flow testing so that we have this marriage and this understanding of what’s happening together rather than the separation of each of these aspects, I’ll say. Those are my takeaways. David, you’re at the top of my screen, I’m going to flip you back in and let you offer some closing thoughts. First please. And then we’ll move down the row. Thank you.David:Yeah, absolutely. And Judy, I really liked what you were saying about seeing ourselves as part of the ecosystem. I think that’s critical. How we need to continue this conversation is with that as a central tenant, not us in the middle, but us as part of that ecosystem and impacting it. I’ll say one thing on the monitoring, Jenny, just because you just mentioned it, we have the ability to do, Cheryl, you stood on my soapbox for me about point sampling, which is fantastic because you capture one point in time if you take a grab sample, if you dip your water bottle in and take your sample at that point, you’re not seeing what happened 10 minutes ago a week ago. We can use, there’s continuous monitoring, but there’s also biological monitoring that we can use to see, right? If the biology is responding in a certain way that’s telling us, or if there’s certain body loading, if there’s contaminants accumulating in, piling up in the bugs in the fish that can tell us how things are being exposed or what they’ve been exposed to over a longer period of time, they integrate over time.That’s, again, this comes back to that cumulative effects that was also mentioned. And I guess my other soapbox is how we grow, and this was already mentioned, but how we grow in Southern Alberta is going to be critical to our water availability, security, quantity, quality, all of that we’ve seen historically because we’re not constrained by space. We’ve seen sprawl, we’ve seen encroachment into those riparian areas. Even just recently, the city of Calgary approved development right along close to the River bank, into a ecologically sensitive area that had heron rooks and all sorts of stuff. How we grow is a huge part of that. That’s again, one of the reasons I read in the municipal election was because that is often not, look how we grow impacts both the water, the return, the impact on the environment, on the river, but also our own consumption, right?As we add more and more distribution network, we’ve got more loss just because we’ve got pipes, right, that we’re piping it around on Bill seven, the Water Act amendments, I think it is quite concerning some of the wording changes, and again, Judy’s much more of an expert on the legal side than I am, but the folks that I’ve been talking to, there’s wording changes in there that a give a lot of discretion to directors without, it removes the discussion. Interbasin transfers for an example, used to have to go to the legislature to be discussed. Now it’s being removed into the ministerial office to be discussed, and there’s no requirement at that point in this water act for certain assessments or scientific rigour to be applied to those decisions. That’s a little bit concerning. I am interested, I was a little bit hopeful, I guess that there would’ve been more on the water reuse side so that we could more effectively use the water that we’ve already used, right? Whether that’s from water funds, whether that’s wastewater treated, wastewater use, that kind of thing. But unfortunately, there wasn’t. There’s a whole other kettle of fish that needs to be addressed with the Water Act amendments that I would encourage anybody involved in water to be looking at this and seeing, because this is going to chart the path for water management in the province for the foreseeable future. We have an opportunity right now.Jenny:Yeah, agreed. It’s definitely something to look at. Before I flip it to you, Judy, I did want to add too, there are a lot of places in the world that are removing dams, to hear that Alberta is looking to add dams to this, this is one of the things that’s really concerning to me. We’re still talking about managing rather than thinking about restoring and actually increasing water capacity. With that, Judy, may I ask you the same question? Some thoughts about the Water Act amendments and your concerns, and I know you’ve done a tremendous job in providing a bunch of people some recommendations as alternative language. In two minutes, just kidding, give us your lowdown of what the key things are that people need to look for and advocate against or for Oh, I’m sorry, I muted you. The dogs were barking. Sorry about that. Go ahead.Judy:My puppies might cooperate, so maybe we can keep my mic on. Anyway, the changes to the water act are very, very stressful to me, and I have nightmares because all of this water that we’re saying is now a new source or an alternate source of water is basically taking it out of the system. It’s not new water, it’s the same water. And if we don’t appreciate that the rain and the storm drainage and the return flows are already part of a water management system, they’re not new or alternate sources, then we’re in big trouble. The aquatic environment already is struggling even though the return flows are going back and we’re not taking the storm drainage and using it for something else. And we are minimizing how we use our rainwater. What’s going to happen to the aquatic environment if all of a sudden these water supplies our commercialized, let’s say that they’re commercialized to allow for further growth in communities and further economic growth, what’s going to happen to our aquatic ecosystem?And that’s the big question that we’ve asked government from so many different people and we don’t get any answers. The last thing I want to say on amendments to the Water Act, we haven’t heard about it publicly, but I’ve been hearing about privately and professionally, is this new trend to allow farmers to destroy seasonal wetlands without having to adhere to the Alberta wetland policy. This is just coming out that there’s been an interim directive telling directors that they don’t have to use the Alberta wetland policy so far, it’s just among some of the experts legal community that we’re struggling with this because if we allow this and we don’t ensure that the Alberta wetland policy is adhere to by everyone, we’re creating a double system. And we’re not respecting the fact that these wetlands are absolutely critical to sustaining the ecosystem and the aquatic environment that we’re used to having at our disposal for all of our different needs, whether it’s industry or just to live, whether it’s crop production, whatever it is, the wetlands are critical.We understand that in this province, and so much has been written about it, but yet with the stroke of a pen, perhaps that’s all going to change. We have to be very mindful, and I appreciate the opportunity to say this today, and I appreciate all of you for being as concerned as I am about the CU of effects of the regulatory change and how our lives are going to change as a result. Not just the water and not just the animals, and not just the riparian habitat, but also our lives, the very what makes us able to survive in this southern Alberta where water is scarce. That’s all going to change. I’m glad that we’re having these discussions, but I’d like us to just for one second, stop and think about the aquatic environment where you are right now, wherever you live and how you’re connected to it. And if each of us did that every day, paid homage to that, I think we would treat it a little bit better and help to protect it a little bit better as well.Jenny:Wonderful. Judy, thank you so much, Cheryl. Your turn please. Some closing thoughts.Cheryl:Well, when I came to Alberta in 1971, we viewed water as abundance. And in one generation we’ve gone from abundant water perceptions to shortage. And that’s alarming to me how quickly we have come to that. And I think like Judy and David, the health of our water in our wetlands or our rivers or groundwater reflects how well we’re living on the land. And I think right now we’re getting a failing grade based on the bits of information we, we don’t have the full picture because we don’t do enough monitoring and collection of data. And what keeps me awake at night is thinking about, as I mentioned before, our shrinking rivers and how early in my career I participated in water management planning with a great deal of optimism and belief that the system, we could all work together and make improvements. And over the last several years, I’ve become quite disheartened that we appear to have seeded water management planning to irrigation industry, which holds the lion’s share of the water allocation. And instead of proceeding with intents that we had put forward in the South Saskatchewan River basin and water management plan, including trying to achieve water conservation objective, we’ve given up on it and the changes to the water act affirm that for me, that were making it easier to intensify use. There’s nothing in there for the rivers. I just think as a population, southern Albertans need to be very mindful of the current direction our water allocation system is taking and who’s in charge. And I think I’ll just leave it at that.Jenny:Yeah, this came up in our conversation yesterday with David and Jason, is that the less engagement with the public is happening and more decision making is happening in the hands of the senior licence holders, as David alluded to earlier. And more and more where we should be now is the time to be spending time adding back into the system. And we’re still drawing, if not more, well, not if more than we should be. Okay. Letting Bob wrap up the final world for us, please.Bob:Okay. Well, first of all, thank you very much for giving us your valuable time. We really appreciate that. And I think Jenny has done a great job summarizing the issues that came out of that. And then I think you three have then expanded it considerably beyond what we actually talked about today. Certainly in terms of the community working together and not excluding certain points of view, the role of the government. And those are the kinds of things we’re actually going to be dealing with in our next podcast. Next week, I think, is it Friday.Bob:We’re going to be talking about the future of water? You’ve given us even more stuff to try to include in that hour and make some sense of it. The thing that has struck me the most from our conversation is the data gaps, or let’s just call them gaps because they aren’t just scientific gaps, they are legal gaps. They are decision-making gaps. And we hope that through these podcasts and the information we’ve gained, we may be able to provide some good advice thanks to your help in terms of how to close at least some of those gaps, whether they’re scientific, political, legal, whatever. Thank you very much and thank you to Jenny and I don’t do this enough because she’s the prime organizer behind this. I think up lots of questions, but we wouldn’t ever get to those questions unless Jenny had organized us. She’s a good mother to us.Jenny:Thank you. Thank you, Bob, so appreciative of you. These conversations wouldn’t have happened without him. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here, and yeah, it’s been a real honour. Thank you so much, ladies and David, thank you so much for coming back, especially last minute to join us here. Big pleasure. Okay. Yes, our next conversation is happening on Friday next week with Kennedy and Bruce, who’s also been a guest on this show. And we’re also looking to hopefully sit down with Bob Sanford at some point too. Really excited to have that conversation as well. Thank you very much, everyone. Have a great rest of your day. Take care for now.Cheryl:Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

This is episode 10 of a miniseries on Water in Southern Alberta with co-host Bob Morrison, discussing topics such as water security, irrigation history, resource extraction impacts, and climate change. Guests include Dr. David Swann, a retired medical doctor and former politician and founder of the Fish Creek Watershed Association (FCWA), who emphasizes the importance of water quality and quantity, and Jason Unger, executive director of the Environmental Law Centre, who discusses legal frameworks and environmental accountability. The conversation highlights challenges in water management, including the need for better monitoring, compliance, and public engagement to ensure sustainable water use and protect aquatic ecosystems. This conversation underscores the urgency of addressing water issues in the face of climate change and the importance of community involvement in water policy decisions.Reintroductions to Dr. David Swann and Jason UngerJenny (00:00:05):Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast with me Jenny Yeremiy. I host The Gravity Well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty 7 and Metis districts 5 and 6. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples are created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature, and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide The Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts and openness to different perspectives. And this is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants either individually or collectively do not necessarily represent those of The Gravity Well. This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see and hear, remember to like and subscribe.Hello Bob, how are you doing today?Bob:Pretty good. How are you, Jenny?Jenny:Good, thank you. We were always trying to get through so much. I forgot to just slow down and say hello. Yes, thank you so much. This has been a great start to the second half of the water, sorry, water in Southern Alberta’s miniseries. How do you think it’s going? Bob, are you pleased so far?Bob:We’ve learned even more than we didn’t know, and we’re starting to get down to the tough questions about water security. What about the aquatic environment and what does the future hold? I’m looking forward to thisJenny:Very much so. Yes, and we have some incredible people who’ve already participated and I’m super excited about hearing from the people we have today and ongoing super good turnout and great dialogue so far. We went through the history of irrigation, the impacts of resource extraction on water, the water act and licence transfer system, the water cycle and modelling watershed and lake stewardship, dry land, irrigated and ranch, land farming and the impacts of climate change on water with respect to insurance. That was the first half of the program. We then met with Brad Stelfox to speak about land use limits and Dr. Dave Sauchyn to discuss how we cope with Climate Change in Southern Alberta. I encourage everyone to listen to each of those and this one of course. I’m going to start with Dr. David Swann to welcome Dr. David Swann back to the studio. Hi David, how are you today?David:All good, thanks Jenny. Great to be with you.Jenny:Great. Firstly, Dr. David Swann is a friend and collaborator of, and Bob and me. David is a retired medical doctor who focused on preventative medicine and he became a politician. He was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and the leader of the opposition in Alberta legislature from December, 2008 until September, 2011. He returned as an interim leader of the Alberta Liberal Party on February 1st, 2015. That’s very specific and resigned, sorry, led the party through the 2015 provincial election and actually David is the last liberal elected official in the Alberta legislature, that’s something to think of. It’s very interesting. And he was also a guest on the show with Brad Stel Fox and Dr. Norm Campbell to discuss the harms of coal mining as well. Well, thank you so much for being here, David. Any other things you’d like to add in terms of your introduction today, please?David:Well, as a public health officer, I was certainly very concerned about water quality, water quantity in the context of this podcast, and part of our responsibility, of course was to monitor water quality as far as potable water was concerned and enforce regulations when we found any risks to the water supply that people were drinking. As a politician, I was involved in a number of issues as the environment critic in association with both air quality and water quality concerns around oil and gas activity and inter basin transfers for example, which I hope to say a few words about. And in the last five years, I kicked off a watershed stewardship group called the Fish Creek Watershed Association, in which we have really endeavored to get a clear handle on one of the tributaries of the Bow River outside of Calgary up to the Kananaskis Park, how significant they are in the terms of the question of water security. And I guess I want to ask at the outset, security for whom, because this government seems to prefer and prioritize water security for irrigation and commercial interests over the instream flow needs, and that’s a serious concern for those of us who recognize that the environment has only the advocates as citizens that decide to step up. The fish don’t speak, the biodiversity doesn’t speak, we have to recognize limits if we’re going to protect the instream flow needs and healthy biodiversity related to that.Jenny:Wonderfully said. David, thank you so much for being here. I’m really excited to get into this conversation with you, but before we do that, let’s make sure we re-welcome Jason Unger back to the stage. Thank you so much for joining us, Jason. Jason was also on the podcast in this miniseries. I poked him in September when I saw him in person and said, we’re going to be flagging you again, and here he is. I’m really pleased that you’re back with us Jason. Just a reminder that Jason is the executive director and general counsel of the Environmental Law Centre and Alberta based charity focused on legal education and environmental natural resource law reform. The ELC’s mission is to educate and champion for strong environmental law so that all Albertans can enjoy clean water, clean air, and a healthy environment. Jason worked in the private practice before this in both Edmonton and Calgary and he’s worked for Alberta’s Court of Queen Bench as well. Jason also sits on the Alberta Water Council, which is a multi-stakeholder organization that provides advice and input on provincial water policy. Very pleased to know that we didn’t quite catch that the first time we interviewed you, this is wonderful to have you. Jason, thank you so much for participating again.Jason:Thanks very much for having me. It’s a great and very timely, I guess water’s always timely but extra timely as there’s changes to the water laws and policy as ongoing issues that we see on the landscape and the water.Jenny:Yes, in so many ways it’s becoming more urgent. Both the discussion and the changes and the proposed ways of managing those changes are very urgent. They require urgent attention. Thank you so much for acknowledging that. And before we get into it, Jason, do you mind just giving a little bit of background like we offer David, just how you came into this work and a little bit about what you’re doing in these roles? Thank you.Jason:Sure. Yeah, I’ve been a lawyer for quite a while back to the early two thousands and since the beginning I’ve always had a very keen interest in environmental law and how we manage our natural resources and for the protection of the environment. It’s why I went into law school in the first place, and I’ve really focused on the long-term, looking at things around water loss specifically. It’s always been an interest of mine, everything from federal fisheries, law impact assessment, species at risk, all of which touch Alberta’s waterways as well as how we manage the natural resources on the landscape itself because they have direct implications for aquatic health, whether we’re talking about diversions in water quantity or the water quality. What we’re putting in the water from our wastewater streams, both industrial and municipal and otherwise, both from point sources and non-point sources.I’ve had a long history. I have been on part of the Water Council, which is a consensus-based decision-making organization that was struck as a result of the Water for Life strategy, which dates back a couple of decades now, which has the typical three pillars around social, economic and environmental outcomes. Although they’re phrased in a bit different manner, but I’ve been a long [time] advocate for accountability for environmental outcomes and that goes for water law as well as water policy, whether it’s around our wetlands or our rivers or our lakes. There’s a whole host of law and policy that applied to them and I’ve been active in that area for a long time, advocating for water laws that ensure accountability on the environmental outputs or outcomes that we all want to see.Jenny:Incredible. Thank you so much, Jason. This is great. This has just been a wonderful experience, I have to say, to meet all the people working in this space. Okay, we’re going to let Bob lead off the questions today. I’ll just offer some comments as we go. Thank you so much. Bob, take it away.What are we doing well and what are the areas of concern in terms of water security in Southern Alberta?Bob (00:10:15):In terms of water security, making sure that we actually do have and how much water and good quality water for everyone, not just in particular special interests. Where are we doing well in Southern Alberta and where are we facing some serious problems that we need to deal with? Jason, why don’t I start with you?Jason:It’s a great question and a huge question. I think it’s where are we doing well? I think the challenge is as we’ve evolved as a society, as we’ve evolved in terms of our infrastructure around irrigation and use, I think there’s a lot of different things that come into play there. The history is a big piece of it because as you may have talked about previously, we have a legal system where the rights of historic users of water have those embedded rights to divert that water. And as the climate changes, as water supplies change, the question becomes, well, how do we manage this system when there’s ongoing growth in the population of Alberta? There’s ongoing expectations of growth for the economy and how do we ensure that we’re not undermining the instream flow needs of our rivers and all the ecosystems that rely on them, whether that’s floodplains or fisheries or other things.How do we make sure that is considered in a system that’s really modelled around licensing diversions? The issue of security is really high. Obviously the licence holders want the security of the water supply to know that they can use that water, but at the same time when there’s a shortage of supply, the legal system is not really well set up for dealing with that. We have a long history of water law that drives us towards a situation of when there is shortages of supply, we have to look to government to really focus on protecting the environmental flows and what measures of accountability we have to reflect that security, the instream security I guess I’ll call it, or the security for those flows in water quality I think is one of the key issues and one of the key challenges we have now and into the future for sure. You asked what do I think we’re doing? Well, I think we’re getting there in terms of starting to look at how much we’re diverting, how much is returning, how much we’re actually using. I think we have a long way to go still there, but I think we have a huge way to go in terms of understanding what it means for the aquatic environment, what type of security, what does security look like for the fish and other organisms living in their aquatic ecosystems and on the landscape itself that’s fed by the water of course.Bob:Water supply has caught people’s attention, obviously, which is a good thing. But you mentioned the legal system, it’s based upon that principle of prior allocation or first in time, first in the older licence gets first grabs at the water, but when it comes down to a real shortage in Southern Alberta, at least generally they don’t use the first in time, first in they use some sort of a cooperative agreement. Is that really the way we’re headed? Is first in time first in just simply not workable or untenable?Jason:Well, I think that’s a good question. I think the challenge with first in time, first in in the time of shortage as we’ve seen illustrated is then you have to turn to non-legal or less certain avenues, right? Voluntary agreements between licence holders to share the water. I think the outstanding question in my mind is how long will fit for last or the first in time, first right allocation system last in that structure? I think you could still have a system whereby priorities to water can still be granted based on a historic allocation, but then I think we need to start looking at systems where we formalise a system where, okay, there’s not enough water for everyone. How are we going to share it? Obviously picking winners and losers in water is not an acceptable solution because obviously that can’t be an outcome. I think as time goes by and the pressures go by on our water system, the first and time first and right system is kind of being maintained, but at the same time when we’re always having to resort to voluntary agreements on the side, then really fit for isn’t really being maintained because no one’s going to be calling priority, or if they do, then the system’s going to be really under restrained.Under our legal system, there’s the ability for a licence holder to call priority, which means they get all their licence allocation before the next lower priority licence holder. In that type of system, if that priority call happens, then I think the real strain and kind of emergency happens and there’s legislation, our legislation does allow for the minister to essentially declare an emergency and say the priority system is not being applied, and that was kind of contemplated in 2024, but didn’t have to occur. I think that the whole FITFIR system and the allocation system and security has to be a part of a broader dialogue that we have as a society and who has the voice for instream flows or fish and that type of thing is one of the key concerns that the Environmental Law Center has as we talk about healthy aquatic ecosystems as a core foundation of a healthy and vibrant society with a high quality of life.Jenny:Right? Yeah. Can’t really have a life without high quality water. Just so you guys know, David is on my phone, we can tap him with the question in the background here.Bob:I’m ready for my follow-up question with him because we’ve talked about water supply that David’s experience has been mainly in the water quality area in terms of being a medical doctor and he mentioned the whole issue with potable water. David, how secure are we in terms of water quality from what you’ve experienced, both in terms of your medical background and what you’ve seen on Fish Creek?David:Well, I think it’s an important question that relates very much to how much we’re willing to pay Bob. You’re increasingly degrading upstream activities in our water sources and having to pay increasingly expensive water treatment both before drinking and after wastewater goes through the treatment plants. We are tremendously wasteful of water still in this province, and we are allowing activities upstream that very much increase the cost of creating potable water.Jenny:Right. Go ahead. I’ll just add, would you say ranching in the headwaters for one or oil and gas activities or roads or logging, all of those things are impacting water quality, would you say?David:All of the above. Indeed. Anything that creates more sediment, more organic material, more chemicals including pesticides and fertilizers, all of these add to the challenges I guess, of making sure we have safe drinking water.Jenny:Did you have a follow up?How are we monitoring water quantity and quality?Bob (00:18:39):Yeah, and this gets into the whole question of monitoring what’s going on out there, and they do measure a number of water quality issues, but there are a lot that simply are not measured very often if they’re measured at all. Things like pharmaceuticals, the, you just mentioned that and I forgot what the other one was.Jenny:Fertilizers.Bob:Fertilizers, exactly. That sort of thing. Do we really have the monitoring system, David, to be able to keep track of what’s happening in the rivers and dealing with the quality in the streams themselves?David:Well, I take your point, Bob, especially with respect to pharmaceuticals and point source pesticides and herbicides, which we may not pick up entirely because they’re so expensive, these tests that it, it’s intermittent testing that goes on. But in general, I think we do have very high quality water because of the very expensive treatment programs that we have for our water supplies. I would just add that the water flows have declined 40% in the South Saskatchewan River Basin according to John Pomeroy over the last a hundred years. And when water quantity declines and it has 40%, as I said, that means it’s much more concentrating the pollutants and it takes as I’ve said a much more expensive treatment protocol.Jenny:Of course.Bob:How can you dilute the pollution if you keep taking the water out?Jenny:That’s right. Yeah.Bob:Jenny, you’re up next, I think.Jenny:Oh, sure. Okay. Can we talk a bit about water monitoring and reporting, Jason, because you and I just were discussing, we attended, we attended a meeting together in September in Fort Chippewan First Nation about water security and all I heard that week was about monitoring and it just made my stomach sink because monitoring isn’t mitigating, and as you were alluding to in your opening here, you’re seeing a lot of gaps in the ways that we’re measuring and monitoring, and then also do we understand the impacts of how we’re using water on the aquatic habitat and system function. I know that’s a big question, but can you speak to a little bit around just this, what’s happening in terms of reporting and monitoring and any gaps that you see that are meaningful for us to think about going forward to close? Jason:That is right. Yeah. Well, it is a big issue and I think, monitoring is one part of a broader system that you have to have in place compliance with monitoring and reporting is a challenge I think for the government in terms of licences, in terms of the stream flows themselves and water quality being a key indicator that you’re going to have a variety of things that you have to monitor there, including emerging issues like PFASs and other chemicals that are continuing to show direct impacts on the aquatic environment, specifically salmon species for instance. And I think the challenge, the government actually in the Bill seven, they are amending some areas where they’re trying to expand the monitoring and reporting requirements, and I think the challenge there is to really have the capacity to ensure the water use reporting and that type thing is accurate and actually enforced and every reason’s complying with it in terms of the industrial licensed users.But I think that’s different from, for instance, the water quality challenges around water monitoring, because oftentimes we’re very reactive in terms of our approaches. Our view at the Environmental Law Centre is dilution isn’t the solution to pollution. Pollution prevention is the first order of business. I think one of the key aspects is we need systems and accountability around how we can monitor, but also how we’re going to respond to those shifts in water quality and even reporting on enforcement issues. Certainly up north, a major issue happened when a leak from tailings wasn’t reported by the regulator to the community downstream, and that raised a lot of alarm bells for people. I guess the regulator thought it was of minimal risk or whatever, but there was some decision making there and accountability around how we monitor water quality and how we report to the public, and then on the backend, how we manage the landscape for a variety of very challenging, admittedly challenging areas of water quality and diminishing water quality, whether it’s nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen or other more targeted pollutants coming from the landscape or points or submissions or wastewater streams.How prepared is Alberta for an oil sand’s tailing breach?Jenny (00:24:00):Right. You’ve made me think about with, let’s be specific with the oil sand, if there was a major breach, do we have a plan in place for those types of things? Is that something that youJason:Yeah, well, I think there’s probably a variety of emergency plans that are sitting there, whether they’re fully operational, if an incident actually happened, for sure there’s been very large dam breaches in the recent past both in BC and Alberta in the Obed mine for instance. I think an ongoing challenge for sure is there’s a high risk and we try to mitigate those risks in terms of having regulatory standards in place, but we’ve seen witness to those bigger issues failing and resulting in these big incidents. The long-term planning and monitoring and compliance issues are key there in terms of ensuring the safety of downstream communities for sure.Jenny:Yeah, the compliance, you’re right, I heard a lot about monitoring and not a lot about compliance that weekend, that or a couple of days that we spent together. Same question for you, David. Can you outline as well what you think are some of the ways that we’re missing in terms of reporting and monitoring with respect to conservation objectives?David:Well, yes I can. In fact, the whole schedule of notifying organizations across the province when there’s a low flow advisory, for example, was really inadequate when we first started up the Fish Creek Watershed Association, and only through we start to get actual reporting when we should be reducing our demands on that Fish Creek watershed system. I know that the other environments and protected areas is underfunded. It’s been underfunded for the last 15 years since I was in politics, and they struggle to not only capture the data but have someone have the time to go through it. They operate in general on a complaint basis. If someone is doing something that appears to be damaging to the watershed, they’ll investigate it. But in terms of reporting the consumption of licences and the return flows that, for example, the irrigators are supposed to be returning to the watershed, it’s very hit miss and everything I hear is that, well, when I’ve asked, they suggested I go online and look at the numbers myself because they simply don’t nothing to properly monitor both consumption and return flows to the rivers.Jenny:Right. I’m just going to get you to expand on that concept for folks that aren’t as familiar. When I hear that, David, I hear that you have this licence allocation, but we don’t necessarily know when that water was used and if any of it was actually passed through and the cases where it is a licence that they own the volume outright where it isn’t expected to flow through. I don’t know if I’m saying that. Well, Jason, but do you understand my question, David? Can you outline that a little bit more for people?David:I think what you’re asking is whether or not we know how much people are taking, if they have a licence for so much volume, whether they’re actually taking that amount or whether they may be taking more. In many cases they’re taking less in southern Alberta, but that’s partly because we’ve closed the Saskatchewan River Basin since 2007, and we realized at some point there that we had over allocated the river basins south of Red Deer River. We do need to have more handle on the reporting that is supposed to be in the large users monthly, but how much do we audit the reporting and how accurate is it? And in terms of the return flows to the rivers, I don’t think we’re monitoring that at all. And there’s some suggestion now that the irrigators are using what’s supposed to go back into the river for expanding the irrigation in Southern Alberta. Those kinds of monitoring and oil and gas use of water, for example, isn’t being monitored. We really seriously need to look at this critical resource called water and treat it as the vital resource that it is for all of us or we’re going to be in serious trouble, I believe, in the next decade, if not now.Jenny:Yeah. Thank you. Okay, your turn, Bob.Bob:Okay, David, you’ve mentioned over allocation, which is a big problem in the South Saskatchewan system in the 1990s, early 1990s, the province took the approach of we’ve got a problem in terms of allocation, let’s cap the irrigation districts in terms of how much acreage they can actually irrigate and give them the opportunity to improve how many acres they can irrigate by taking efficiency measures. The government changed its mind later on when the South Saskatchewan Water Management plan was put together and decided they were going to cap everybody that is no new licences and go to a trading system where you buy and sell water rights as opposed to the water, and then you have to pay for that. Those seem like two very different approaches, and it gets into the thing that David raised about who are we managing the water for. Jason, do you have any experience or understanding of those two different ways of managing the overall allocation problem?Jason:Well, sure. Yeah. The water transfer system, the water allocation transfer system came into place primarily. I mean it did exist to a degree previously, but in the Water Act itself in 1999. The ability to transfer a portion of your allocation to another water user, water user, it has evolved since then. And certainly I think the intention is to use the allocation that was granted and intensify the use of that water. That could happen through, for instance, expansion of irrigation or otherwise, or through a system where you’re selling water, maybe you’re not using your whole allocation and you’re able to sell part of your water to another party. And I think that’s one of the areas where there has been a lot of transparency around those transactions and a lot of questions arise because no one pays for water in Alberta other than the cost of moving that water or potentially treating the water as well.Obviously that’s a significant cost for potable water, but there’s no raw water cost in Alberta, the fact that people are now able to sell those things is an interesting notion that there was of reset button in an auction around water or anything like that. I think there’s a variety of things at play there in terms of we have limited allocation in the South, we closed applications, we want to grow still, and we’re going to intensify uses within those allocations, and the question becomes, well, when does that have an impact on the environment itself and the long-term sustainability of that system? It brings in things about water waste, water conservation, water efficiency, all these things as well, and how we can get water back into the river because we know that overall in low flow years that we’re not meeting the instream flow needs as they would be scientifically derived. We’re just doing the best we can in a system that’s highly allocated and we’re trying to intensify more water use within that allocation. I think that’s one of the key challenges is how do we move more water back into the stream at the essential times, recognizing that the pressures on the system are really significant and they’re only going to grow as we move forward. A Price on WaterBob (00:32:58):You mentioned not charging for water for the actual taking the water out of a stream, and it seems like if you’re creating a water market, which was their intent, I gather at the province, you have to have some price on the actual water that you’re using. We have a price on oil, we have a price on gas, we have a price on forestry may not be perfect, but at least somebody is saying, okay, it’s going to cost you something that reflects presumably some market demand and also might reflect the cost of the environment. Is pricing actually viable for water?Jason:Right. Well, I would distinguish between the market price between two licence holders that are having their private agreement because we don’t know what those prices are. I think that’s one of the issues that the government actually has seen and is trying to address is that, well, there needs to be transparency so people know how much water is going to cost, aside from the fact that the water in Alberta has historically been owned by the province of Alberta. The notion of charging for that water has been raised in the past. The government has not gone down that route. In BC for instance, they have a price, a volumetric price for industrial water uses and certainly Alberta could do that if they wanted to and that would drive, and I think everyone would see that that would drive conservation because the more you’re using, the more cost it is and look for alternatives as well in terms of alternatives to potable water or high quality water.I think there’s a variety of things that pricing can do. It’s also very contentious because people sometimes think that, for instance, using it in their home will cost more or that type of thing or using it from a water well or that type of thing. I think the overall trend though is you could price the more industrial uses and recover water and that could grow your capacity to deal with some of the monitoring and compliance issues that we’ve been talking about as well. I think one of the key things is that to truly manage and plan around water, you need a lot of resources in terms of capacity within government to actually deal with those things, and I think that’s one of the outstanding challenges, how you pay for that. It has to be a priority for the government moving forward in my view.Interbasin Transfers Create Many RisksBob (00:35:40):Right. Jason, you mentioned the whole thing about getting more water and David, I think you mentioned inter basin transfers. That certainly is in some people’s view, the way that you solve water supply problems. I gather that the bill seven that’s going before the legislature at some point is going to be making it easier to deal with inter basin transfers. Am I correct on that and what impact are you expecting?David:Well, Jason may also have some important comments to make about basin transfers, but when I was in the legislature, it was a very serious matter to consider transferring water from one basin to another in terms of the biology, some of the species that are there and some of the contaminants that might be transferred. Invasive species in particular, a concern in fish species, bill seven, as some of many of the changes are said to improve water security, but they benefit a few large industries over some of the issues that Jason has raised, which is instream flow needs and maintaining some kind of flow that will protect species within the river. I would have to say that without a very good science and very rigorous debate, we should not be transferring water from one basin to another, and Bill seven is going to make it easier for both the legislature to pass such a motion if they were even going to address the issue because they wouldn’t have to address the issue if this new bill goes through.It would be ministerial discretion. The other side of this though is my concern about the massive expansion of irrigation in Southern Alberta when we are already not meeting basic water conservation objectives in the South Saskatchewan basin. It’s appalling that the irrigation industry has managed to, without any major consultation with Albertans extracted significant funds up to almost $800 million from federal and provincial bodies to expand by up to 500,000 acres in Southern Alberta. The irrigation potential and no public debate, no public input, and in some cases no environmental impact assessments. They’re planning 10 new reservoirs or expansions of reservoirs and as I say, based on their calculations of saving water through canalization as opposed to open dikes, they feel they can meet the objectives of massive expansion of irrigation just through those savings and there’s very little evidence that we’ve seen that that’s going to be successful. Allowing that expansion and then transferring from the north to the south, not only is it extremely costly, but many more risks are involved than I think we’ve been led to believe.Jenny:Yes. Can I just get you to expand again on the, that you said we’re not meeting instream flow objectives. Can you just remind people what that means to me? It means we’re not making sure that the species at risk and aquatic habitat are sufficiently sustainable. Is that accurate?David:That’s correct. Water conservation objectives relate to 45% of natural flow, and that’s one indicator which we have not been meeting again in the South Saskatchewan River and Instream objectives are even more minimal flows in the creek creeks and rivers that we in many cases are not measuring and not enforcing. Once again, we need to properly fund upward environment to enable it to do adequate monitoring and put in place some accountability when these flows are not being supporting life in the rivers and the creeks.Jenny:Right. Compliance again, did you have something to add there, Bob?Bob:Yeah, I was going because David said Jason might have something to offer and I go on inter basin transfers and Bill seven and the whole question around how we manage water legally.Jason:Yes, yes. The water act is being amended through Bill 7 and it’s currently before the legislature. Currently under a current law, you require a special act of the legislature to transfer water between basins. Importantly for people in the north, the bill seeks to amalgamate fully the piece and the Athabasca Basin, in which case there would just be normal licences between basins, those river basins because it wouldn’t be considered an inter basin transfer. I think that’s a huge change and I’m not sure, I think it should be not going forward and really addressed in a more nuanced and direct way in terms of interacting with communities and getting their input in terms of that. The bill also enables what their framing lower risk transfers, and there’s some volumetric limits to those lower risk transfers, although there’s a lot of uncertainty about what those might be because they’re going to deal with a variety of the issues with the regulations.But I think the challenge within any interbasin transfer, our starting point is, okay, the first thing is should be maintaining watershed integrity, meaning you should maintain the waters within your watershed because as soon as you start moving water between watersheds, you can move invasive species, you can move chemicals, you can move biological contaminants in a variety of other things, as well as it’s saying, well, we don’t have to worry about water because we’ll just shift it around and really not take ownership of our water use. And I think that’s to the same notion of being preventative and making sure we’re conserving water. I think we should be looking at our watersheds and the water available to us in a way that is more constrained and really dealing with the things that we need while maintaining a healthy aquatic ecosystem at the same time.I think there are basin transfers for sure, but I think there’s a variety of ways where a higher level of assessment, a higher level of scrutiny has to be maintained. The current proposal does provide for the minister to hold public reviews of those lower risk transfers, but what a public review, for instance, should entail, it needs to be detailed because even with water allocation transfers, which are different, the language in the legislation currently provides for public review and what we’ve seen is that doesn’t really occur. We get notice of an application for a transfer, but then beyond that we don’t have much information about what it actually is transferred. That’s one of the challenges is a lot of the water act amendments are enabling with regulations and policy to come, but I think the risk is that you’re taking the guardrails off as soon as you enable those things, and really that’s one of the things that I think is a lot of risk to it, where the current system of special active legislature admittedly, is probably not the most efficient because you have to wait for the legislature to be in session and all these other things.But I think there’s a need to ensure that decisions, because there are long-term impacts with these decisions are taken with the most full understanding and community input as you can have. That’s where I think these amendments are perhaps need to be amended further to reflect that.Bob:The devil’s in the detail.Jason:Yes.Managing Source Point and Non-Point ContaminationJenny (00:44:14):When we interviewed Tim Romanow, he was talking about how that the water in, oh geez, I can’t remember the basin now I should remember this, but the water that comes from Montana that’s rerouted into the St. Mary, that that’s one of the original water base and transfers and it’s still going. Speaking of long term, that’s why I brought it up, is this is 115 year timeframe. This is how significant these decisions are and how this cannot be taken lightly. I also like that you’re bringing in the maintaining watershed integrity piece because there’s a lot of risks happening in these basins without any water transfers to put the watershed integrity at risk already. To layer on some allocations that you don’t know where they’re going, you don’t have the transparency, and then you’re going from basin to basin potentially spreading contamination. Let’s go into that a little bit, if that’s okay, is to talk about how we’re maintaining water quality. David already alluded to we have this unfortunate collision that seems to be happening where we have contaminants that are increasing and then water volume is decreasing, those potential concentrations are increasing with time the way we’re headed. Especially in a legal framework.Can you speak Jason to what are the ways that we can mitigate harm to people based on what is coming based on the information we’ve just been discussing? Thanks.Jason:Well, I think that there’s two distinct areas where water quality are a challenge for regulatory systems. The one side is less of a challenge. They deal with point sources, those areas where, for instance, a wastewater stream from a municipality or wastewater stream from a specific industrial facility can be conditioned and monitored and reported on specifically in that area. The other bigger, more challenging area is what is often referred to as non-point source pollution, where it might just be things like nutrients or fertilizer on a landscape, which is then runs off during spring fresh or during a rain event or other contaminants that are getting in through aerial deposition or other things like that. The non-point source pollution area is really a challenging area to regulate, and a lot of different jurisdictions have tried to do that. I think Alberta does need to start dealing with non-point source pollution, more substantively around the impacts on surface water bodies, whether that’s lakes or rivers, because those often related to nutrients in the water, they can have adverse effects on water quality and actually can, they’re what drive algal blooms and blue green algae and toxins that result from those blooms.I think there’s a lot of challenges around water quality. The government does have a system around in certain basins around surface water quality management frameworks they call ‘em, which is attempting to do with deal with the notion of cumulative effects on water quality. They do our, for instance in the south, they have various rivers where they’re monitoring water quality and they’re trying to have that ability to track changes and to respond to them. I think the challenge there again is it’s better to be preventative because trying to identify the impacts or the causes of specific water quality indicators and then actually mounting a management response to that is a huge legal challenge in terms of how to identify who’s responsible, who’s doing these things and that type of thing. I think we need to move to more proactive management of landscapes, more proactive and more higher quality wastewater stream systems. Obviously, over the decades we’ve done pretty well in major urban centers. Obviously we have the amount of tax base to pay for some of these wastewater treatment systems where we need to see that expanded to other areas of point source and non-point source pollution into the landscape, into the water bodies that we’re talking about.Jenny:Yeah. Did you want to expand on that, David, do you have anything to add?David:Yeah, I would thanks Jason for outlining that very well, and I guess the implication is not only increasing the revenues coming into government that they can fund the necessary experts in upward environment to do the monitoring and enforcement, it’s clear that this has not been a priority for governments in the last 15 or 20 years, and it has to be if we’re going to have real quality and sustained quantity of water for basic human uses as well as for commercial and agricultural use.Jenny:Okay, I see we are almost at the hour. I can’t believe how quickly this conversation went. Bob, I’ll let you lead off maybe into some takeaways and then a final question for these guides. Does that work for you?Bob:Sure. This has certainly raised a lot of issues, ones that are very troubling and very complex, particularly as Jason was mentioning on the water quality side. And I will follow up with one maybe a technical question, and Jason, I think you’re probably the person who might be able to answer it, but I gather that the City of Calgary in terms of managing water quality has some umbrella approval from the province now that includes both its wastewater treated water going into the rivers, and it also combines the non-point stormwater type of pollution that’s coming from the city. Is that a good idea or should we keep those two kinds of pollution separate? Because if you combine them, that tends to put the burden back onto these very expensive wastewater treatment systems that David had mentioned earlier on and takes the kind of relieves us as individual land managers, homeowners or businesses takes the pressure off on us in terms of being good stakeholders. Am I missing something here or is that really an issue?Jason:I think management of wastewater versus stormwater are both very important water quality issues that need to be dealt with. I think the challenge is that our historic treatment of stormwater in separate streams from wastewater resulted in the stormwater typically just going into the rivers and having consequences there, whether it’s salt from road salting to other things like other spills and other things on the landscape or sediment. I think the combining of those systems is important to capture as much pollution as we can. I think there are probably some other alternatives as well, but I know that certainly different municipalities have challenges on different aspects in terms of having the infrastructure to actually deal with both those issues. I know that some stormwater systems also can be managed somewhat by more of the outlets. You could put in more compact treatment systems or even systems of stormwater management where you’re trying to keep the stormwater from flowing into the river at least so quickly where you have natural infrastructure that can be used to treat those things.I think again, it’s water management is an area where it’s complex and there’s so many, everything we do from an urban landscape perspective has a direct impact on our water quality downstream. Whether it’s moving our waste away from us or otherwise. I think those are the challenges that we face in terms of we still have relatively high water quality in terms of Alberta. We’re very lucky to be close to headwaters and not a lot of communities upstream, but I think it’s incumbent on us to take as much as we can in terms of minimizing our water footprint on the landscape or in the rivers.David:Okay.Jenny:Did you want to ask David one last final question, Bob, or not to put you on the spot?Bob:Well, I had one and I’m not sure how much time do we have left there.Jenny:Well, I realized we started late, maybe we’ve got a few more minutes. Sorry, I just didn’t want to cut short.Bob:Yeah, I’m looking at the timer. We’ve got about seven minutes left.Jenny:Yeah, let’s [go] with one more.Bob:In terms of Fish Creek, which has been very lucky, at least in the downstream reaches to have a park surrounding it, but people are living upstream. What are the challenges you see on a small tributary like that in terms of managing the land in particular the way we use the land that then affects the river or the stream?David:Well, Bob, the Fish Creek starts up in McLean Creek, Kananaskis country, and there’s clear cut logging going on up there. There is seasonal grazing of animals. There is off-road vehicles running through the creek often without being regulated. They’re supposed to follow certain trails and use bridges. That’s not being well monitored unfortunately. But indeed, further downstream, we have 2200 people now outside the city in acreages depending on the groundwater and the surface water between Calgary and Kananaskis, agricultural operations, a 36 hole golf course. All of these have obvious impacts and potential risks and affecting both quantity of water, which has significantly diminished over the last four years, particularly with the climate impact. It appears and it’s a real concern that with diminishing quantity and diminishing fish wellbeing there, we’ve done our fish survey in the last two months that is still to be recorded, but it’s very evident that the numbers and the species have declined significantly, especially the native species and all of this to say that like most places on the planet, if you’re not careful and you allow unfettered development and extraction and activities on the landscape, you can predict a decline in quality, quantity and species, which we’re trying to educate both the public and the government on at the present time.Bob:Right. Well, and we have really a really good idea of what’s happening to the main stem rivers, but the tributaries where people actually see the impacts first and the impacts more directly. We don’t know as much about those tributaries and Fish Creek is one of those examples where thanks to you folks, you were at least trying to get some decent information there.David:That’s right. Yeah. We’re learning a lot as citizen scientists and I monitor some of the chemistry in the water every two weeks with a kit that’s created by a group called Creek Watch or River Watch in Alberta. There are many lay people across the province that are testing the water every couple of weeks and identifying if there are changes, significant changes in the common parameters like oxygen level, pH temperature, which are critical for fish habitat.Key TakeawaysJenny (00:57:04):Right. Thank you. Okay, I’m going to offer some of my key takeaways and let us all offer some final thoughts on anything that we wanted to add or that we feel is important. The first thing is we’ve got monitoring in place. We’re doing reporting. We have some conservation objectives. They’re not being met, compliance is not in place and there isn’t a cost to potentially continuing going in the wrong direction here. Those are the key things that I took away. We’re not looking at the maintenance of watershed integrity, we’re not being proactive enough and that we’re not looking at these non-point source issues closely enough as well, that there’s a lot of things we’re not seeing on, as David just said, and Bob, that those tributaries, for example, are the ones that potentially are seeing those higher concentrations of issues that are not necessarily being seen, and then they also experience climate change more severely and urgently, we’re not fully seeing that picture as well. Those were my key takeaways. Maybe I’ll go to you, Jason next to see if you have any things that you wanted to add or anything you wanted to say that we didn’t touch on, please.Jason:Well, I think one of the key challenges we have is we have a pretty substantive regulatory system, but I think we’ve had this discussion around water availability and water supply, and yet we still don’t really engage communities and a broader discussion with Albertans around what their expectations are around their rivers and lakes and streams, because I think that’s the only way we’ll prioritize these things is we have a true understanding and a true engagement with communities. I think inherently we all probably tend towards saying, yes, of course we want healthy rivers, healthy lakes, and yet it’s not prioritized. It’s easy to look at the engineered responses to these things of supply and vulnerability, and really what we need to be having the dialogue is how are we going to prioritize these things as a society and move these things forward? Because I think that’s the only way we can actually get past some of these challenges, which are complex and have trade-offs and all these things, but I think that’s the dialogue that we need to start now because the more, the worse it’s going to get or the harder it’s going to get.Jenny:Yeah, good to bring that up. Thank you. The overarching problem is that we’re not properly engaging people in this work, in this knowledge, and then it would become a priority like you’re saying, and people would be very concerned about interbasin transfers, for example. Okay. Bob, how about you? Did you want to offer some thoughts quickly and then we’ll let David wrap us up?Bob:Why don’t we go straight to David summarizing?Jenny:Okay, thank you. David, did you want to offer some final takeaways?David:Well, what an excellent discussion we’ve had. I appreciate what you’re doing, Jenny and Bob and Jason. I really appreciate your comments. I guess from a more political point of view, I recognize that public education is absolutely essential to get political change and policy change that would result in better monitoring and analysis and enforcement. If people understand more about what we’ve talked about today, which thanks to your podcast, some will, they will be more intentional about connecting with their member of the legislature in this case because this is primarily a provincial issue and that’s incumbent upon both those of us who are involved in NGOs and those involved in the scientific community university, for example, to pay more attention to educating the public on the quality and quantity issues and the impacts coming of climate change and the need to be ever more careful about land use and protecting and conserving water because absolutely, there are examples in the states, for example, and around the world where the failure to plan ahead and protect these vital sources has resulted in tremendous conflicts and even wars. And it’s, as I’ve said in some of the literature, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting, and we have to take some of that historic wisdom to heart.Jenny:Thank you, David. That’s brilliant. I am going to be very specific for you and your example about speaking to your MLA. I am doing one step further right now and actually trying to hold my MLA accountable for these massive decisions that are misleading us, specifically in my case, the misinformation around fossil fuel pollution and how that impacts water and everything else is one of the main reasons why I’m doing a recall campaign in my constituency to hold my MLA accountable. This is the real life concerns that we are facing and the ways the tools that we have available to us to address ‘em. Like you said, I’m hoping these conversations will help people also understand why somebody like me would be doing this. You talked to David about scientists in taking these samples, and I picture the people that are going through with ATVs and probably not even understanding what’s going on there and the importance and the value of staying on those paths, for example, and not going off course. Okay, that’s a lot. Thank you so much everyone for your participation. Please remember to and subscribe to The Gravity Well help this message get out, help make Jason and David’s time and Bob’s for that matter worthwhile. I really appreciate you guys being here. Take care for now.Bob:Thank you. Thanks all. Thank you. Great discussion. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Episode 9 of a podcast mini-series focused on Water and Southern Alberta, co-host Bob Morrison joins Jenny to discuss topics such as irrigation history, resource extraction impacts, water legislation, and climate change effects on insurance. The series features experts like Dr. David Sauchyn, who studies climate and hydrology in Canada’s Western interior, contributing to future climate and water supply scenarios. Dr. Sauchyn has served as an expert witness on climate change in Canadian legislative bodies.This conversation highlights the incremental nature of global climate change, emphasizing regional climate phenomena over global statistics. Southern Alberta faces unique challenges, with drought identified as a significant risk due to its creeping nature and potential for long-term impacts. The discussion underscores the importance of local adaptation within regulatory frameworks, with provincial governments playing a key role in water allocation.This episode also addresses the need for transformational adaptation strategies, focusing on reducing water demand and enhancing soil and land water retention. The conversation concludes with reflections on the emotional response to climate issues and the challenge of reducing consumption to mitigate climate impacts.Introduction to Dr. David Sauchyn and his Climate WorkJenny (00:00:06):Welcome to the Gravity Well Podcast with me, Jenny Ami. I host the gravity well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty seven and Metis districts five and six. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples were created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature, and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide the Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants either individually or collectively do not necessarily represent those of the gravity well. This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The gravity well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see and hear, remember to like and subscribe.Good afternoon, Bob. Thank you so much for joining me again. Just a reminder for everyone. This is Bob Morrison. He’s my co-host through the Water and Southern Alberta mini series that we’ve been working on. Bob has been hard at work over the last few months, regrouping us for the second half of this series. We started this series off learning about The History of Irrigation from Professor Shannon Stunden Bower and Jordan Christianson. We talked about The Impacts of Resource Extraction on water from David Mayhood, Dr. Younis Alila, and David Unger. We talked about The Water Act and Licence Transfer System with Professor Arlene Kwasniak and Davin Macintosh. We discussed The Water Cycle and Modelling with Dr. Tricia Stadnyk of the U of C. We discussed Watershed and Lake Stewardship with Mike Murray, Susan Ellis and Tim Romanow. And then we discussed Dryland, Irrigated, and Ranchland Farming with Dwight Popowich, Julian Vandenberg and John Smith, and Markham Hislop met with me and Derek Connick to talk about The Impacts of Climate Change on Insurance.Then on Monday we met with Brad Stelfox to talk about The Impacts of Land Use on Water. And today we are thrilled to welcome Dr. David Sauchyn to the studio. David is a professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Regina. His research focuses on climate and hydrology of the past millennia in Canada’s Western interior and how this knowledge can inform future climate and water supply scenarios. He’s been involved in various roles at the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative over the past 25 years, including a director since 2017. Dr. Soin has been invited as an expert witness on climate change in the Canadian Senate and House of Commons, and at forums hosted by provincial premiers and environmental ministers. Welcome to the studio, David. It’s a pleasure to have you here.David:Thanks for having me. Hi, Jenny. Hi, Bob.Jenny:Yes. We’d love for you to just start and offer your background. How did you come into this work and how your focus came to be, what it is today, please. Thank you.David:How I came into studying climate and climate change? Well, I grew up east in Edmonton and I actually don’t remember a whole lot about living at Edmonton because when I wasn’t in school, my father took us hunting and fishing in the foothills and in the summertime we spent a lot of it on our grandparents’ farm near Hardesty, Alberta. I guess growing up I spent a lot of time and I had to walk to school, I spent a lot of time outside and just developed an interest in the natural world. Went to the University of Alberta as an engineering student, decided I didn’t want to be an engineer. And I looked at the course calendar and discovered, wow, you can actually take courses in rivers, glaciers, weather, climate. I didn’t know that because in the Alberta public school system at the time, they didn’t teach those things in high school. I switched from engineering to science, just loved it. And I went to graduate school in Colorado so I could ski. And I lived in a log cabin up in the mountains for two years and one month, no plumbing, no heat. It was fantastic.And then for a PhD, I went to the University of Waterloo because there was a professor who was from Calgary and did his research in Kananaskis. I spent three years living with my wife in a tent in summertime in Canon ascus before it was developed and did research. My graduate research was on natural hazards, so snow avalanches, rock slides, mud flows, and the kind of weather that triggered these things. There you go.Jenny:That’s incredible. It’s it’s been in you from such a long time to just, yeah, and it’s funny, I actually did a similar exercise at the U of A myself. I started as a chem student and then decided to go into geophysics. Same thing, looked at what programs were offered and that’s how I selected it. That’s really interesting. Wow, that’s so cool that you’ve lived on the landscape like that as well. Very neat, David. Okay, Bob, you can go ahead and lead us off with the first question, please.What does the future hold for Southern Alberta?Bob (00:06:12):Well, we hear a lot about what the future is going to hold in terms of climate and how it’s going to affect water. We’re talking about bigger floods, more drought, hailstorms that are going to be more severe, various things like that. From what you’ve found, what does the future hold for us, particularly in Southern Alberta, but maybe globally?David:Well, globally, I think everybody knows, I mean, if you’re ever online or if you read any kind of media, you’re aware of the fact that the temperature of the entire world has been changing incrementally, a few factions of a degree warmer every year. And that’s the result of a change in the global energy balance where there is less energy escaping back into space because it’s being trapped near the surface of the earth. We’ve changed the chemistry of the atmosphere. We’ve released certain gases. The concentration of certain gases has been increasing, trapping more heat. Globally it’s well documented that the average temperature of the whole world has been going up. Unfortunately, people translate that into heat waves and extreme heat, but the climate isn’t changing all the time and everywhere it’s changing more rapidly at certain places than others, in particular the Arctic. But also that concept of global warm is kind of misleading because the temperature of the whole world doesn’t exist.It’s a statistic, it’s a statistical concept. You can’t find it on the weather app on your phone. We have to think in terms of how the human modification of the atmosphere, how this change in the amount of heat is affecting the climate where you live. Because after all, climate is a regional phenomenon. There is no climate of the whole world. There’s only climate in certain places. At our research center, we focus on the climate of the prairies and how that’s changing and it’s actually changing quite a bit differently than other parts of the world. That’s the danger in extrapolating from the concept of global warming and applying it to a place like the Canadian prairies. You have to know the prairies and study the prairies to realize that the trajectory of climate change is somewhat or quite a bit different than the rest of the world.Bob:How is it going to be different in the future for us, whether it’s compared to somebody else or compared to our past?David:Well, to begin with, like I said, we seem to be fixated on this idea that there is extreme heat. And certainly in certain parts of the world there have been record high temperatures. Parts of Europe, for example, Mediterranean, they have had record high temperatures, but not here. The highest temperatures ever recorded on the Canadian prairies were in the 1930s and that we’re not exceeding 40 degrees as often as we did in the 1940s, the 1980s. And the warmest summers we’ve had have been the driest years. 1961, 1988, 2001, when the soil is so dry that not much of the energy goes towards evaporation, a lot of the energy goes towards hitting the air. As you probably know, water has a cooling effect. And therefore in the driest summers are the warmest, our driest summer on record, 1937. Despite what people think and people tell me, boy, it’s getting so hot. Well, that’s not what the weather records show.Jenny:I’m curious, when you bring in water, as you already did here into the conversation, does that change the discussion? I’ll say, the thing that I’ve heard is that there’s a global water shortage in our future. Can you translate that to a local perspective for us, David?David:Yeah, that’s a good point, Jenny. Because we are so fixated on this temperature statistic that we don’t recognize that most of the impact of climate change in our part of the world is not a change in temperature. It’s a change in the availability of the water.Jenny:Water.David:I don’t understand that concept of a decline in the global water supply because the global water supply is pretty much fixed. We don’t lose much water to space, and we don’t create too much more water on new water. There’s some, but the water balance, again, is a regional concept. It’s most meaningful to think in terms of watersheds or other types of regions, although the watershed is the most physically reasonable way to think in terms of the water supply.Jenny:I guess the ways that I think that water might be removed from the system, if you will, and I understand what you’re saying, the system must be in balance, but the things I’ve heard are things like with reduced vegetation and with reduced forests, that water that would normally be kept in the system is free to move to the oceans ultimately. So that fresh water is actually being net added to the oceans rather than that balance that we want where it stays locally and in the local system. And I guess the other thing I’d add is from a industrial water use perspective, we are in fact moving some water out of the system through disposal as well.David:Yeah, quite a bit of water. The major consumptive water uses in the southern prairies are irrigation and pot ash mining solution pot ash mining. In Saskatchewan, by far the largest consumptive use of water is for ash mining. And in Alberta, of course, it’s irrigation. And as a result, the water level record at Medicine hat the flow of the South Saskatchewan River at medicine hat has been declining quite a bit, but most of that is extraction of water for irrigation. Some of it is the wastage of the glaciers. Now, the major loss of water under natural conditions is evaporation. We have a large amount of evaporated water loss, there is the potential for an increase in the evaporative water loss. If our summers get longer, they don’t necessarily have to get hotter, but as they get longer, there’s more days of net evaporation. We expect in the future that we’ll have evaporation, for example, in May and September, even April and October, whereas historically it’s been the temperature has not supported much evaporation.Jenny:That makes so much sense. We’re having, just the other day, we had massive chinook winds, and I just kept thinking, there’s so much water that must be leaving our system. Whereas normally we would be receiving snow and we’d be actually being net gaining water. That’s the alarming piece from an observation perspective. Like he said, we often, I dunno, you’re saying that that one is potentially real, that we could be experiencing loss of water right now rather than a net gain. Interesting.David:Yeah. The loss of water during chinooks is most obvious. When there’s snow on the ground, they call it a snow eater. Right. The snow just sublimates it.Jenny:Fair enough. Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about.David:But you just made a good point. I mean, I started by saying that it’s not getting hotter on the prairies. I’m not denying climate change. It’s just that that’s not the type of climate change we’re observing in terms of extreme temperatures. But we are observing longer frost-free seasons. And especially, it’s not so much getting hotter, it’s getting much less cold. Our winters are much less cold than they used to be.Provincial Governments are Responsible for Water SecurityJenny (00:15:04):Oh, great. Yeah, I remember Christmas being very snowy, and the last five years it’s been in Calgary pretty much no snow until New Year’s, which is a big, big change. Yeah. I could go down a rabbit hole there, but let’s move forward for us. One of the things we were wondering about is around who’s responsible. Where do water decisions get made with respect to in particular rivers, ensuring that they’re monitored, they’re assessed, and that there is sufficient water security. Can you help us understand where are the roles and responsibilities around that this big topic, if you will?David:Well, ultimately it’s a responsibility of the provincial government. It’s the province. It’s the province that allocates water and makes those decisions. The federal government is involved if it’s a trans-boundary water supply. But otherwise, it’s the province. Although there are a lot of stakeholders, I mean, everybody’s a stakeholder. We all need water, and we all use water. Major stakeholders include the irrigation districts, the municipalities, the industrial water users are all involved in that conversation, although it’s the province that ultimately makes those decisions. For example, following the severe drought of 2001, 2002, there was a fairly radical change in water policy in Alberta, might be aware of that, where they actually closed the southern tributaries of the South Saskatchewan River. Ever since the mid 2000 lots that the bow and the old man river basins have been closed, with the exception of certain stakeholders who were able to apply for water licences.Jenny:Right. Is that when we would describe that the basin is considered to be fully allocated and that there’s no more licences available? Is that what you mean by that, David?David:Yeah, and actually those two basins, the Old Man and the Bow are the only two river basins in Canada that are considered fully allocated.Jenny:Wow.David:The two major basins, there’re probably some small basins in BC or somewhere, but in terms of larger river basins, those two are the only two. Wow, okay. You want to,Bob:And that’s been a significant change in terms of policy, but in terms of dealing with the climate impacts on water, is it again a provincial issue or are we talking about a federal issue, or are we basically talking about an international issue?David:All of the above, but very different responsibilities. And ultimately, water use and adaptation to climate change occur locally because adaptation to climate changes is adjustments to policy infrastructure, industrial water use, residential water use, everything we do pretty much we can adjust or adapt to lower the demand and possibly increase the supply. It’s all local in nature, but it’s within a certain regulatory framework. And those regulatory frameworks are established by provincial and national governments and municipal governments. I mean, there’s certain things you can do in your own backyard, although it has to be within the bylaws established by your municipality, but ultimately, it comes down to what individuals decide to do in terms of how they use water. And we’re all consumers and we can make decisions about the stuff we consume and whether it requires more or less water. And I mean, the ultimate, I’ve always thought that the ultimate solution to, not the ultimate solution, but a major solution to climate change is just don’t drive,Jenny:WhichDavid:Seems ridiculous.Jenny:Right? Yeah. David:There are places, there are cities where people don’t drive, believe it or not.Jenny:A hundred percent. In Europe, there’s a couple of them, right. I know Spain just changed one, and there’s one in, is it one of the northern countries?David:Finland, Helsinki. I’ve been to Helsinki. I was blown away because the sidewalks are wider than the streets.Jenny:Amazing. The other thing I’ve been noticing, you see these videos of these massive flooding events, and I see these cars wash away, and I think, I wonder which ones of those are EVs? This is, to me, the scale of the issue that we’re not really realizing. Would you agree that I understand electric vehicles will use less materials and things like that, but I just think that that’s underestimating the scale of the challenge we’re facing when we’re thinking that just changing a vehicle and not changing our entire way of consuming less, which we sort of got into with Brad this earlier this week.David:Good. Yeah. I mean, electric vehicle is still a vehicle, like you said, has to be manufactured, and it still impacts the road. It requires a road network. The better solution is park your vehicle.Jenny:Right, altogether. Yeah, I hear that. That’s so fascinating. One of, go ahead. Yeah,Are government’s incorporating limits to growth?Bob (00:21:03):We have met the enemy, and they are us, the old pogo saying. But there are lots of things that are happening, particularly at a municipal level and provincially in terms of managing the land. And our conversation with Brad Stelfox very much got into where are the limits to how much we expand onto the landscape, whether it’s urban sprawl, living in floodplains, developing the systems of roads and other kinds of linear disturbances. Do you see the different levels of government, municipal or provincial actually moving in the direction to limit growth to go back to the Club of Rome phrase? Or are they just simply so committed to more of one thing or the other that they’re incapable of dealing with those kinds of issues?David:Yeah, I like listening to Brad when he talks about that. I find it inspiring. And in my experience, I just can’t imagine governments limiting growth. I can’t imagine a government being elected on a platform of limiting growth, but they can certainly determine where that growth occurs. Climate hazards, climate change, climate variability, extreme events, they’re a problem only if people are exposed to them. In fact, the entire concept of risk, risk is at the intersection of the hazard exposure and vulnerability. Climate hazards can exist, but only if you’re exposed and vulnerable to them will you suffer. And there are ways that we can limit our exposure and vulnerability. That’s the whole purpose of adaptation, is to limit the exposure to climate hazards is to reduce the risk or avoid the risk altogether. And probably the best example is floods work, just get out of the floodplain. You’re not exposed to that hazard unless you’re below a certain flood level.Bob:A strategic retreat from the floodplain, as Blair Feltmate said, from The Intact Center,David:Right? Yeah. Blair says it well, and certainly that’s a chronic problem in other parts of Canada, not so much in the prairies, even though there is this concern about flooding, and certainly it was heightened by the 2013 June, 2013 floods. Ultimately, the bigger hazard on the prairies is drought,Jenny:Right? Yeah. We could have instant, would you say it would be more like instantaneous flooding concerns, but long-term drought is more.David:The impacts of flooding are immediate. They’re damaging, they’re insurable. They get a lot of media attention. We call drought a creeping hazard. And a lot of the cost of drought is not insured. With the exception of crop insurance, but there’s a lot of loss in the ag sector that’s not insured. There’s a lot of, and I remember being at a meeting in Ottawa, and we were discussing natural hazards in climate change, and drought wasn’t on the list. And I said, what’s going on? They said, well, drought doesn’t kill people. I had just been to the family farm in eastern Alberta. My uncle told me that during the drought of 2001, they found his neighbour hanging in his barn by his neck.Are we helping people prepare for disaster?Jenny (00:25:04):Yeah, I was just thinking that. I went to a watershed council meeting last year, and they were talking about the increased risk, and we talked about it with those three farmers. We met with the increased risk of suicide. And it was awful to hear, this is real, this is growing. Here’s a number you could call. And that was it. So this is when I think one of the questions that Bob was alluding to here is, are we equipped to make these changes, these decisions for, let’s use farmers as an example on the prairies. As you said, irrigation is such a big part of our business, especially in Alberta. Are we helping mitigate the chance of what extreme drought will do to irrigators? Should the supply not be there? Are we, is there, I dunno, I’ll stop there. I know you’re a climate expert. This is not necessarily your specific focus, but can you speak from your perspective what you know in that space?David:Yeah, I could speak to what terms of what producers have told me, because I hang out with them a lot. For some reason, they ask me to come into their meetings, and I think we are well equipped in a certain way. We’re well equipped technically and institutionally, and we have a lot of capacity to deal with these things because we’re a fairly wealthy country, not everybody, but we have good institutions and we have technical capacity, we have good education system, intellectual capacity, and we have the tools. I guess where we’re lacking is, and this is almost human nature, we have tremendous difficulty preparing for impacts that will occur in coming decades.And when you think about it, and I’ve done a bunch of reading and social psychology and social history, is that for most of human history, we’ve been preoccupied with finding our next meal or avoiding the predator when we go down to the water hole, and we still instinctively have this recency bias, we have this distance bias where something has to be near to us in time and location for us to deal with it. That’s why natural disasters get a lot of attention is because we’re great at dealing with them after the fact, right after a flood or a storm or a hurricane. There’s all these stories about how people rallied together. Communities got bonded. We’re great at that. We chip in because it’s an immediate concern, immediate problem, but tell people, if we don’t prepare that there’s going to be a drought 20 years from now that’s going to just devastate our economy. We’re just not equipped intellectually to deal with that somehow.Bob:Well, and you mentioned time and location, and that flooding is the one hazard that we actually can predict in terms of both timing, frequency and in terms of where it’s going to occur. It’s certainly not one of those dispersed hazards that could happen anywhere.David:That’s a good point, Bob. Within a certain timeframe, we can actually fairly accurately predict, but then you need a warning system. You saw what happened in Texas when those poor kids had no idea what was coming.Bob:Right. Well, that’s also personal responsibility because the warnings did get through to some people, and they may have been able to stop it, stop the deaths if they had acted quickly enough. But in terms of the adapting to the hazards, where are the successes that you have seen in terms of adapting to those kinds of hazards, being able to get out of the floodplain, build better buildings, stop sprawling further and further out into the countryside? Where have you seen the successes?David:High River Calgary, mostly the result of the 2013 flood. Not necessarily as a result of climate change, but if you’re better prepared for flooding, then that represents an adaptation to climate change, even though that wasn’t the motivation for it. And there’s a lot of actually success stories in southern Alberta. A fair number of municipalities have climate adaptation plans, Lethbridge Medicine hat Okotoks.Jenny:Ok. Yeah.David:Venture Creek, the MD of Bighorn. I know about some of these because our Climate Change research center was contracted to provide the climate science for some of these plans. There’s a relatively fair number of small to media, municipalities, indigenous communities, sorry, the blood tribe that have developed resilience to climate change. And partly it’s because, and you mentioned before, what’s the role of provincial and federal governments? Well, to a large extent is because they had made funding available. The province had a municipal climate action fund money well spent. A lot of, especially compared to provinces like Saskatchewan in particular, but also Manitoba, there has been more effort made to prepare for climate change, at least developing strategies and plans. They haven’t necessarily been implemented, but at least they have a plan.Bob:Well, and I hear, oh, go ahead.Jenny:Okay. I was just going to ask, because Okotoks is something that we’re quite familiar with, obviously, because in our basin, and I look at Okotoks is getting some of their water from Calgary still. I wonder about, is there a gap between what is truly climate resiliency versus adaptation through human infrastructure that might not be available to us? And I’m just curious, is that a risk, is that something that we need to take seriously when we’re thinking about climate resiliency in a watershed?David:Well, nearly all the adaptation has been to historical natural climate variability.Jenny:Not thinking of those future shortages that might be.David:Yeah, exactly. We wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if there hadn’t been a whole lot of adaptation. Because when you think about it, there’s very few places on earth where there is an advanced economy in such a harsh climate, find someplace else on earth where they practice commercial agriculture at the latitude of Peace River, maybe on a coastline somewhere in Scandinavia. But there was a whole lot of adaptation throughout the 20th century that resulted in a viable commercial agricultural industry on the prairies and enabled cities to get established and succeed. And probably the city that has done the most in Canada, other than Vancouver, which they can, they don’t have Irish climate, but Calgary, I mean, Calgary has a pretty advanced climate adaptation strategy and devoted a fair bit of, in fact, this coming week, city of Calgary is hosting a week long climate change symposium.Jenny:I did not know that. Yep. Are you attending David?David:I’m speaking on Thursday. I think I speak on Thursday. Yeah. Okay. Most of it’s virtual.Jenny:Yeah. Wonderful.David:Though our climate change research center has a big project with ENMAX, and ENMAX, of course is the electricity supplier for Southern Alberta. Yeah.What are our prospects of major drought?Bob (00:34:09):Well, there’s certainly, certainly lots of talking going on. And I know that Bob Sanford is monitoring COP30, and when we have him on for the podcast on the future of water in Southern Alberta, he’ll be updating us on what he’s seen coming out of the latest cop exercise. But you talked about basically a good crisis is a way for people to adapt, and Brad Tel Fox talked about that, about a place in India where they had a lot of overpopulation and mismanagement of the land, and then they had a terrible drought and a collapse of their economy, and they adapted to it successfully, apparently, but they only did it because they had such a disaster. You mentioned drought as creeping, a creeping disaster. What’s our prospects in terms of drought from a climate point of view that you’ve been able to see from the modelling or from your research you’ve been doing?David:Okay, now I’m feeling comfortable in my space here. That’s mostly what we’ve studied for the past 30, 40 years. And Brad made a very good point. People ask me, what’s it going to take for us to do something about climate change? And I said, probably a disaster, a catastrophe. It’s just human nature. And we hear the terminology all the time. We’re in the climate crisis, climate catastrophe, well, perhaps globally, but locally, not really. Although when we get a multi-year drought, that’s when we’ll have a climate crisis, because unfortunately, that’s the worst case scenario for the prairies, is a drought that lasts year after year after year.And it happens. I mean, it hasn’t happened in our lifetimes unless you’re a hundred years old. But when I said, you’re in my space, in the 1980s, my students and I began collecting wood in the Cypress Hills because trees need water. The amount of tree growth each year is a function of water. And we were able to determine that in these trees. A couple hundred years old, there was a drought that lasted about 20 years in the mid 19th century, A is actually well documented when Captain John Palliser came through with his crew and said, I wouldn’t farm here. He said, A large area will be forever comparatively useless. Well, he came through during a 20 year drought now since, because that worked pretty well every summer since the late 1980s, I’ve hauled students out to all over Alberta, Saskatchewan, NWT, Montana, North Dakota, up and down the eastern slopes of the Rockies collecting. And now we have thousands and thousands of samples, and we have about 4.8 million measurements of tree growth. And each of those measurements is actually a measurement of soil moisture, because that’s what determines tree growth in our dry climate. We have a thousand year millennial record of drought on the prairies, and there have been droughts that were decades in duration, and they will reoccur. But when they do, it’ll be in a warmer climateJenny:Well, and in a bigger drawing system. The thing I struggle, I attend these watershed council meetings to understand, and I see these as you’re talking about these 20 year drought cycles and that we’re in these shorter drought cycles more frequently in the last 80 years. But then what I layer on is well, but we also had glaciers as a water backup supply, and we also had, we weren’t using, as Brad says, the biggest amount of water per person. Well, he didn’t say water, but resources in general, natural capital as we are today. I see those two things coming together in such a, you talked about Canada’s being a wealthy nation, and I look at that as being something that could change on a dime if the way that we’re having these two things potentially come together, the growth of the irrigation districts, let’s be specific. And this long period drought coming into play, is that what you foresee as a potential catastrophe that might surface in the prairies?David:I like the way that you used your hands to show that it’s a threshold. Like Bob said, it’s a threshold. We pass a certain threshold or water demand exceeds supply, which happened historically in the old man and basin. But throughout the prairies, if we have a drought that lasts more than a few years, there won’t be enough water to go around.Jenny:Right. Yeah.Bob:Now you mentioned, oh, sorry, go ahead.David:No, and people say, yeah, okay, well, multi-year drought, and they talk about it, but I don’t think we really prepared for it. Yeah,Bob:Because recently the droughts we’ve seen, if you wanted to call them natural or manmade, were basically two year at the most. You weren’t seeing these decade long kinds of droughts recently, at least in terms of the, sorry, I’m losing my train of thought here. Oh, sorry. In terms of the climate and these multi-year droughts that you’ve been talking about historically, is there that connection between greater warmth and the drought? Or is it the rainfall in the drought? What are the connections there that you’ve seen historically?David:Well, periodically you’ll see a headline that say that climate change caused a flood or drought. That doesn’t make any sense. That’s ridiculous. It’s just that these are perfectly natural events. They’re occurring in a warming climate.To some extent, the impacts, the impacts of these events could be exacerbated because they’re occurring in a warming climate, but also in a population that is exposing itself to these events. We’ve increased our exposure to flooding a drought because there’s a lot more of us, and we’re not necessarily functioning in a way that prevents the impact.Multi-Year Drought Future ModellingBob (00:41:33):I was thinking of your thousand year record, going back in terms of how the climate has changed or the weather, I guess in this case might be the best term, as opposed to climate. What were the factors that were driving these multi-year droughts that you could see from the data you’ve collected?David:Great question, Bob. And that’s an area of research where a number of scientists, especially in the Western North America, have been focusing their attention because, and the simple answer is it’s mostly related to the circulation of the Pacific Ocean, because most of our weather on most of our water comes from the Pacific. And there is the slow, and it’s huge. The Pacific Ocean is 16 times larger than Canada. One third of the earth is a Pacific Ocean, and they’re at this slow circulation. There’s an annual cycle called El Nino | La Nina, which is sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific. But then there’s a slower cycle circulation of the ocean water where the North Pacific Ocean, off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, it cycles in terms of the sea surface temperature, which can have a profound effect on our climate because the ocean temperature and the temperature of the water that is above it will determine the circulation of the atmosphere. We can’t get into these longer cycles where the storms, the air masses that bring us water go someplace else. They take a different trajectory, they follow a path. It’s that through California, for example, or through Oregon, California, the Southwest us. The water has to go somewhere, and there are years and the fact there are decades where it tends to go elsewhere and not here, and it’s related to the circulation of the Pacific Ocean.Bob:Okay. Is human caused climate change having those kinds of effects now on that larger system of circulation within the Pacific?David:It is, because most estimates are about 90% of the extra heat that we’re trapping next to the Earth. It’s being stored in the oceans. Most of the world is ocean, and water has a very large heat capacity to store water. The oceans are warming. And even though these are natural phenomenon, the circulation of the ocean and the fluctuation or oscillation in sea, sea surface temperature is natural. They’re occurring in a warming ocean, just like droughts and floods on land are occurring in a warming atmosphere. These oscillations of sea surface temperature are occurring in a warming ocean.Jenny:I just want to repeat what I, you’re saying we have these natural occurrences, but then we have this warming that’s happening underneath that which is altering these natural occurrences. You’re talking about the specific circulation, but I’ve heard comments around the Atlantic, like the AMOC, so the Atlantic…David:Meridional Overturning Circulation. It’s a jargon.Jenny:Yes. Thank you. Can you expand on, because I’ve understood, and I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that ocean, forgive me if you need to translate it to what you’re talking about here, but that it’s slowing, and that’s due to this, like you said, the heating and it’s actually causing the Atlantic circulation to slow in a much faster way than modellers had been predicting. Is that true in the pacific?David:In the Atlantic, it’s a different system because the Greenland ice sheet is in the North Atlantic. The Greenland ice sheet is melting, and all that cold, fresh water is causing is running off into the North Atlantic, affecting the temperature gradient. You have all this fresh cold water being input. It is affecting the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean and the climate of places that are in close proximity to the Atlantic. But out here in the west, Western North America we’re affected more so by the circulation of the Pacific Ocean. And the equivalent would be, there’s all kinds of jargon. I mentioned Enso, there’s the Pacific Dec oscillation, there’s the Pacific North. I dunno, there’s a bunch of acronyms. It’s not important. But they all refer to these oscillations of sea surface temperature at different tempo or scale, annual decal, multi decal.Jenny:Okay. And are we seeing a rapid change in those oceans right now relative to human impacts, or,David:I’m not aware of any rapid change. It’s more incremental. In fact, most of the global climate change is steady and incremental in nature, which doesn’t make for great headlines. The media focuses on these extreme weather events that may or may not be related to climate change. But most of the global climate change, like I said, is incremental in nature. But at some point, it passes a threshold beyond which we get some damage. We can only withstand so much heating, although it may not occur until several decades from now, which again, is not conducive to people doing something about it right now.Bob:Okay. Is the science, as you understand it, in terms of the Pacific and Southern Alberta, is it telling us that the multi decade, multi-year multi, maybe multi-decade droughts are going to be a reality? Do they have the ability to say that? At this point,David:Yes, but we can’t say when. Bob:No, I know. I understand that.David:Yeah, yeah. I mean, just the probability, our thousand year record, there was a multi-year prolonged drought in every century. The 20th century was the 19th thirties, the 19th century was 1850s and sixties. Every century has had its prolonged drought. It’s yet to occur in the 21st century. Just the probability.Bob:Okay. Are they, oh, sorry, go ahead.David:Yeah, but also that’s just in terms of the empirical evidence, the statistical probability. But there’s also the geophysics where we get these, these drivers, these determinants of drought, and there’s a bunch of them, and they’re all occurring at different wavelengths. If you know anything about spectral analysis or wavelengths, at some point they all line up and bang, you get this ideal ocean for a long drought.Jenny:Gotcha. There a convergence, I would call that, well, in this case, destructive interference. Are you seeing a convergence of those things in the modelling? Again, I know you can’t put a time on it, but are you at least seeing indications of those converging?David:And you mentioned modelling because the only information we have on the future is models.Jenny:Of course.David:We have no weather data for the future. We have no tree rings for the future. And even though models have their limitations, even though, and this is kind of a cliche, but all models are wrong, some are useful, and we know they’re wrong because we can’t possibly know what the future climate is going to be, but we can simulate the climate and we don’t even say predict. We can project what the future climate might be like.The problem is that because every model is likely wrong, we use a whole bunch of models. That’s the safe bet. That’s the most rigorous scientific approach. At our research center, we use output from a whole bunch of models. We even run our own model for Southern Alberta thanks to ENMAX. We look for consensus amongst the models, and nearly all the models will produce a multi-year drought in the future, but at different times, they all occur at different times. We can’t really say when it’s going to occur. It’s just that there is a high likelihood of a multi-year drought because nearly all the models will produce one.Jenny:If I were to do any forward modelling, remember I was a signal processor, the work that we would use, I can’t remember the term. It is an envelope like what you’d expect to be in the realm of possibility to narrow, like you said, these simulated annealing processes, let’s say. I guess my question is, are you finding that envelope is changing? Is there some indication that No. Okay.David:It’s not getting smaller. Ideally, would you would think the more research we did and the more models we have, the envelope would shrink, but it’s not. And the best explanation is most of the uncertainty is natural climate variability. We have a pretty good handle on how humans are affecting the climate, and we have a pretty good handle. We’re able to model the response to changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere. What’s difficult is modelling the natural climate variability and how these different drivers interact over time to produce more or less water or drought or higher and lower temperatures. Because even if you look and you can go online, there’s a bunch of websites that have the average temperature of the world every year, every month back to 1880. And you can see this big upward trend, but look more closely and it fluctuates from year to year. There is natural variability even at the global scale. And the more you scale down to smaller and smaller areas, there’s increasing natural variability. Of course, until at a regional scale, it’s pretty hard to detect climate change because there’s so much natural variability. And people complain when I’m giving talks in Vancouver, Toronto people, those prairie people, those farmers, they don’t believe in climate change. And I say, wait a minute, they don’t experience climate change. They experience year to year variability.Bob:They experience weather,David:They experience weather. We’re exposed to weather. Weather is real. Climate is abstractBob:Now. What I’m hearing in terms of drought, to get back to that, we know that the natural occurrence of these decade long or more or longer droughts is basically one a century to put a gross generalization on it.David:Exactly.What are the solutions and what are not? Key takeawaysBob (00:54:10):But we don’t quite know whether that once in a century, one in 100 years might turn into one of every 75 years or one in every 50 years. Is that a fair assessment of where we stand at this point in terms of getting down to this regional level?David:Sure. I wouldn’t say we don’t know because we do classify droughts according to their severity and duration, and we extract from the model the probability of a drought of a certain length in severity. We do that kind of analysis. But the fundamental problem is not so much the hazard is that we are adapted on, the prairie used to deal with a two year drought. Nearly everything we do equips us to deal with a two year drought and beyond two years. Oh, the reservoir is empty. Wow. Reservoirs are built the whole store, two years of water. If there’s no rain for two years, you’ve got this reservoir. But look at the old man reservoir in 2023, it was virtually empty. We’ve done a whole lot of historical adaptation to climate variability, but it equips us to deal with drought of about two, maybe three years in duration and beyond that we have to go to government for relief.Bob:Well, and the belief that the Alberta government wants to do is to basically build more storage, build more reservoirs to extend that period from maybe two years to a third year or maybe a fourth year, possiblyDavid:In dry climates. The default approach is irrigation and reservoirs. And this worked well for millennia, but I think that’s kind of old thinking. We need some more transformational adaptation to climate change. We have to in terms of lowering the demand as opposed…Bob:Well, that’s what happens is you build the storage and then you have more irrigation, which puts more stress on that storage, which means you want more storage, which then leads to more irrigation or municipal use or whatever it happens to be.David:Yeah, I mean, irrigation districts in Alberta are very efficient. They’ve really ramped up the efficiency of the application of water. But I think we need to pay more attention of means of retaining that water, not just in reservoirs, but in the soil on the land.Bob:Well, and the efficiency, as I understand it at this point, they’ve pretty much used up all the good efficiency measures in terms of using water more efficiently for irrigation in particular. There’s not much more they can then do than maybe a little bit more of what they’ve already done.David:Yeah, I’m sure you noticed in the irrigation podcast. I’m sure you heard about that. Yeah.Jenny:Well, I want to make sure that we honour your time here. I would love to, I’m sure Bob will too, want to offer some takeaways and then maybe leave you with some comments to offer. The key takeaways I had for this is that one of the main concerns or the ways we are going to experience climate change in the prairie provinces is through drought. That drought is our biggest risk in terms of our long-term access to water security and water quality. Our biggest draw is irrigation in Alberta. We have had some tributaries being closed off. We are having evidence of those, of that water insecurity coming into light that we don’t have. The local climate can be very specific, that it has a lot of variability. And those are the issues with nailing down the timing of these severe events that might cause us issues. And then I love that you spoke about climate risks is at the, well, maybe I’m not saying it right. Climate hazards is at the intersection of risks, vulnerability, risk and vulnerability. Is that right?David:And exposure.Jenny:And exposure. That was the word I missed. I think that’s one of the things that I would like to ask you as we’re potentially closing is you mentioned that you don’t see a growth model going away in our economy, but you said we can certainly grow in certain areas. From my perspective, as somebody who’s looking at the amount of land use that we have, adaptation you’ve said that we’ve done, I would love to see our governments invest in water regeneration to have some thoughts about how do we reforest, how do we just flipping the switch in that regard, it’s certainly growth, but growth in the sense of climate resiliency and climate stability, if you will. So I’m just curious from your perspective, if you could say, this is the area where I’d like to see growth. What does that look like for you?David:I mean, that makes perfect sense that we would want to invest in these climate resilient technologies and uses of water. And we haven’t talked about mitigation at all. That’s not my area, but I know that the more we slow climate change, the less adaptation we have to do. Although we don’t seem to be, well, like I said, that’s a different topic. Ideally, we would undertake actions, technologies, land uses that are both mitigative and adaptive. Wonderful. For example, there are farming practices whereby you can store carbon and you can store water. Right? Well, that’s mitigative and adaptive at the same time. That’s kind of a win-win,Jenny:Right?David:Yeah. Although it has to be economically viable,Jenny:Right? The potentially incentives for that type of, like you’re saying, both adaptation and mitigation strategies, right? Yeah.Okay. Bob, your turn. Let’s let you ask him some hit your last question home before we let him back to his family.Bob:I don’t think I’ll ask another question because we’re almost over time here. But you’ve done a good job, Jenny, summarizing what I got out of the conversation. And it’s been an excellent conversation, Dave. It’s been terrific. You’ve really expanded my understanding of where we are and where we’re probably going to end up if we don’t adapt, if we don’t mitigate the kinds of problems that we have with water and climate. Very much appreciative of you taking the time to chat with us, and hopefully you’ll be able to continue all the good work you have been doing because you certainly are adding a lot of valuable knowledge and expertise to the issues we face.David:Thanks, Bob. I can’t believe it’s been an hour. I was having so much fun that hour. Just,Jenny:Yeah. Is there anything we missed that you would’ve liked to touch on before we let you run, David?David:I don’t think so. I gave a TEDx talk. TEDx, yeah. Talk last spring and said it has to be motivational. I avoided the science because people don’t respond to facts. People respond emotionally.Jenny:Right?David:That’s why, like I said, the solution is a disaster because then people have an emotional response. And that’s why I tossed out the idea that the problem is consumption. We’re just consuming individually way too much. And I talked about the very small proportion of people who actually are attempting to under consume, and I expressed my admiration for them because I drive a 2012 gas guzzling Chevy Silverado, and I just love my fossil fuel lifestyle. We know the solutions and we know the adaptations. It’s just extremely difficult to get there.Jenny:Yeah, I’m sure we could have another conversation entirely because I’m left with a whole bunch of other questions in this, but I think the main thing for me is I think there’s other pressures that are going to come into this too. We talk about this fossil fuel lifestyle, and there are limits to that availability as well. That’s certainly going to be a limit from a availability perspective for it to continue. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, thank you so much. I’m taking you over time here. I hope you have a good rest of your afternoon. Thank you Bob Morrison for organizing this for us.Bob:Okay, thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Dave.Jenny:Thank you. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

Bob Morrison is welcomed back to discuss the second half of the series on Water in Southern Alberta. The series began with discussions on irrigation history, resource extraction impacts, and water management, featuring experts like Professor Shannon Stunden Bower, David Mayhood, and Dr. Trisha Stadnik. This episode features Dr. Brad Stelfox, a scientist and thought leader, who groundbreaking work has influenced land management across Alberta and beyond, ensuring a balance between development and ecological integrity. Brad was also a guest on The Gravity Well podcast, Season 2, Episode 2 where we discussed The Harms of Coal Mining in Southern, Alberta.Brad highlights the challenges of linking social, economic, and environmental models, emphasizing the need to understand trade-offs and prioritize sustainable land use. He discussed the degradation of natural capital in Alberta, particularly in the eastern lowlands and the foothills, due to excessive land use and the failure to account for environmental liabilities. The conversation also touched on the importance of the Eastern Slopes for water quality and quantity, advocating for careful land use management to preserve these critical areas.The podcast concluded with a call for a shift in economic models to prioritize natural capital to ensure a sustainable future for Alberta’s landscapes.Re-Introductions to Dr. Brad Stelfox and the Water in Southern Alberta PodcastJenny (00:00:05):Welcome to the Gravity Well Podcast with me, Jenny Ami. I host the gravity well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty seven and Metis districts five and six. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples are created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature, and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide the Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants either individually or collectively do not necessarily represent those of the gravity well. This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see and hear, remember to like and subscribe.Good morning folks. I am very pleased to be welcoming back Bob Morrison to the studio. Bob has been working hard over the last few months to generate the second half of our series water in Southern Alberta. Much gratitude to you, Bob. Without you, this second half would not be happening. First of all, thank you for that.Bob:You’re welcome.Jenny:Yeah, I’m just going to quickly, we’ll run through where we’re at. We started this series in May of this year. We started with Professor Shannon Stunden Bower and special areas expert Jordan Christiansen. They discussed the history of irrigation with us. Then we discussed the impacts of resource extraction on water with limnologist, David Mayhood, Dr. Younes Alila, who’s a forestry expert and engineer and environmental law expert, expert Dave Unger. We learned about the Water Act and the water licence transfer system from Professor Arlene Kwasniak, a law professor, and Davin McIntosh, who’s a water transfer expert. We discussed the water cycle and modelling with Dr. Trisha Stadnik of the University of Calgary. We engaged with Watershed and Lake Stewardship current and former leaders, Mike Murray, Susan Ellis and Tim Romanow. We listened to Dryland, Irrigated, and Ranch land farmers, Dwight Popowich, Julian Vandenberg, and John Smith about the changes they’re seeing on the farming landscape.And then finally, I was joined by Markham Hislop to have a conversation with Derek Connick about the impacts of climate change or water on insurance. We have come a long way, and now we’re in the second half where we’re helping to help unwind all of what we learned and take it forward. I’m very pleased to, and I recommend you please have a look at those seven episodes as we dive into these next ones. Now I’m pleased to invite to the stage Dr. Brad Stelfox, who I’ll lead with. Brad has for more than 35 years, Brad has been a driving force in reshaping how Albertans and the world understand cumulative effects of land use. A scientist, educator, and thought leader, Dr. Stelfox, has dedicated his career to helping policy makers, industry leaders, and communities make informed decisions about environmental sustainability. His groundbreaking work has influenced land management across Alberta and beyond ensuring a balance between development and ecological integrity. Brad was also a guest on The Gravity Well podcast for episode two this year where we discussed the harms of coal mining in Southern Alberta. Welcome back, Brad.Brad:Thank you very much, and thanks for the invitation. Good to talk to both of you, Bob and Jenny.Jenny:Great, it’s greatly appreciated, Brad, your episode has been very popular. People really resonated with the thought about being somebody who’s been working in water and land use for decades and suffering the consequences of the average person not paying attention to these vital things that we do. Thank you very much. I’m really pleased to hear more from you today. And with that, I’m going to let Bob lead us off with some questions for you. Thank you.Bob:Great. Thanks, Jenny. No, we were hoping to hear from Brad first in terms of his experiences.Jenny:Oh, yeah, go ahead. Bob would like you to lead us off with some of your experiences, please.Brad:Okay. Well, I’m Albertan, born in Edmonton, but grew up west of Edmonton on a small ranch northwest of Stony Plain. Yeah, my university background is primarily as a zoologist at U of A. And I had an opportunity after my undergrad to go to East Africa and look at land use, particularly livestock and wildlife in Kenya where I lived for several years, and also set up a university campus and taught there and then came back to Canada and where my wife and I raised a family, had an opportunity to go down to Jackson Hole and work at the Teton Science School in Grand Teton National Park, looking at environmental relationships dynamics, primarily environmental education where I taught from basically six year old’s to 96 year old’s. That was thoroughly enjoyable. We moved back to Canada and that’s where I started working with the provincial government for a few years, heading up the Wildlife Ecology Program, then what was called the Alberta Environmental Centre, and then branched out on my own, starting to build some of the early cumulative effects models which tried to look at how a collection of overlapping land uses were reshaping the landscape of Alberta and other provinces.And that of course, led to some opportunities with my colleagues who really helped build some wonderful software to look at these relationships in countries like United States and Australia, parts of Europe, southeast Asia. That’s kept me busy over most of my career. Bob is looking at the interface between humans and their landscapes primarily through all the land uses that makes humans human, I guess.Jenny:Yeah, that’s wonderful. I’ll just offer that I saw you speak in Bragg Creek where you were showing just that how you would put road use and agriculture use and oil and gas and et cetera, et cetera, into these models to help us see how they add together and how they can cause what I would call deconstructive interference on the landscape.Brad:Right? Yeah, that’s a good way of describing it. Yeah, there’s a lot going on and Albert’s a very busy placeJenny:For sure. Okay, go for it, Bob.What are the gaps between different types of models generated?Bob (00:07:24):Okay, well let’s start off with modelling because you’ve done quite extensive mound of that. And there are economic models, there are water management models out there, there’s some, I gather environmental models in terms of what’s the impact of one thing or the other. We’re not doing well in some cases on political models in terms of how decisions should be made. Where are the gaps in terms of making all those models work together that you see?Brad:That’s a good question. I mean, I just say there’s just so many models out there and I think we as society, struggle with scale and how we relate these models together. There’s thousands of models that just deal with how water moves for the landscape or how wildlife walk through habitat or how people select the homes they live in or how our climate may change, whether it’s the next forecast or the next 12 hours or two weeks or next 18 decades. There’s an abundance of models out there. I think one of the historical problems that we as modellers have had is in linking effectively social, economic and environmental models together. And our particular focus with the work that I’ve done and with the colleagues that I’ve worked with is trying to help people understand at a strategic scale that humans and their land uses all create benefits. They create social benefits. It could be, okay if we have a commercial logging operation area, what does this mean to royalties and rents in that area that might help fund all sorts of infrastructure that’s critical to the community or just build a community of people that are making adequate money so that they can live together and have community. Those are examples very roughly of social benefits. Other people for any given area want to know how land uses create economic benefits. Again, the jobs, the royalties, the rents, how does this contribute to GDP?And those things are critically important. And I think most probably of listeners have heard of tryout approaches that are trying to help people understand the social, the economic and environmental effects. What we’ve tried to do is a good strategic job of quantifying social dynamics, economic dynamics, but mainly try to focus on how do land uses affect natural capital or environmental variables. The landscape habitat, carbon in the soil, the wildlife themselves or populations, biodiversity water, both quality and quantity, and help people understand that all land uses, I guess without exception, create benefits, social and economic benefits. I don’t know of any exception to that. They also create liabilities. Where we think a lot of historic models may be struggle a little bit is that they don’t do a good job of highlighting the trade-offs, the liabilities. My personal belief is too many models that are used by industry and government are looking for win-win win scenarios.We’re going to have all the force we sector logging and energy and mining and agriculture, whether it be livestock or crops and recreation settlements. And if we’re wise about it, we are not going to compromise water quality or water quantity or biodiversity or carbon. And I don’t know of any examples on earth historically where that’s the case. It’s all about trade offs and many governments, and I think the current administration in Alberta is basically spun a narrative that smart people with smart models can figure out how we can have it all and we can’t. Our modelling approach has been to help people understand that there are trade-offs and that Alberta or any other jurisdiction needs to figure out what their priorities are and to make hard decisions about where are we going to get our jobs from, where are we going to produce our food?Where are we going to get our wood fiber from? How important is water? And if so, where are we going to get it from? Same with biodiversity. And instead what I’m seeing is a hyper exponential growth in almost all land uses and a narrative message from much of industry and certainly government that if we’re just careful about this, we can do it all and have it all, or in fact, we can’t. Any objective examination of the quality and quantity of water in Alberta today compared to when this place became a province in 1905 or biodiversity or soil carbon shows an absolutely profound loss of natural capital. Clearly we traded off a lot, and I think the rate at which we’re trading off what remains, what little remains is alarmingly fast. Yeah, just a few thoughts on modelling. Anyway, wellJenny:Now…Bob:Go ahead, Jenny.Jenny:Oh, I was just going to reflect back a little bit of what I heard. From what I’m seeing, and you and I have talked about, I’m a liability expert as well, and the first rule I’ve learned is we don’t talk about liability as much as possible. This is part of the problem is we’re not accounting for those genuine risks to a continued freshwater source if we continue to take more than the system can allow. That’s what I think you’re describing. Is that correct, Brad, that we are taking more from the system in Alberta that will allow for the water and biodiversity to recover? Is that a good summary?Brad:Yeah, land use, I have no problem with logging and mining and oil and gas and people and residential patterns and recreation. As long as we have people we’re going to have land use. The problem is the number of people that we have has grown quickly and the average significantly normal human, they’re per capita resource use. Just looking at the three of us compared to our parents or our grandparents or our great grandparents, the water, the carbon, the land, the electricity, our footprint is large compared to previous generations. The basic equation is number of people times per capita resource equals true effects. And as Jenny indicated clearly is with so much of the historical work we have, I think intentionally externalized natural capital, there is this trade off and we do not factor it in. And if we’re going to have people, we’re going to have land use, we will be using carbon, we will be using water where there will be losses of biodiversity, and those systems can support a certain amount, we could call out the interest, but we’re not taking water away at any sort of natural interest rate.We are profoundly cutting into the capital. We’re literally choosing what this province has been around 120 years. I guess this year we have a profound loss in the capital of biodiversity. I think many Albertans would be amazed to know that pre-European times, if you just looked at mammals, they probably native mammals. That would be all mammals except for humans or pets and livestock that yeah, they’d probably, yeah, we’re not doing as well as we were say three, 400 years ago because three or 400 years ago, they were like 99.2% of all biomass or numbers. In Alberta, there were people, first nations and they had dogs.Most people would say, yeah, we’re down, but we’re not down to 90% of, or 80 or 70 or 60 or 50 or 40 or 30 or 20. And a lot of people in Alberta would say, if you’ve got friends in Argentina or Germany, come over to Alberta. It’s this beautiful natural place. And maybe biodiversity or wildlife would be part of the attraction to bring them over. But we’re not down. It’s not like we have 90% of what we had and we’re not down at 30%. We’re not down at 20% of, we’re not even down at 10% today we’re maybe 4% of what we had pre-European. And the severely normal Albertan doesn’t get it. Part of it is shifting baselines because this stuff, we’ve been losing it at maybe one and a half percent per annum. Very few people effectively see these one and a half percent changes per annum.And of course we have some biodiversity, maybe white-tailed deer or coyotes that are doing really well. But on mass, we just wiped out our native biodiversity and replaced it with humans and livestock and pets, and we’ve largely lost our natural capital and water, both quality and quantity. I mean, the water we have today is just unbelievably different. Qualitatively, many parents that want to throw their kids into creeks today, they get quite sick, especially in the southern half of the province and most of our creeks and the prairies, they’re just gone. I mean, they’ve been ploughed over and put into canals for irrigation. This goes back to what Jenny said is all land uses require the use of natural capital. We externalize it. We don’t factor it into long-term equations because for the most part, Albertans and their governments are, they’re me here now type of people. I’m an Albertan and most of my friends are Albertans. I love Albertans. But our actions tell us that we’re not really concerned about our kids or our grandkids. We’re concerned about ourselves, and we’re not concerned about regional landscapes, we’re concerned about where we live, and it’s a me here now type of mentality, which is fundamentally externalized natural capital. We have grown economically, unbelievably, we have very affluent people, but in a province that has been mined of most of its natural capital and all evidence is that we’re going to accelerate that rate.Where are we in the most trouble with respect to land use?Bob (00:18:34):Well, most of us see natural capital and biodiversity and all those things. When we go to a park, we go out to the mountains, we go out to Banff, we go to our local park and walk around and say, oh, isn’t this wonderful? Where are in the southern part of the province? Where are we most in trouble? If you compare, say the mountains to the foothills, to the parkland areas we have to the prairies, where are we having the greatest problems from what you can see?Brad:Well, that’s a good question. I would suggest, I would think about it in terms of, let’s say if you’ve got a bank account full of natural capital, whether it be water quality or water quantity or biodiversity or soil carbon. In southern Alberta, there is a very noticeable gradient from west high elevation to east low elevation hard. I guess the good news is we’re not losing a lot in the eastern lowland parts because it’s already empty. There’s nothing to lose. Okay? If you have a bank account, you got a hundred pennies in it, and two weeks ago you ain’t gotten any more money in that bank account. I don’t think you’re worried about losing anything because nothing to lose. The biodiversity of the water quality, the water quantity in the lower eastern portions of Alberta is gone. I’m not too worried about losing a lot there.The only way we could move is to talk about how we could reclaim it, and then people will point to an individual species of a bird or a mammal or reptile that’s doing reasonably well. And yeah, that’s true. But if you look across the board, the full communities, whether it be insects or birds, mammals, amphibians in these landscapes that have been heavily transformed by agriculture, water quality, water quantity, and biodiversity is basically gone. The ones that are at greatest risk right now, I would argue are the foothills and the mountains where we seem to have this attitude that we want to love them to death, we want to recreate in them. We’ve got this human population that’s growing at 2% and quite affluent, and they want to recreate in motorized and non-motorized ways. We have a protected areas network still quite small in many ways, larger than other people’s landscapes and others going from Waterton, Kananaskis, Banff, and Jasper, there’s places to go.Those places are full of land use, but they’re primarily recreational. Although there’s a lot of residential too. If you think of places like Banff, Kananaskis has got a lot of residential. We have a bow wave of rural, residential and acreage owners like what I used to do or I used to live. These landscapes in many ways are critical. It comes back to us soon. One of the key topics of this interview, which is water. I dunno, what I think this province gets must be seven, 800 billion cubic meters of water fall on it every year, and about three quarters of that evaporates. It’s not available for land use, it’s back in the atmosphere. And we probably have 130 to 150 billion cubic meters that will flow in streams and rivers or slowly in our aquifers, and then we use some of that. But that water, which in all lands require water, we have a part of Alberta in the southwest part where it’s high in elevation and it’s colder, and a good chunk of that precipitation falls in the form of snow and it accumulates through these winter months.It gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then in the spring it warms up and we have this fertile discharge of water, and that is critical to our fish, our wildlife, and also our land use. And southern Alberta, we’ve got logging and we’ve got agriculture, both crops and livestock and mining and oil and gas and transportation and residential. We’ve got it all and they all need water. And those east slopes are absolutely critical. And it seems like somehow Albertans have forgot their original conversation with the federal government when those resources transferred to us as a province, which everyone back then knew in the absence of all the amazing science we have today from the Pomeroy’s and Sauchyn’s and others of just how important these slopes are to water. Yeah, they’re there. It’s an important land use, just let ‘em be, let them do their dynamics, let them accumulate that water, leave the organics in the soil so that some of that water can be absorbed and replenish aquifers and allow them to deliver profound quantities of high quality water for downstream land uses. And now we are incrementally eroding that with every time we put more acreages or more roads or more people hiking that pee and poop in that landscape and more cattle.But in architectural sense, we have all of this logging that is profoundly changing the hydrology of that area and its infiltration rates. We’re just treating these slopes as some sort of bank account we want to draw down in one generation, and we are drawing it down, it is being destroyed at a stunning rate at the same time, probably no more than maybe one point a half percent per year. Then if you’ve got a hundred pennies in your bank account and someone takes out one point a half, next year you’ve got 98.5, the average severely normal, Albertan doesn’t detect that, and on it goes, but over a few generations it’s all gone. And we’re mining it down so quickly right now, in my view anyway.How can ranching be viable in a water limited Southern Alberta?Bob:And I know in terms of ranching, and you came from a ranch originally, that there are many ranchers who would say, yeah, we agree, but tell us what to do and make sure that we can still survive as ranchers. How do you somehow accomplish that with a land use that’s already established? How do you make sure that those folks can still be viable unless you’re going to kick them off the land and still be able to protect the environment in the way that they would like to protect it?Brad:Well, I think first you admit if you believe in an empirical world in science, that it’s not protected now. It’s not a matter of we need to protect it for something that’s coming. We’re already dealing with something that is being profoundly transformed. Your questions still bang on Bob. I think you need to recognize that that landscape can receive some land use. The first thing is, what should the east slopes before? I mean, maybe their destiny is we just log the heck out of them because we as Albertans can just accept completely damaged water quality. Okay, that’s a decision I guess, in a society if they want to make that decision. And others would say, well, no, it’s priority land use as oil and gas or cattle or recreation or coal. But right now the answer is we think it can sustain all of it and it can’t.A blunt conversation like the Alberta Land Stewardship Act was designed to do, which is recognizing that we need landscape legislation that says you can’t do everything everywhere all the time, the time. You need to figure out what the priorities of the landscapes are. And of course, in the East slopes, and even Elsa said, that’s a great example, it’s for watershed protection. And then you could ask the question of what land uses can occur. If you did that, then I think the answer would be what land uses could be compatible with water quality and water quantity because there’s no part of Alberta that gives us more water quality and quantity than southwest Alberta. And then you could look at cattle and crops and logging and mining and rural residential in that context. If we’re losing it already, I think the first thing we need to do is stand back and say, we’re already in trouble. We have to start looking at reclaiming these landscapes, and we have to instead of growing, because all these land uses are growing, like logging is a land use that even though I think it’s over allocated, it’s growing. We’re finding ways…Jenny:At an accelerated, right? It’s accelerated growth, not just growing. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Keep going.Brad:It is, yeah. And we already have a bow wave of rural residents that are living up and down the east slopes, and that’s growing. And we have an oil and gas sector, and many people would like to see it grow. Coal mining would be an example. We could conceivably mine commercially valuable deposits of coal right up the east slopes. That’s an area that has been seriously entertained. As everyone in Alberta knows, in recreation, we could say, well, we need another 15 or 20 Canmore that be wonderful, and we could increase the number of livestock on it. If it were me, I would say what land uses would be compatible with water quality and quantity? Then those are different things. Some land uses agriculture is massive on the water use side. And I would say I’m quite impressed by many, not all, but many of the local ranchers who do a pretty good job of putting cattle on these foothill landscapes and keeping ‘em out of streams and keeping their densities low.And they’re there and encouraging native grasses and the soil dynamics that let water infiltrate, but not all of ‘em. Many do. But those cattle, like the others in Alberta, I think we’ve got about four or 5 million head of cattle. They all go to feedlot systems. And those feedlots need, well, every cow needs to eat two and a half percent of its body weight per day. And they’re not getting that from feeding on any field. They’re in feedlots. They get that from literally tens of millions of hectares of cropland that are grown, much of it even on the irrigation side, which needs water. I’m a pretty big advocate of sustainable cattle ranching. I’m not a big advocate of feedlot systems, but our livestock system in Alberta is, I’d say entirely based on feedlots, at least in terms of number of animals that are processed well over 98% and tremendous water.We have the cattle ranchers going, we need feedlots, we need good quality water, let’s not damage it upstream. I get that. But they’re by far the biggest users. And then of course, irrigated crops for humans too. That’s a lot of humans. I would be looking at what land uses can exist and more importantly, how to conduct them. And I think quickly you’d start looking at logging and forestry and say, well, first of all, I think we’d back up the eastern slopes in their forest. These are disturbance ecosystems. There’s nothing wrong with disturbance. Ever since glacial ice sheets retreated, what, 14,000 years ago, these systems have been kicked in the midsection regularly by fire, by insects, by floods, by droughts. There’s nothing wrong with disturbances, and we still have them. And because of climate change, we’re actually radically changing the intensity and the frequency of natural disturbances.It’s now an anthropogenic system. That’s a problem in and of itself. But in addition to that, we have all these land uses, which are disturbances. The disturbances are additive. It’s not like we’ve removed natural disturbances and just put human made ones on. We are logging at a very high intensity. We need roads to get up there. It’s causing immense amount of sediment, which is going into our streams. Bigger streams, bigger streams, yet rivers and downstream, we are removing so much carbon, the amount of carbon that’s being able to decompose and maintain organics and soils is going down. We’re doing a poor job of holding and absorbing and replenishing that water into aquifers. Logging, there’s just too much of it. And we’re not conducting best management practices, even though the fourth sector and the government would say we are, I think there’s often a fairly good agreement as to what best management practices should be in terms of, for example, how many residual green trees should be left in cut blocks, how big cut blocks should be?What is the rotation age? How far back from large creeks and rivers should we go before we log anything? Our practices in reality are different than the best management practices on paper. And then best management practices, I would say are essentially useless if industry doesn’t actually implement them. And if there isn’t an enforcement to monitor, then you don’t have a good system. We have a lot of logging, but when I look at it, it is not configured in a way that fundamentally respects the value of water. And I mean just the number of roads, the number of crossings, the number of hung culverts, the amount of sediment getting into it, the shift in reduction in our age class structure, and the changes in biodiversity. That’s just be an example of one land use that could be conducted in slopes, but I would say at far lower rates and with fundamentally different practices.And the same with mining if you want mining, but why would you put mines at the headwaters, these water towers that everyone realizes nothing’s more important than water. Why would we want any land you said is going to interfere with the quality of water in these headwaters? And why would we let off highway vehicles up there? Why would we allow in municipal lands, acreage owners to build right on parent habitat? First of all, it’s a liability for them and floods. And secondly, those landscapes are critical to flood dynamics, and they need to be allowed to do their own thing. What I would suggest, Bob, is a bottom up by a physical strategy that recognizes these ecological processes and say, okay, how much disturbance can they take? What land uses could we fit in? And how much of them, and in the east slopes, I just can’t imagine where we’d be more careful with those discussions than there I would think.Bob:Well, wasn’t that the purpose of the Eastern Slopes policy back in the 1970s?Brad:Yeah,What is the land’s carrying capacity and in what direction do we need to go?Bob (00:34:33):Okay, what’s our carrying capacity and where should things go?Brad:There were a bunch of thought leaders. I called ‘em the Lorne Fitch’s and Cheryl Bradley’s of the world who back then, of course, those two were part of those conversations and people could very clearly see the degradation in natural capital. It was occurring on e slopes. There was some very progressive encouraging discussion about the role of e slopes and that what we could do or couldn’t do. But at the same time, Alberta is a, for the most part, pretty right-leaning, economic driven. This is a province where we need to see our economy grow rapidly. Land uses need to expand so we can attract risk capital and we can get high profit margins. And I mean, just look at the land uses we have today in Alberta, whether it be forestry, energy, agriculture, transportation, residential recreation, or I don’t know, whatever.Today they’re all, if you read their business plans of either industry or government, they’re all unacceptable today to their own sectors and why they’re all unacceptably too small. They all have to grow, and they’ve all experienced exponential growth, but they’re unacceptable. You look at their five or 10 or 20 year pounds, they all, no one says, we’re going to hold our own. We’re all going to grow. It was against that backdrop that those early discussions on the East Slope said, okay, we just can’t allow that to happen. But we’ve had a series of governments that said, we’re smarter than the rest of humans on earth. We can make it all. We can have our cake and eat it too. We can have win-win, win win, win win scenarios. Just because we’re so smart, we can put another 300,000 residential homes and right here habitat, and as long as we do it well, there won’t be a problem.We can put another 15 coal mines into the headwaters of the East slope. And as long as they all adopt best managed practice, there’s no problem. We can put more cattle, we can mine these landscapes for gravel. We can have rural residential urban sprawl. It’s just, nothing’s going to be adversely affected because we’re just so damn smart. And the evidence suggests that there’s no truth to that at all. But it’s a great mantra, civilian norm, Albertan goes, yeah, that’s what being an Albertan is. We’re just smarter than everyone. And how else could I buy my fourth pickup unless this whole system continues to grow. The whole system is based on this insufferable, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow and solve at the expense of natural capital. If we can do that elsewhere, we can certainly do it for the East Slopes sickness.Land Stewardship Laws (aka the Laws of Nature)Jenny (00:37:26):I’m wondering, Brad, if you can unpack a little bit, you touched on something that is obviously very close to my heart, which is the land use management programs. I would describe that work. I had a view of it when I was in the industry and we were looking at, I’ll say, I’ll be specific. We were looking at caribou habitats and we were looking at restoring those habitats by 2060. And part of the issue with those conversations I saw is that it’s very, what does that mean for humans? We hear this concept of species at risk, and I understand it to be that’s an indication of ecological health. And if those species are intact, then your ecological system is intact. That’s a very, I would say for the average Albertan, that’s not really something that is resonates with them. I’m going to share a short story. I was at the water and land conference for the Athabasca Fort Chippewan First Nation in September, and they were talking about indigenous land rights, like access to traditional ways of living. But the challenge I see when you talk about biodiversity losses, we’ve also had indigenous community losses as well. I look at, and I’m curious how you would describe this, Brad, because I look at all of us living in a basin should really think about having those traditional land access to those traditional land rights. Meaning if we don’t have caribou, then there isn’t a sustainable land, or sorry, a sustainable food system, let’s say, in our watershed. And I would say the same thing for trout species. That’s another example of species at risk where, that to me is the purpose of those. And I think that’s often lost on people that when we talk about species at risk, we’re ultimately talking about the human species being at risk. And you already talked about how we are overstretched right now. We’re not in a position where we have this option to say, well, let’s just keep going. We are keeping going, but it’s going to lead to catastrophe, meaning we will have a breakdown in our water system. I’m thinking of, I’ll be specific around Lethbridge, we just heard Chris Spearman explain that we’ve got piped water a hundred meters around Lethbridge, the same thing in Edmonton since the spill that was experienced in Wabamun Lake and Two Hills all the way out to those areas.That’s 150 kilometer radius around Edmonton that is sustained by Edmonton’s water system. These are the ways that we have taken more from the bank account than we can sustain, which will lead to catastrophe ultimately if we do not make restoration the center of our economy. Is that a fair summary of what you’re arguing? We need to look at these land uses and say, which are the things that need to cease and which are the things that we can sustain in a way that will serve us both locally? And I don’t even know if globally will be an option if we do let it break. I don’t know if you can sort of clarify what I said here in terms of how do we help people understand what it means to be restoring and what that looks like in terms of those difficult conversations.Brad:The Alberta Land Stewardship Act, and I can’t even remember when it came out, I want to say 15, 20 years ago, it seems like yesterday it was on the bus piece of legislation that was supposed to ride over top of all other types of legislation and crystallize precipitate the conversation, Jenny, you just talked about. And it started it. But I think once, and I saw a fair bit of appetite for it at the community level or for the severely normal Albertan. But I think once industry and government understood that that conversation would lead to, Hey, we have to stop growing the total amount of water. We take out the total number of cubic meters of wood. We harvest the total amount of cubic meters of natural gas or conventional or shale gas or whatever that we extract that there needs to be a limit maybe on our livestock population.People started, some people said, well, you know what, this could mean that we need a limit on number of people. And everyone got, oh my God, who said that? It became a very awkward conversation and the initial efforts within the land use framework to do this work well and show the trade-offs were just politically, they’re just non palatable. And I also saw, and unfortunately I think I detected that people could have that conversation theoretically, but in their own watershed, and of course it’s another person, people Albertan say, when I’m in the watershed, there’s never been an Albertan’s ever got out of the watershed. We’re always in the watershed, should remind ourselves. But anyway, when you start talking about people’s individual watersheds, it could be the upper bow or it could be Red Deer or Athabasca, that there needs to be trade-offs in terms of growth opportunities, in terms of the primary resource sectors.People became very quiet and would ask, well, what does this mean to the funds coming into my municipality or my job, or maybe even the performance of their investments in the stock market? It just reminded me in a very sobering way that this is a fundamentally difficult, maybe impossible conversation for humans. Only a very small fraction of them seem to be able to be willing to actually change their behaviour today to not only stop the growth of these land uses, but as Jenny was saying, how do we put money and effort and time into reclaiming them so that we might have streams in the future, which are the ones that our grandparents talked about putting their kids in or drinking water that is not treated chemically or physically or being able to see the suite of wildlife.I’ll just say we’ve lost 96% of our native wildlife, native mammals and birds are very similar insects. We really don’t know. We’re sitting at with a grade of F minus right now. Maybe we want to reclaim it back to a C. Well, that would take tens of billions of dollars. And most people, they might think it’s a good idea in theory, but the effort and the money, they’re going, no, my primary concerns are the flame’s going to win tonight, and what kind of pizza am I going to order? More important things like that. People struggle with this conversation, immense thatHow do we address the most damaged lands?Bob (00:44:54):Well, you’ve hit upon two things there that are very much interconnected. First of all, can people actually manage their land the way they probably should, at least in terms of their own self-interest and also in terms of the overall societal good? And the whole question of in floodplain management, they talk about a strategic retreat from floodplains that is, we’re already developed these floodplains. How do we somehow get the worst potential damaged areas out in terms of the land use? And I know that after the Calgary flood, the provincial government actually did go in and buy out some of the most threatened properties just so that we could at least reduce some of the impact. And you’ve hit upon this whole question of how do you get people to understand that and then be able to willingly talk about those non palatable at this point?Brad:Yeah.Bob:Well, that is what, are you enough of a sociologist as opposed to a zoologist to be able to answer that question?Brad:Well, I was one of those guys that had my house severely damaged by that flood living in Sunnyside in Calgary at the time. Isn’t it interesting, and I’ve heard estimates that that was the single most expensive catastrophe in the history of Alberta in terms of the total cost. Some people said it was 4 billion, I think it was 9 billion. Anyway, it was a major one, just inconvenienced a lot of people and destroyed a lot of floodplain infrastructure. And yeah, there’s some of it, maybe 2% that’s been removed since then. But isn’t it interesting after that event, I would bet anyone that for every house or piece of infrastructure that’s been removed from floodplains, and we’re not talking about Alberta, but just southern Alberta, I would say it’s a 10 to one ratio. We’re building 10 for every one we’ve reclaimed. That event has had no effect.All you have to do is hop in a car and start driving up and down not only the main stem rivers, but the smaller trips on the elbow and Bragg Creek and Sheep Creek, and just look at all the new driveways and new well pads or cut block access roads that are going up and down riparian. I have seen no evidence of a reduction in the amount of infrastructure in the province of Alberta going into floodplains despite this teeny meanie, teeny little 8 billion flood that happened in Calgary once upon a time. Now that was, I’m trying to use hyperbole here, hopefully effectively, but that was an event some people should have heard about or experienced. Maybe they saw it in the news, but it was just way too small an event to get anyone interested in doing anything than try to mitigate it by saying the solution isn’t getting out of the floodplain. The solution is paying TransAlta to manage water volume so that they don’t release water or to build a big or dam face on the Glenmore or to have off river storage like SR one outside of Bragg Creek. The answer is to tame mother nature not to get our infrastructure out of the flood plane.What will collapse look like?Jenny (00:48:42):Right? We’re still solving the infrastructure or over land use problem with more land use solutions.One of the questions I have then, because like you said, we’re refusing to have this conversation, let’s put it that way. We’ve decided that we’re going to keep burning the flame at both ends and keep going with this. From your experience, from your knowledge, Brad, where do you think the areas will show up first? I’ll be specific. I look at any natural gas, oil sands, coal mining, gravel mine sites and know that they are at the worst quality for the highest damage to the ecology going forward. The cost to extract them is getting so expensive for the reward that it is just not valuable, add that the rest of the world is now rapidly moving into renewables, that demand is also falling as well. To me, those are some of the ways that I think that this conversation will be forced upon Albertans. Let’s say from your understanding of, as you were talking about from example feedlots, is that a place where you anticipate will be where we will see a breakdown? Can you say from, you talked about scale from a scale perspective, can you highlight the areas where you think Alberta might feel the pinch and be forced to move in a more restorative manner, if you will?Brad:I remain stunned that Albertans don’t respond to the signals they see, and we can pick on any land use, but Jenny, you just talked about feedlots. Let’s look at those. And it goes up and down year to year, decade to decade. But often we have around 4 million ahead of cattle, and we generally have, we’ve recently grown into Ford of approaching 5 million head of humans in this province too. But they outweigh us, I think probably six to one, and all our cattle with very rare exception go through feedlots. And on the provincial herd, about 25, 20 5%, about one out of every four cows or beef. Are you going to go into a feedlot in any given year? Okay, we’re processing one and a half million head per year in feedlots. That’s more cattle biomass than we have the whole weight of all humans in this province.And those animals need good water. The ranching community and rightfully so, says, I’m really concerned about what’s going on upstream. It might be like, I don’t want coal mining happening because of selenium, and those are very legitimate concerns. But if anyone wants to just go out and look at the quality of water coming into feedlots and the quality of water leaving feedlots, you’d be stunned. It’s already, we’ve lost it. And that is especially in feedlot alley. And of course we’ve literally got tens of thousands of lots in Alberta, depending on their scale. Of course, we’ve got the big ones that can hold 20, 30,000 animals, but we’ve got so many smaller ones too. But the water quality that exits to the east moving downstream out of feedlots is just, in my view, horrible. And the watershed report cards tell us that, but they \say, you know what?It’s holding its own or it hasn’t deteriorated. But I mean, if you’ve got a D minus, there’s not much lower. You can go in a report card, right? And the severely normal Albertan just accepts that. If I was from Saskatchewan, I might wonder why the water is not very good, and they should, and I think they do. But we already have this massive degradation of water quality, whether it be sediment or organics or pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers, growth hormones. The whole cornucopia is there. Myself, I’d go, I’m pro livestock, I think we should have a livestock sector. I think we should have a lot of ranch gate or farm gate sale of cattle. I think we should significantly reduce the population. I don’t think it’s Alberta’s job to feed every human, but when you talk to the Alberta Cattle Commissions or Alberta beef producers are going to go, yeah, there’s 9 billion people on earth and the population’s growing.We have a responsibility. And you walk out of that door and you go into the next door and there’s all the oil and gas people and say, well, they’ve got 8 billion people and we’re cooking nine and their per capita demand for hydrocarbons growing. We have a responsibility, an ethical, maybe even a religious responsibility to energize these people. And the same with coal, and the same with everything. And there’s 9 billion people, and I represent the tourism boards. I want them all visiting the headwaters of the bow every day because my goodness, our province is beautiful. Wouldn’t that be nice? It’d become wealthy, and of course it would be no adverse effect. And it goes on and on and on. The problem isn’t the land uses per se, it’s just the intensity and the amount and the province of Alberta hasn’t changed by a square centimeter in area. It’s the same province it was in 1905, but the land use has gone up by multiple orders of magnitude. It goes back that base equation, total number of people times per capita resource use. Whether it be water or distance travelled or carbon or food or oil and gas, it’s just we’re using, whether looking at Bob or Jenny or Brad, if we were average Albertans, we’re using probably seven or eight times as much resource per capita as our grandparents.And the province hasn’t changed at all in size. Oh.Bob:Brad,Brad:I couldn’t hear you, Jenny.Bob:Brad, in terms of the extensive experience you’ve had, where have you seen successes and in terms of people being willing to first of all talk about these non palatable and be able to actually do something about it?Brad:Well, I don’t think I have a very encouraging response to that important question where in my own experience where I’ve seen communities with tremendous commitment actually doing something would probably be the ole region of India, where I worked for a bit in an area that allowed all their land uses to grow, and particularly fueled by more water because they over the previous decades had discovered the ability to drill their aquifers. It was an area that was basically low intensity agriculture, sustainable been going on for probably thousands of years. And then foreign aid from Canada and Europe and the United States came in and said, you know what? If you guys could just start using borehole, you’d be much better off. Tens of thousands of bore holes go in, food production goes up, population explodes. Yeah, family size goes down, but youth survivorship explodes up. Populations are growing now at four and 5%.Aquifers get drained, crops fail, people starve, but you can’t, when you’re starving, you’ll eat whatever’s around. They ate everything they could. Vegetation was gone, no vegetation. The soils got eroded and it went back to rock. And then it was in the aftermath of that, and others were invited into Look at that. And I saw people committed to doing something, and I thought, wow, I couldn’t imagine a more blunt signal. Basically everyone that anyone knew was dead, and my goodness, these people were committed. Now at this point, they’re dealing with rock. They wanted rock to turn into soil, and they wanted soil to turn into vegetation, and they thought vegetation could be eaten by humans, and then they are working. They have people out on the ground working with particles of soil just to try and move this particle here so that maybe a water droplet might stay there for six seconds, not two. I saw immense commitment. Now, I don’t think there’s any hyperbole in that narrative, but the point I’m trying to make is I’m stunned at how bad s**t has to be before anyone seems to go beyond rhetoric and want to do something about it. But those people were actually serious.Jenny:Right. It’s fascinating. Like you said, how low do we have to go before we finally change? And yeah, it seems like we aren’t there yet, at least in Southern Alberta. We’re still going to play this game. But I do think that those pressures are coming, Brad, I don’t know how they’re accumulating, if you will. It is different pressures from different areas that will potentially lead to one of these catastrophes. Like you said, when we had our conversation about water transfers with Davin Macintosh, the one example he used where the fit for allocation system broke was in a feedlot. That was the precise example he used that there was not enough water to provide for them who were lower licence or lower ranking in the fit for model, and therefore the ranchers had to make those trade-offs to make sure that those feedlots were able to sustain themselves. I definitely think those types of situations are the things that we should be looking for as those big signals that something is needed rapidly. If you wereBrad:Those scenarios, Jenny, I’d be curious how well are those scenarios embracing the full suite of what if scenarios on climate change and looking at the probability of intensity and duration of droughts? Because the ones that I’ve looked at are looking at some variances, but not the kind of variances that I think are reasonable relative to the work of Bill Donahue and David Schindler and Dave Shan. Tell us about the magnitude and intensity of droughts that we’re likely to experience. We’ve been unbelievably secure in our water for many decades, and that’s in a non climate change scenario. We have every good reason to expect that we’re going to be dealing with a whole lot less water in the future just because of natural dynamics. It should reappear plus all the climate change scenarios, and we’re building a demand complex in Southern Alberta that is highly unlikely to be met by the future water availability we’re going to encounter, I think.Jenny:Right.Bob:Go ahead.Jenny:I was just going to… Go ahead, Bob.Bob:We’ll be talking to Dave Sauchyn in a future podcast. Good. I think it’s next week, or maybe it’s this week. I don’t rememberKey TakeawaysJenny (01:01:03):Any closing comments that you wanted to offer, Bob, and then maybe a last question for Brad before we set him free. Thank you so much for joining us. Go ahead, Bob. Brad:Your welcome, thanks for the questions. Bob:Thank you, Brad. It’s been very, very informative. Very great discussion. Do you have any hope that we can get around this problem where we need to maybe even get into Degrowth rather than growth exponentially?Brad:I think I’d answer this question differently today than maybe 10 years, but I think unless Albertans and more broadly Canadians want to have a heart to heart about not only the benefits but the liabilities of growth economies, I don’t know how we rationalize the fact that economies need to grow and deal with environmental issues. I think we have to rethink our economic models if we want to see a pragmatically helpful discussion on how to manage natural capital because a continuous growth economy, I don’t see examples where it’s effectively internalizing natural capital, maybe in words, but not in practice,Jenny:Right? Yeah, I mean, we decided that growth and that the oil standard was our economic backbone, and we can decide that water is, and that could be our focus. It’s certainly something that I think we need to come to grips with as a country, and specifically as you said, as Albertans in Southern Alberta, we have to cherish those eastern slopes and start fighting for their restoration. To me, that is the 80 20 rule. If we can get after that and make sure that we are preserving that sacred area, then we have a hope of restoring the rest of it too. Is that true?Brad:I wouldn’t disagree. I think that would be a good per step, and I don’t think that’s it’s anti economy. It’s just like let’s define an economic model that actually makes sense and perhaps does a good job of allowing our great, great grandchildren to have a healthy lifestyle in a landscape that has some reasonable natural capital. Because right now, the prospects I think are indeed poor.Jenny:Yeah. Well, I am committed to making sure people understand this and moving us forward. Thank you so much for joining us today, Bob. Thank you, Bob. Sorry, Brad. Thank you, Bob, for getting this going for us. I’m really pleased to be back in conversations around water and I look forward to hearing the rest of them. Just lastly, please remember to and subscribe to The Gravity Well, make sure that these important conversations do have a broader reach for the precious time that Brad offered us today. Thank you so much, Brad, and have a good rest of your day everyone.Brad:You guys too. And thank you so much. Take care. Thanks. 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The Gravity Well Podcast, hosted by Jenny Yeremiy, delves into the implications of legislative changes in Alberta, specifically Bill 40, which affects professional governance. The episode features a discussion with Zac Trolley, a professional engineer and member of The Professional Association of Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), about how the bill shifts authority from professional bodies to political entities, impacting engineers, geoscientists, and 21 other professions. Key concerns include the potential for political discretion, specifically the Minister of Advanced Education, and MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek, Myles McDougall (formerly Rajan Sawhney after Demetrios Nicolaides) to override professional standards, the inability of associations to act as bargaining agents (aka the teachers & staff), and the threat to public safety and professional integrity. The conversation highlights the importance of solidarity among professional organizations and the need for collective action to protect constitutional rights and maintain professional standards. The episode calls for awareness and action against these legislative changes, emphasizing the broader implications for all working-class individuals in Alberta.JennyWelcome to the Gravity Well Podcast with me, Jenny Yeremiy. I host The Gravity Well to celebrate and share the stories of people looking to empower others with the knowledge and skills required to reestablish stability in our communities. My mission is to work through heavy issues in conversation and process in order to lighten the load. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territories of Treaty seven and Metis districts five and six. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples are created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature, and give back to uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide the Gravity Well conversations. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me. Positions taken by participants either individually or collectively do not necessarily represent those of the gravity well. This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you see and hear, remember to like and subscribe.Jenny:Good morning, Zac. Sorry, a little bit fumbly there. It’s been a while since. How are you doing today?Zac:I’m doing pretty good. All things considered.Jenny:Awesome. Thank you so much for being with me. Welcome back to The Gravity. Well everyone, I’m done with the Calgary Environmental Roundtable (CERT) efforts that I did over the municipal election, and glad to be just slipping in one podcast in between the Water podcast series that’s going to come up here. But we needed to talk about something that is very relevant in the news right now and very much related to something you have been helping me understand over the last few months here around APEGA and what’s been happening to our delegated authority. I’m really glad to be walking through that with you today, Zac. Let me just give a little bit of background on Zac. Zac is a professional engineer. He’s a father and a space enthusiast. He has a diploma from SAIT and dual degrees in engineering and professional ethics from Lakehead University. He’s worked across industries and has worked on the shop floor in coal mines, oil, sand sites, and even more on movie sets. What a tremendous range you have in your background, Zac.Zac:I’ve been, I like to say I’ve taken a long way around in my experience. I’ve done a lot of things, worn a lot of hats.Jenny:Yeah, I think you and I are very similar this way. I think this is why we work together so well. Thank you for that. Okay, today Zac and I are going to unpack the legislative changes that were made with Bill 40 beginning in March of this year with respect to professional governance in Alberta. His analysis is that it’s apparent that these changes transfer authority from professionals to politicians. Zac will be outlining the impacts of these changes to our professional body. Both Zac and I are members of the Association of Professionals for Engineers and Geoscientists for Alberta, APEGA for short. We want to compare this to what’s happening right now with teachers and the notwithstanding clause. There are two main concerns we want to cover. Firstly, Bill 40 allows for political discretion to override professional obligations, and secondly, it bans our association from acting on our behalf as a bargaining agent. This ultimately impacts our ability to uphold and defend public safety standards as APEGA members. And in the case of teachers, it means their ability to defend quality public education.Lastly, we’re going to touch on the importance of being in solidarity with other professional organizations when their professions are in direct threat. Is that a good outline of what we’re going to cover today, Zac?Zac:Yeah, let’s hit all those points and see where we end up. There’s a lot going on at the moment.What did “self-governance” look like before Bill 40?Jenny (04:01):Yeah, thank you so much. Okay, let’s start from the beginning. Can you back up and explain for people what did self-governance look like for APEGA members before Bill 40 was put in place? Thank you.Zac:Absolutely. The idea of self-governance is that the technical authorities are in charge of the rules and ruling for those professions. For APEGA, engineers are looking at engineering rules. Geoscientists know their own craft and they propose the rules to operate for the rest of their profession. Think of it like it’s like an apprenticeship, right? You learn how to become an electrician from other electricians and APEGA worked the same way. Across Canada, all the universities need to be accredited, meaning whether you go to school in Victoria, Calgary, Toronto, you’re all getting basically the same course material and then once you graduate, you’re able to become an EIT engineer in training. Then it’s another four years of work under an engineer in order to become your full professional engineering status and APEGA managed all that. Oh, well, engineers Canada was above it. APEGA is obviously the Albertan branch, but what that means is for engineers, when you stamp something, when you sign something, that stamp and signature is backed by the association that has accredited you, that reviews you, that makes sure you’re up to date on the standards. And what Bill 40 does is shift that from APEGA to the Minister of Advanced Education, which is a huge change in how this used to work.Who Holds the Power to Use Bill 40?Jenny (05:42):Yeah, that’s wild. Sorry. The Minister of Advanced Education?Zac:That’s the minister that’s overseeing this, and the startling thing is it’s not just APEGA. There are 21 other associations in this bill. You have engineers, geoscientists, accountants, veterinarians, land surveyors, a wide, wide array of technical fields that all falls under a single minister.Jenny:That’s wild. This is why I hear people talking about the notwithstanding clause and thinking that this is just an issue in education. No, this bill impacts all of us, and this is just the first public view of how we can be stripped from our ability to both defend the public in the case of engineers and geoscientists, but also be able to defend our professional obligations from any organization.Zac:Absolutely. Back in March when this bill had its first reading, it was brought out as a way to modernize the professions because a lot of these professions had their own act and their own laws. We did as well. It was E 11 that was our own law that we were lawfully allowed to operate as engineers and it brought them all under one. There was a bit of red tape reduction in that manner. It did do that. However, there were lots of sections that were added in that were not in the engineering regulations and I can’t find them anywhere else. These are things that were put in a 200 page document that was rushed through the legislation in two months. I don’t think anybody ever really sat down and read through it and digested what it really means.Jenny:Just to back up, for people who aren’t APEGA members, our main objective as APEGA members under Act 11, which was the original governing documents for us is public safety. Public safety and health for the environment are of primary obligation. And that means it was over and above our obligation to our companies. Correct?Zac:Correct. It was in law that our code of ethics were to be followed, meaning that if we had an employer and they were deciding between two options, A and B, and A was expensive and safe, and B was cheap and very risky, we as engineers had a legal obligation to point them towards option A to say, this is safer and although B saves you money, it goes below the bar of public safety that we’re allowed to stamp and verify. And then that project needed to bring himself back up to those safety standards before he can get built. We had the authority to say this is unsafe and we cannot build it.Jenny:Right. Yeah. Okay. First step was, I understand there were three stages of this bill. This has happened over several months where it was rolled out in March of this year, and there have been changes made to it all the way through to June of this year, I believe. It started with stage one, which I understand to be minister, can you speak a little, you’ve just sort of explained this, you had the ability to uphold these safety standards. What can the minister do?Zac:There are three stages of power that the minister has increasing in severity. And again, we’re talking about APEGA here, but this applies to all the associations. What they can do is APEGA’s code of conduct and rules and standards obviously say that we need to protect the public, but the minister can reach to these associations and just strike a rule and saying this rule, you no longer need to follow. And they don’t need to have a technical reason. They don’t need to have a debate. It’s not like it’s brought to a vote. They just say, do not follow this rule. And with a little bit of imagination, you can see how that can be abused very quickly.Jenny:We think about these changes that are happening to potentially to expedite federal projects. For example, if there was a safety standard on a pipeline that as you were highlighting the minister has the Minister of Education, not the minister of Environment or the Minister of Energy has the right to strike down those recommendations. That’s stage one. Then there is a mandatory rewrite option that’s section 202 of subsection one. Can you outline that a bit for us please?Zac:Yeah. And this is where the idea of public interest comes about. The minister can argue that it’s in the public interest to follow a certain path and to reflect on what just happened yesterday with the teachers, you can imagine the UCP argument being it’s in the public’s best interest for kids to be in school. Therefore, we are not going to update the teacher’s working conditions. We’re pushing everybody back to school. In the same vein, we can imagine, like you said, there’s all these federal projects coming up. They want to be fast tracked. They could say it’s in the public interest for these things to be built as fast as possible. And under section 202, not only in section 201, they’re allowed to strike a rule in section 202, they’re allowed to rewrite a rule. They could go into this and they can rewrite your standards of practice, your competency requirements, who can become an engineer, who can become an accountant and your code of ethics. They can say, we need a thousand more engineers, we are going to lower the competency requirements to become an engineer and we’re going to hire a thousand more engineers and they will just rewrite that rule. And that is the new rule that we have to follow.Jenny:And I want to highlight how that directly impacts Act 11, our original, yes, Act 11. In that our governing body, it was required that we had at least 17 professional members in a 20 person body. That limited those public seats from being a minority, that professionals were governing professionals. What this does is it allows them not only to have more people at the table that aren’t necessarily even accredited professionals and geoscientists professional engineers and geoscientists, but it also allows those people to make decisions that are potentially not, again, upholding public safety, for example.Zac:Absolutely. The APEGA Council always had public members on them and they were brought from the public and with the government’s involvement in there to make sure that we had some public voices on there, that little bit of a balance. But in Bill 40, under section 373, the Minister can appoint any number of public members to that body or committee. Imagine if there’s a disciplinary committee for a member, they built a bridge that fell down, the minister can go in and appoint 10 20 public members of their choosing to that committee and then vote in favor or not of disciplinary measures. And again, that’s up to their decision. There’s no mechanism. It just happens.Jenny:And I understand too that they can also appoint professional governance officer. Can you outline that a bit for us?Zac:And this is when things start to get really dicey. There’s always a give and take with any engineering project, any project really your balancing cost and safety, we can never make anything a hundred percent safe. It’s just not possible. There’s always a balance. And if APEGA starts pushing back and says, let’s take it a ridiculous example, we’re going to make a pipeline out of cardboard, and they say this, this is the greatest new cardboard technology, here we go. And APEGA says, we cannot do that, that’s unsafe under section 197. They can just take over the association. If the minister believes the association is not acting in the public’s interest, however they define that they can just install their own administrators. The elected board and council that is currently sitting there, they’ll disappoint a single administrator and fire the whole board. And then that administrator takes over the association and we lose control of the association that’s directly in Bill for you.Jenny:I’m just going to back up and repeat all of this for everyone. We have minister has the ability to disallow safety standards that we as professionals know can put the public at risk. Then they have the ability to rewrite what we would put down as our code of conduct or anything that we are trying to use to uphold those safety standards. They can also make changes to the board. They can put different people on the board that aren’t professionals, and lastly, they can also just overwrite the board altogether. Is that a good summary, Zac?Zac:That’s it. I mean it sounds very extreme and I was really surprised when I dug into the details myself and I stress anybody listening to open up Bill 40 and read these sections for yourself, it’s pretty amazing.Jenny:And also what’s interesting is we look at what’s happening with the teachers right now. Could engineers and geoscientists strike based on Bill 40?Can Engineers or Geoscientists Strike with Bill 40?Zac (15:59):That’s the other part of this. Let’s use it a little bit more of a realistic scenario. Let’s say due to tariffs and everything else that’s going around in the world, we can’t find the same quality of steel that we would normally use inside a building. Let’s just say that. Bill 40 again touches more than just engineers. It’s supply chain, it’s accounting, and they can go in and tweak these rules. They say, here’s some lower grade steel, let’s use this. I’ve allowed it all through the supply chain. It’s allowed. And if the engineers say, no, we will not build this, we refuse and do what the teachers did and say, we’re going on strike until this is fixed, we’re not going to work. We actually legally can’t do that. Section 23, paragraph one prohibits us.Jenny:Okay, welcome back. Thank you so much, Zac, for getting yourself back in the studio. Really appreciateZac:Yeah, sorry about that. I’m now on my phone. My internet kicked off and I think it’s serendipitous it happened at that point just to show how important these systems are. We all rely on a massive communication network, let alone the sanitation network, our roads. There’s a lot of stuff that needs maintaining and there’s a lot of people involved in this maintaining all this infrastructure.Jenny:That’s right. What you were saying when you got cut off is I was asking you, can we strike, can you back up there and just outline for people what section 23 subsection one has done?Zac:Yeah. We’re outlining a scenario where there might be due to international trade and tariffs, et cetera, et cetera. We had to source lower quality steel in the building. And APEGA may say, no, we don’t want to do that. If the government feels that again, this is the most public interest to move forward, they can just appoint a administrator and if we decide to strike and say, no, we will not work. We have no legal protection, we are not covered. Section 231 removes our protection from the labour relations code. Meaning if you say this is unsafe and I don’t want to work on it, which is in all my experience working at site, working in the field, working anywhere, if you say this is unsafe, I don’t want to do it. It’s a stop work, right? Let’s make this safe and let’s figure it out. If you say this is unsafe and I don’t want to design it, they can say Thank you very much. You’re no longer an engineer. We will find someone who will. You have no protection.Jenny:This is basically taking us from a self-governing body to an individual governance. Correct?Zac:Correct. And I think the point to understand here is they don’t even have to use these sections for them to be effective. If I’m looking over some drawings and I see, hey, I see something that I don’t think is correct, but if I speak up, I could lose my licence, which previously of course that was you were supposed to speak up, you were supposed to bring it forward. It is common practice that we are checking each other’s work drawings have several review cycles. The client sees them, we see it, the vendor sees it, everyone looks it over, everyone marks it up, everyone’s checking for mistakes and issues.That culture is basically circumvented by fear that if we put our hand up, that goes against the government policy that they’re pushing for our jobs can be taken away. And I can’t just go move to another engineering firm if they remove my licence to practice. I cannot be an engineer, I cannot hold employment and I don’t have a salary anymore. I mean you have engineers deciding, do I do what the government wants me to do and keep my job I can feed my family, or do I put my hand up and maybe face repercussions like the teachers are waking up and facing today, they’re now forced to go back to work. Do they say, do I go back to work to feed my family or do I fight this? That’s the question that’s happening right now in one profession. And this bill covers 22 professions,Jenny:Right? Yes. And this is the key is to understand this isn’t every worker, every professional strike. This is a strike down of our rights as these are constitutional rights, no different than what’s happening with the teachers. And the notwithstanding clause, this is stripping us of our ability to make sure that the work we are doing is both safe and effective. And it also makes me wonder about reporting standards as well because it certainly seems like the expectation is that the reporting standards will be made up by a political entity and not by a governing body. Yes.Zac:For anybody that’s ever put their stamp or their initial on something, right? There are check sheets. You are not, I’m an electrical engineer. I’m not allowed to touch anything civil or mechanical. That’s not my area of expertise.That’s all now in the wind because they can change the rules to bring in someone else to just stamp this rubber, literally rubber stamp it and move it forward. The real terrifying thing, especially as we accelerate, because this is just sitting there, it doesn’t have to be enacted today. It could be five years, 10 years down the road with the push towards AI data centers, if an AI engineering company shows up and says, we will build you a road, a bridge, a building, a power plant, and we’ll engineer it for a 10th the cost using ai, the government can just reach it and say, AI is a valid engineering body and move forward. And I think anybody that’s used AI has run it to an instance where it failed spectacularly. We lose control over that. We have to be forward thinking here, not today. This law sits there until we change it and we need to change it.Implications of APEGA Membership with Bill 40Jenny (22:32):Yes, thank you. And the other thing it makes me wonder is what does it mean for being an APEGA member? To me, this is basically saying this body no longer has the ability to protect me. This body no longer has the ability to defend me. Why am I a part of this body? That’s ultimately what the risk is to these professional organizations as well. I do want to talk a little bit, I started mentioning it, but I’ll let you expand on it, the mention of the Alberta Federation of Labour being in solidarity with the teachers. There is one opportunity that both you and I see you’ve helped me see it, I should say, is that there is an opportunity potentially to be in solidarity with other professional organizations. Can you elaborate on that for a sec?ZacAbsolutely. I mean, we’ve seen that and it is been popping up in conversations this week. If they can do this to teachers, if they’re willing to suspend their constitutional rights and say, if you don’t work, it’s against the law for you not to work. They will do this to anybody. And they’ve already put the framework in place for these 22 associations. They’ve said they’ve been completely showing they’re willing to use it. I don’t want to wait until they use it on APEGA or the chartered accountants or the forestry management. We don’t want to wait until that happens. We see it happening to one profession. We see it happening to one, and it can happen to all. We should stand together with all because this is a thread hanging over every single person. I mean, I think there’s 55,000 teachers in Alberta, and I think there’s about 70,000 engineers, and that doesn’t include all the other professions. Many hundreds of thousands of people. We’re talking a large chunk of the population this covers, and they could do this one by one or we can stand together and say, you are now looking at all of us because we know you’re threatening all of us.Jenny:There is talk about a general strike, and this is precisely what we need to think about when this is being said by a FL. It should not be just taken that it’s just AFL that’s in the position. Sorry, the Alberta Federations of Labour. It’s not just in their purview to do this is everyone of those 22 organizations, including APEGA, including the teachers that are impacted by this, and we believe we should be in solidarity with them and that we should consider going on a general strike with AFL. That’s fundamentally what.Zac:Absolutely. I was watching a clip with Gil when he was mentioning meeting with all the union heads, right? The associations should be getting together and talking amongst themselves and figuring out how are they going to act as one voice? How are we going to act together and stand in solidarity for everybody? This is important. What our kids get taught and how they’re brought up is important. How and where we build is important. Our agriculture is touched. What we grow and how we handle our livestock is important. This is vital to the province. This is our core. And the UCP government has shown that they are moving into control each and every one of these individual aspects, right?Jenny:Yeah. This is, thank you very much. This is from what I’ve taken from all the work you’ve done here, Zac, is that this is a threat to all working class people in the province that we need to look at increasing our solidarity to push back together rather than having one entity, for example, the teachers, let’s be specific, there’s a threat of them facing $500 daily fines and the organization facing a $500,000 daily fines if they were to go against this notwithstanding clause order of them back to work.Zac:And let’s just flip that view a little bit and shift it about how ridiculously absurd that is to say a teacher says, I can’t teach in my classroom. I need more resources. I’m a professional teacher. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I know what I’m doing. And the government says, if you don’t go to work, we’re going to fine you every day you’re not at work. Imagine a wastewater engineer going to work and saying, this water is unsafe to drink. We need to change something. We need to update our machinery to make sure that it’s safe to drink. And the government says, if you don’t operate as is, we will find you $500 a day. How absurd is this? It is absolute nonsense.Jenny:Absolute nonsense. And like you said, this is the future of our kids. This is the future of our province. This is public safety and environmental integrity. These are fundamental for all of us. And that’s what this means. This is the same for the teachers as it is for engineers and geoscientists as it is for any other professional body. Thank you so much, Zac. This has been fantastic. Is there anything that I missed in this that you want to highlight before we wrap?Key TakeawaysZac (27:41):I think all of us have been watching the news and seeing around the world what’s happening. And I know myself, I’ve thought in the back of my head, well, why didn’t anybody stop them? How did it get this far? And this is our moment right here. This is the line that we cannot cross. If we cross this line, then we lose our power to fight again. If we don’t hold here, we lose. And this is it. This is our line.Jenny:Thank you. Yes. We’re basically saying we’re choosing not to fight for ourselves, fight for our futures, fight for our kids in just trying to uphold what we know to be true and to be safe and proper for the economy and the ecology and everything in between. Yeah. I’m going to get this message out, and I think we also need to alert some others to this, Zac, in our circle so that this becomes more of an understanding that this isn’t just about teachers, and this isn’t just about education.Zac:This is about everybody. And if for any professionals listening to this, I urge you, look at Bill 40 yourself. Read the text and then contact your association and ask them, what are we doing to fix this? What are we doing to put the line back where it was before, where we have a say in what goes on in this province?Jenny:Wonderful. Okay. And I know you and I will be working on that together. I know you’ve already reached out to our professional organization, and I’m going to put out some information for other APEGA members to do the same. Thank you for your leadership here. Zac. Thank you for taking the time to dive into this massive change that we’ve all just missed. That’s happened as we were fighting other fights in this province with this government. Okay. Thank you everyone for being here. I just want to remind you to please like and subscribe to the Gravity well, to get this message out for other people. Thank you very much, Zac. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In episode 7 of the podcast mini-series on "Water in Southern Alberta", Jenny is joined by Markham Hislop, an energy journalist, and Derek Connick, a commercial insurance broker, to discuss the impacts of climate change on insurance. The conversation highlights the increasing frequency and severity of climate events, which are challenging traditional insurance models and affecting premiums. The discussion covers various types of insurance, including homeowner and commercial insurance, and the difficulties in obtaining coverage for flood and hail damage. The podcast also explores the role of government in backstopping insurance when private companies limit coverage due to high risks. The episode emphasizes the need for proactive measures in insurance and the importance of treating water as a valuable resource amidst growing environmental challenges. The Gravity Well Podcast is available on YouTube and streaming platforms, inviting listeners to engage with the content and provide feedback.Markham Hislop and Derek Connick IntroductionsJenny (00:00:05):The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast. I am your host, Jenny Yeremiy. Here you break down heavy ideas with me to understand their complexities and connections. Our mission is to work through dilemmas together in conversation and process. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territory of Treaty seven and Metis districts five and six. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples were created to honour the laws of the land maintained balance with nature by giving back and uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide the Gravity well conversation. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me.This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The gravity well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. Join [email protected]. Good afternoon everyone. I am thrilled to have Markham Hislop and Derek Knick here with me Today. We are doing episode 15 of the graph season two in the Gravity. Well, we’re speaking about the impacts of climate change on insurance and we have Derek, who is a commercial insurance broker that will help us understand this. I’m thrilled to have Markham with me today. Markham and I met during the run up to the election. I was introduced to him on Twitter from my friend Amy, and I think you are my second official interview Markham. Thank you so much. And we spoke through, it was your series that you did the three-part series on oil and gas liabilities.We spoke about that at length and we’ve been working together ever since. Both Markham and I had an inkling in early 2024 that we needed to do a lot of collaborating work with those people that really want to generate genuine outcomes in the province and in the country. Markham started the energy circle and I started this podcast and we’ve been working together closely ever since. I’m thrilled with the work you’re doing. Markham, thank you so much for your dedication to this subject to talk about the things that people don’t want to talk about. And this is one of those, this conversation is one of those. So just to back up a moment, go ahead.Markham:Right back at you, Jenny. I mean, you’re doing yeoman’s work and you’ve turned this idea for a podcast into something that’s really positive and so [clap] for you.Jenny:Thank you. Thank you Markham. Definitely. It’s funny to think about doing this work and feel like you’re just another podcast and then as you get feedback, it does really feel like there is value here and there definitely is. Thank you for appreciating that. We’re still working in this Water in Southern Alberta series. This is I think our seventh conversation in it. We went through with the history of irrigation, we walked through some of the impacts of activity on water: resource extraction, the water laws and licencing, and modelling practices. We walked through stewardship. We spoke with the watershed councils and some farmers, which was incredible. And actually it’s really interesting that insurance fell in stewardship because quite frankly, I can’t think of something better to steward to than insurance actuaries, let’s say. And so then in September, we’re going to reconvene with all of this knowledge and we’re aiming to start in mid-September, finished with the future.In that we’ve already identified that we have a gap in covering the laws of nature and rights of rivers. And that’s something actually that’s come up in your room. Markham with Scott Jensen has brought up the rights of rivers. That’s an area to explore. On the backs of that, please become a subscriber of the Gravity. Well engage with this work. Give us feedback, comments, follow me on social media: Substack, YouTube, Bluesky, TikTok, and LinkedIn. That’s enough for me. Let me let you guys properly introduce yourselves. Markham, please would you lead us off with a background introduction and what you’re working on currently for anybody who isn’t following you yet and then how you are tied into this conversation. Thank you.Markham:Well thank you Jenny. Thank you for having me on here today. I’m an energy journalist and energy media is kind of in its second iteration, but my wife Joanne and I was also a journalist. We began this 17 years ago, literally in our basement of our home in Southeast Calgary in Mackenzie Town. And we’re now, I’m very proud to announce that we’re hitting about 3 million views per month across all our platforms and makes us one of the largest independent media in Canada. We’re of the overnight success, 17 years in the making. But what we do is we look report on the global energy transition and then we say, okay, how does that apply to Canada? How does that apply to Alberta? And climate change is obviously a very big part of the push towards the electrification of the global economy. Climate policies play a big role in that.We bring both a global perspective and also a local perspective. We do a lot of work as you mentioned, oil and gas liabilities, that sort of thing. I’m very curious to know what Derek thinks about risk and climate change because risk is a word that is entering into our conversations more and more frequently. And most importantly for your viewers and listeners is our refusal to grapple with risk, to acknowledge and accept the fact that risk is increasing and we, we don’t want to be forced out of our comfort zone. I’m looking forward to the conversation here.Jenny:Great. Well said. Markham. I forgot to mention Derek and I also met on Twitter. We both have left that space, but we also had a brief overlap on the Alberta party board, I’m really glad to be working with you again, Derek. Yeah, please introduce yourself properly. Thank you.Derek:Well, I’m Derek Knick and I’ve been in the property and casualty insurance business here in Alberta and across different parts of Western Canada for the last 37 years, almost 38 now. It will be in September. I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge, some of which I might’ve forgotten, but definitely seen exposure to a lot of risk and certainly have seen particularly with respect to water, the increasing risk it’s presenting to people in property and well, particularly in Alberta.Jenny:Right. I’ve heard, I can’t remember where I heard this, but somebody, it was a quote saying that climate is water. Just those words are practically, they can be swapped out. I’m curious how through this conversation maybe that’ll reveal itself. But Markham, let me let you lead off. This is your expertise. Please lead us off with our first question for Derek.Insurance Question and Answer with DerekMarkham (00:07:49):Well, Derek, and this is a very general question that it came up today just serendipitously, I was reading a Bloomberg story about a gathering an annual convention of insurance brokers in Texas, and they were talking about risk and how the climate change was transforming their perception of risk. And one thing really stuck out for me, and the Bloomberg story said that the insurance industry has 250 years of data. It has been collecting data for a very long time, then of course it does the actuarial work and that’s how it comes up with premiums and so on. And the point was that the recent events, the extreme weather and the caused by climate change has blown it to smithereens that this is not consistent with the historical data. We’re seeing once in a thousand year events that happen year after year after year, and the insurance industry is grappling with it. They haven’t figured it out yet, but they’re kind of addressing the issue. How are we going, what does this mean for our customers? What does it mean? How are we going to pay this? All of those issues. In your practice, is that fair to say that the perception of risk is changing and the extreme weather that we’re seeing in Western Canada is changing how you handle risk?Derek:Absolutely. Traditionally, insurers would make their decisions based on a couple of different things. Number one, the loss ratio, which is the ratio of claims paid out to the premiums taken in, they combine that or well literally combine that, add an expense ratio to that for their obviously salaries, commissions to brokers and agents. They call that the combined ratio, when that combined ratio is over a hundred percent, they’re losing money certain years with lots of catastrophes. They’ve lost money in some recent years they’ve made it. What happens though, like you said, that’s based on historical data going back in some cases 300 years for fires and floods and other storms, is this climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of the events. They were used to rating things on low frequency, high severity or low severity, high frequency, and this is just blown that out of the water. And they’re having to relook at models now and make some hard decisions on whether to continue offering some types of insurance or how to limit it, still offer it, but limit it. And that’s where they’re at right now and that’s what they’re trying to muddle through.Jenny:I put out the video of Sheldon White House speaking about this in Congress or in the Senate I should say, about the reinsurance values going up by hundreds of percent in some cases. To address this, I’m hearing Bob Morrison in my head here, and I just want to back up and ask some of the basic questions. Can you just help people understand what types of insurance are out there? There’s obviously homeowner insurance, there’s commercial insurance which you focus in, and what types of insurance that different organizations need to acquire maybe when we’re talking about water. Some examples like farmers or resource developingDerek:Companies. Well, farmers is a good one to start with. They obviously need protection for their farm property, the farmhouse, they’ll need coverage for sewer backup. Whether they’ll need groundwater coverage or not is questionable. They certainly need coverage for their crops crop hail insurance, and that is something that, and some crop hail insurance in fact covers wildfire damage as well. Those are two things that would be very important to a farmer, particularly in Alberta.Markham:Derek, I’m kind of curious the extent to which your practice has changed over the last 10 to 20 years, but particularly the last five years with respect to extreme weather. Whether it be flooding, whether it be hail, whether it be cold or whatever it is, but have you seen a marked change? And are people within your customers, basically, are they noticing that there is a change and are they tying it to climate change?Derek:The change in the practice is that certainly brokers have become much more proactive in reviewing their policies to make sure their clients have the proper coverage. You want, for instance, a homeowner’s client you want to make absolutely sure they have the best coverage they can possibly get, which includes sewer backup. And if they can’t have full flood coverage, whether that’s because of where they live or they just can’t afford the full limits, you want to have them have something to at least begin the rebuilding process. Commercially speaking, again, the same sort of thing. I’ve seen it commercial clients, certainly if they own the property they’re in, are a little more attuned to severe weather and flooding and hail damage. Whether they’re making that connection to climate change, I’m not so sure. I think some are. Some are, but I wouldn’t say that that’s definitive right now that they’re making that connection.Jenny:Right. I wonder when you provide a quote, Derek, I’m thinking of you mentioned and what came to mind to me, if you can get flood insurance. I’m thinking of in the just off elbow river in Calgary when we had the flood, it’s my understanding that there are some homes that could not obtain flood insurance after that because of where they exist. They’re in a floodplain and we can see that, like you said, these frequency of supposed a hundred year floods are shrinking and we’re getting those more rapidly so that therefore they can’t have flood insurance. That’s one way it plays out. What about hail damage? You mentioned it when we were preparing before going live here, the hail damage that happened last year in Calgary. I’ve heard of, maybe you can elaborate on the cost of that, but how does that then translate into reinsurance risk?Derek:Oh sure, absolutely. Actually the hail damaging Calgary last year I believe was, oh, how many? I had the figure here about 800 million in insured damage, if not more. Sorry, I lost my place there with the statistic. It’s extremely, basically, what reinsurance is, is that reinsurance is the insurance company’s insurance. It’s usually offered by global insurers or global reinsurers that operate worldwide. They are very, very attuned to climate change and climate risk and what brings that on. They are putting pressure on domestic insurers to what limit coverage. They see the losses increasing in certain areas and they can in fact put pressure on domestic insurers to limit coverage in certain geographical areas. So the insurers, insurers basically take it from both sides. Unfortunately, they’re having, they’re paying out losses and having to increase rates just to break even or make a small profit margin for their ownership and reinsurers, they’re putting pressure on them to limit losses that they have to pay out because the global reinsurers also have to make money in the end. They’re businesses and they have to make a profit. So that’s where the reinsurance really comes in. And that’s both in personal lines, homeowners insurance as well as commercial insurance.Markham:Derek, I’m kind of curious if we’re heading to an inflexion point here because I see at the global level there’s a lot more discussion of risk and climate change.We’re starting to see it at the national level, but we haven’t really seen it in Alberta. We haven’t seen it or seen it in a little more in British Columbia. There’s been some flooding and so on, but it really hasn’t sunk into the voters, the citizens. And I am wondering if, I’ll give you my personal opinion. I think until it bites them in the wallet, they’re not going to pay attention. I wonder if we’re at the point now where the potential costs of insurance or being denied insurance is ready to bite the consumer hard enough that they’ll make the connection between climate change and risk that they haven’t up to now.Derek:I think that’s starting how long the process is going to be is anyone’s guess. When someone, anecdotally, I saw an old associate of mine who worked in the insurance industry in Calgary, had hail damage to his home, of course, took some proactive steps and his premiums still increased by 50%. When people see their average premium double or go up by 20 30% in a year, they start to take notice and they can shop around as much as they want, but they’re going to get the same or worse answers wherever they go to. Then they really, you’re right, it hits them in the pocketbook. They have to take notice. They have to start to think, what can I do to prevent things from happening? What can I do to pressure insurance companies to help people build back better? And I think the process is starting, it’s just a question of how long it’s going to take.Jenny:Yeah, I think about a similar analogy is like oil prices. If you’re above that threshold of $65 a barrel, everybody’s doing okay, we’re fine. And then as soon as you approach that, that’s when really things can fall apart. That’s what I think Markham is describing that potential breaking point where like you were saying, Derek, some years they lose money, but now it’s becoming more years where they’re losing money and less years where they’re making money because of that overall risk. Again, back to how it amounts when you’re doing an analysis. Let’s maybe go back to a home just because that’s something everybody can relate to. Is the process literally, this is in a flood zone, this is potentially in a hill zone. How do you go through and decide what the premiums are to begin with, I guess, and then if it’s changing how those are measured?Derek:Well, we have, okay, taking a homeowner for example, we have a, each broker or each insurance company has a software program where they, as objectively as possible assess the reconstruction of the home. That first and foremost is what drives the premium. Secondly, it’s the location, is it in a densely populated area like Edmonton, red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge medicine hat, and then they look at while fire protection is one, then they look at the historical incidences of hail. Oddly enough, medicine hat and around Red Deer have suffered quite severely. There are some insurance companies that, and I’m not sure if this is still the case, but there was some time ago that really didn’t want to write insurance in the medicine hat area because of the hail and flooding risk that was there at the time.They take that, they look at, they do each, I’m sure each insurance company has their own flood maps. They all have access to the provincial national flood and national flood maps, and they will look at those and assess potential flood loss. And that’s where we get into limiting coverage. If it’s a high-end or high probability of flood loss, like along the elbow river in Calgary, you’re going to find them with a very minimal overland water or flood coverage sub limit offered and they won’t be able to buy it up. If you’re in Lethbridge on top of the coulee, you’ll be able to buy that coverage up. If you’re in Medicine hat, as long as you’re not in the flats, you’re probably going to be able to buy the coverage up.Jenny:It’s available for you.Markham:Yes, Jenny, I’ve got a question for you actually, because you were a geoscientist in the oil and gas industry. I find actually that first of all, oil and gas is very risk averse and they will continue, in my experience, they will continue with practices that could be improved with better technology or better equipment. But as long as they’re making good money, they don’t want to take a risk on something new that maybe it doesn’t pan out, then it’s on them. Right? And if you’re an engineer or a geoscientist, if you were the one making the recommendation, you wear the loss even if it’s just in terms of reputation. But it’s astonishing to me how we have these conversations about things like pipelines or new LNG plants or whatever it is, and we don’t talk about risk and we don’t just pretend that it doesn’t exist. If we’re talking about the pipeline to Prince Rupert, we’ve identified all sorts of risks.We think that the oil demand in China is going to go on forever. In fact, according to some Chinese sources, it’s already peaked and we’ll be going down in the next few years. Petrochemical demand is not necessarily, it’s going up. It may not be for oil, it may be for natural gas liquids instead, not heavy AC crude, on and on and on and on. There are all these risk factors and we keep arguing that whether or not you do the pipeline is you should accommodate, you should incorporate these risk factors into your conversation. And what I hear from Derek is the insurance industry is very good at doing those calculations. I don’t see that in the oil industry, but these are sometimes tens of billions of dollars that are being invested. Now what’s your take on that?Jenny:Well, I think it goes back to the conversation you held for us late last year, Markham. And when we were talking about the engineer’s dilemma with Zach and Scott, and the key thing for me is where the decisions being made that a pipeline needs to be developed. That’s not happening from a development standpoint. There is not a group of geoscientists and engineers and professionals and oil field workers that are saying, we need a pipeline to China. These decisions are coming out of a corporate headquarter office and being pushed through stakeholder relations teams, which don’t necessarily have a safety first, a risk first mentality. It’s rather a relations and business development mentality. To me, that’s the first hurdle that we are struggling as a industry is that we are not starting these decisions from a place of what are the opportunities and what are the risks to those opportunities, and should we be even exploring that or should we be just simply closing sites and cleaning up our mess and helping expand the renewable rollout. To me, that’s why. And Derek, I’m curious from your perspective, I did touch on briefly here from an energy company, have you been involved in providing insurance for an energy company or can you speak at all to how they are even provided insurance? I’m thinking of TMX for example.Derek:Well, they can get insurance. Obviously they would need it to obtain any sort of financing, even if it was from a government, although I’m not familiar with terribly with it. You would think that they would need, I think environment, they would definitely need some sort of environmental impairment policy. That’s one of the toughest policies in my experience to write. You need a lot of engineering and I guess topographical info where things are going. And it’s a very difficult to place. There are companies, global companies that still offer that coverage. I know there has been some high profile global companies pull out of the energy business or anything that goes below ground or related to pipelines, but it is still available, although recently I have read where pressure is still being brought to bear, particularly in the London, England market, which is the world center of insurance where environmental groups and groups from the UN are bringing pressure to bear on the remaining companies that are offering that coverage and saying either phase it out or get out and put these companies on the spot.Jenny:Interesting. Markham, and you’re up.Markham:Well, I am kind of curious, Derek, who pays, because at the end of the day, it seems to me that we’re headed for a situation where private insurance companies will not want to pay. They’ll refuse to write the business or they’ll limit the coverage provided in the policy. And when we get to that stage, people still need to have insurance on their homes and their businesses, but oil and gas companies have to have them or utility companies, whatever it is, you’ve got to have some kind of insurance. Does government step in? Does the insurance industry evolve? What’s your take on that?Derek:Well, I think you look at what happened with the floods in 2013, and basically there was the provincial government stepped in to backstop. A lot of that am not sure how much they contributed or how much was paid out. Figures not at my fingertips, but eventually government slash taxpayers usually step in. Now, what I’m worried about happening in the interim is much like housing, it’s going to be an affordability crisis. People are not going to be able to afford insurance on their home are they? Can’t risk going without insurance, especially if they have a mortgage, they won’t be allowed to do it. That brings a whole affordability issue. And does government get involved in property insurance much like they’ve gotten involved in auto insurance in Alberta? Well, that just makes the situation worse.Markham:Maybe Jenny, I just want a follow up question if I can, because that’s one of the things that bothers me the most here. It’s one thing when government decides that it’s going to take an industrial policy, as we’ve discussed in the energy circle where the government says, okay, as a country we have a strategy to build a particular industry, could be battery plants, whatever. It’s we’re going to put public money into that because it’ll generate tax revenue, create jobs, attract investment. But when you’re coming at it from the other end when the government is basically backfilling because private sector won’t provide it anymore, then it becomes like a subsidy. We’re basically paying for a sun setting industry in the case of oil and gas. And I think my takeaway from Derek is that there’s some point, some inflexion point where the risk is too great for the private sector. We’re all too committed to the industry or to whatever to back out entirely. And then government and our pocketbooks step in to fill in the gap and then it becomes risk when we’re bearing a whole other kind of risk in case that it goes belly up?Either one of you have a crack at that one.Derek:Well, we’ve seen an attempt by the insurance industry along with the federal government to build a national flood insurance program similar to what they have in the United States, although that’s probably, it’s not perfect, but it’s not the worst program. Something like that. And those discussions have been going on for years. And in fact, now that the spectra of wildfires has entered the picture, they seem to have put, and cyber insurance, they’ve seemed to put the national flood insurance program on the back burner. I certainly don’t read about it as much as I used to, but that is something that could be looked at where then again, at least people are able to buy affordable flood insurance in addition to their home insurance.Jenny:Right. Yeah, it makes me think about these automatic renewals with things and potentially not the terms and conditions potentially changing without people appreciating itThat when a crisis comes suddenly you realize that this whole neighbourhood is not no longer covered for flood insurance, for example. I feel like a lot of this is just being pushed off and not really made people necessarily made aware of it. I have a couple of questions. I’m going to start with this one. Can you talk a little bit about mitigation for insurance? What I mean is cloud seating is an example of something that is an attempt to both. So if I understand it right, it does two things. You can potentially help get rain for crops, so it’s trying to draw in moisture, but then of course that can backfire and you’ve got too much moisture or maybe it happens naturally and now you’re doing the opposite where you’re trying to put in, I can’t remember what the particles are, you probably remember for me into the air to try and dissipate hail damage.Now we all know in Calgary, was it last year when that big hailstorm came through, there were planes going all around that area forever, trying to cloud seed to mitigate the damage. And actually a friend of ours, Mike Klein, did offer the actual number for you. The Insurance Bureau of Canada noted it was 3.25 billion total damages for that storm in Calgary. To me that was a failure if I know nothing about cloud seating. Excuse me. Can you talk a little bit about these potential mitigation efforts like cloud seating and their success rate or not.Derek:Cloud seeding? It’s where silver iodide is, the particle that’s sprayed into storm clouds to basically well soften or dissipate the hail so it actually melts before it hits the ground. I think what it does is it makes the water particle heavier so it’s not caught in the updraft and freezes as much, and so it’s heavier, it falls to the ground faster. It’s smaller sized hail or just water. It is basically how that works. And it’s primarily seeded in what they call hail alley, which in Alberta is mainly between Calgary and Red Deer, which is seen the most severe hailstorms, unfortunately don’t, they can’t see as far south as Lethbridge simply because they have to fly into US airspace, which causes its own set of problems. But definitely I believe it’s helped. I’m not sure how many planes they have. The Alberta catastrophic kale reduction plan has to reduce how many planes they have to fly out in storms. But it was obviously something that, and maybe this is a consequence of climate change. It came on too hard and too fast to be able to respond to it.Jenny:They’re just not able to get the scale. The scalability of it is not working. Yeah?Derek:Yeah.Jenny:That makes sense. Sorry, Markham your turn if you’re ready as it going.Markham:Well, Jenny, this is an issue that you’ve talked about many times at our energy circle meetings, and that is the oil water consumption by the oil and gas industry. And there’s the conventional side and then there’s the oil sand side, and both of them use fair amounts of water. And at what point, if climate change is changing our climate, we’re having more severe and longer droughts, at what point does it become a conflict between other types of businesses like farmers and ranchers and citizens over the use of that water, the headwaters of both the rivers to service Calgary, for example, 1.2, 1.5 million people in Calgary and suddenly they on water restrictions. That kind of gets the government’s attention, but are we headed in that direction? IDerek:Think possibly we are. What scares me too is the potential that selenium poisoning from new coal mines will damage the old man and permanently damage and poison the old man river system much as it did in BC. I don’t care what the mining company says, but the multi-billion dollar minor tech corporation has not found an issue to the selenium poisoning and contrary to industry cheerleaders, if you will, it’s not just salt. There’s visible, obvious evidence of fish being deformed and dying off because of the poisoning. Now, who’s going to pay for that? You know what? The insurance industry, the insurance company of that coal company will not pay for that damage. That’s pollution. And in most cases, pollution is excluded unless it’s sudden and accidental, ongoing selenium poisoning is not sudden and accidental.Jenny:Oh, interesting. Pollution is not included.Derek:In most commercial policies. There is what they call an absolute pollution exclusion, and where it’s where any sort of release of material, especially if it’s ongoing, is completely any damage from it is completely excluded. There is, you can buy limited, and this is, keep in mind, this is limited coverage. Many cases it’s limited to $250,000, which could be a drop in the bucket depending on how bad it is for sudden and accidental and sudden and accidental means it happened and it’s reported to the insurance company within 24 or 72 hours of it being discovered. Beyond that, it’s not sudden and accidental anymore.Markham:Jenny, what are there insurance requirements for conventional oil and gas wells?Jenny:I am not familiar with it, to be honest with you. I know that, like Derek was saying, you do get your limited insurance, at least for corporate insurance of some kind. Can you speak more to that, Derek,Derek:For wellhead insurance? Is that what we’re talking? Well, usually, I’m not overly familiar with the down hole coverage, but we certainly cover, I’ve certainly covered a lot of well independent contractors or consultants on oil well sites with the pro vio that there’s no extent to cover damage below six feet underground.Jenny:Oh, wow.Markham:I guess what I’m going with this is Jenny, you and I have had many conversations about this very, very serious unfunded liabilities for the conventional oil, the gas industry. Let’s say there are, right now there are about 80,000 inactive wells and some of those walls are leaking. We know that. And the question and talk to people like Mark Doran and Dwight Popovich, it’s a very large percentage of them are leaking. And who then pays for that if the oil companies don’t pay? Is there an insurance company backstopping it? Probably not. Absolutely not. AbsolutelyJenny:Not. That’s where I think the Polluter pay principle is supposed to come into play and our regulator is supposed to be making them address it. Contamination is supposed to be on a timeline where mediation is law in Alberta, it’s supposed to be being addressed. Unfortunately, our province has reduced to the number of inspectors to the point that we don’t know these things until we go to a wellhead to find out what’s going on to either act on it. I did want to touch on what you mentioned earlier, Markham. I just want to hit this on because this has been more, we talk or about doubling Alberta’s oil and gas, or sorry, oil production. We currently use over [4] million barrels a day of fresh water. So yes, we use recycled water as well, but that is, we are actively polluting over 4 million barrels a day.Every time we’re bragging about exporting over 4 million a day, we are simultaneously polluting 4 million a day. The thought of doubling that, where is that water coming from when we are experiencing severe drought shortages? And as you said Derek, we’re seeing contamination from historical fossil fuel development that is accumulating and has accumulated over the years. Bill Donahue just put out an article to counter Joseph ER’s comments around these lab results that can contain selenium. It’s not possible in the real world. Thank you for bringing that into the conversation. I really appreciate it. Sorry, I think I cut off a question there, or do you want me to roll into one?Markham:No, I was engrossed in your answer. I forgot my other question.Jenny:That’s okay. I did want to ask about, you said no insurance, where that’s coming from. There’s some areas where there’s not going to be a ways to write insurance. Again, and I agree with Markham, we are headed towards a water shortage. That’s the evidence, that’s the science overall, especially when we are removing water from the system by disposing it down hole. And by the way, this can all be reversed by investing in restoration, investing in nature and restoring water capacity. But the way we are headed is to catastrophe where we are going to reduce the groundwater to a point where we aren’t going to have access to freshwater in some areas. Derek, a big question for you, hopefully you can give a little bit of colour on it, is relocation, community relocation efforts. For example, if I just saw in India there was a community that was right near a river, a massive flood event came through and wiped out, I want to say about, call it 50 to a hundred homes. Are you rebuilding there? And if so, how is that justified? Or how do communities start making decisions like that? Should we be rebuilding here or should we be letting nature come back? How are those decisions made from an insurance perspective, if you can?Derek:Well, then we have the question of affordability. Again, housing affordability comes up is can these people in concert with what little insurance money they get for the flood rebuild somewhere else? Or can they pick up and live somewhere else? And quite often the answer to that is no. Some of the homes that are susceptible to flooding are generally, while with the exception of around the elbow river in Calgary, of course, are generally not high value homes. They’re lower to mid value homes. And some of those people have lived there for 70 years, can’t afford to go anywhere else.Municipalities would, I think, are making some credit, are making some inroads with infrastructure to mitigate those damages. I think of the town of Coaldale just east of Lethbridge as a Malloy basin project, which basically helps the water from extreme rainfall events drain properly or drain away from the town to the outskirts of town to catch basins where it’s properly dealt with, that sort of thing. I see the efforts the city of Calgary has made at trying to mitigate potential flood risk, and I think that’s where the drive is coming is from your major urban centers. I look at in Lethbridge, nothing, nothing’s been developed in the river bottom residentially wise for I think 50 years at least. I mean, there is one development on the west side that does get close to the river. They did have some flood damage in 2013, but it was fortunately it was minimal.Markham:I Jenny, I wanted to just jump in with an observation. We were talking about timelines a minute ago for reclamation of abandoned, inactive wells. One of the great revelations for me when I was doing my unethical oil series in 2023, which what I interviewed you for is that there is not and never has been a timeline that’s enforceable by law for reclaiming an oil well. Yes, they’re required by law to do it, but there’s no timeline on when they have to do it. You can leave a well in the inactive list forever in theory, without having to reclaim it.Jenny:Yes, I will add that there is precedent setting law that was passed by the UCP government under Jason Kenny in 2022 that does put sites on timelines in Cold Lake of all places, the hotbed of oil sands development. It’s also there because Cold Lake has a severe loss of caribou population. That’s the main driver of that. But to me, those land stewardship laws are the laws of the land. This is where, as I was saying earlier, in these conversations on water, we have to get back to a place of reality. What can we actually sustain and do? Back to your point about risk Markham, do we even have the reserves to and the capacity to increase our production by two times, that doesn’t seem realistic when we go after the best stuff and the basin first, and there’s more waste product for reservoir extraction today than there was 20 years ago. Definitely a lot of things Go ahead.Markham:Well, what I was going to say is that the idea of doubling Alberto oil production is a fantasy. It’s a fever dream. There’s no basis for it. No.Well, let’s back up a little bit. The premier, the oil industry and the business community in Alberta firmly believe in OPEC view of the oil’s future in that there will be a big increase from 103 million barrels a day today to 120 my mid-century. That is improbable at best. And I mean IE International Energy Agency says it’s going to peak in 2029 and then decline in the early 2030s. The premier, premier Danielle Smith is basically relying on shoddy modelling. That is, nobody believes it. But then you get into the physical problems. For example, today after all the capital is paid off, you might be able to produce a barrel minimum for $27. But if you’re going to fill up a new pipeline and you have to build greenfield new, that your costs are now 60 to $80 a barrel. And there’s no way that you can compete with the Saudis and the Iraqis in the Chinese or Indian markets. This is one of the things that keeps bothering me over and over again is just show your math. If you believe in a pipeline, if you believe in expansion of the oil sands, show your math, and let’s talk about that math and subjected to some scrutiny. And instead we were obsessed with narrative, narrative, narrative, narrative. And I see on the risk side, around water, much of the same thing is in the public, in the decisions made by the government. It’s all about narrative. It’s not about data and evidence.Jenny:Yeah, agreed. And this is going to be the breaking point if we don’t intervene in some way. And some of the things that we’re seeing, and maybe this is our last question and then into some takeaways, Derek, but when we were talking with farmers about water shortages, and also we were talking about with Arlene and Davin about the water licence system and where it broke down. For example, there was a moment where there was water shortages in Southern Alberta, and they realized that the lowest owner of water, the lowest rank in terms of licence fit for first in time, first in right, was the meat processing company. If you’re a rancher, you need to be able to sell your product. You can’t say, sorry, you can’t have that water because now you’re not selling your product. So there is this overlap that’s coming. I wonder, Derek, is there any, for you, what sort of breaking point do you see? Is there any particular area that you think is a place to watch in terms of insurance that might be a hot point for people to take note?Derek:That’s a difficult question to answer. Yeah.Jenny:It’s areas where you might see things sort of cascading together where it’s like somebody can’t get flood insurance or can’t get hail.Derek:I dunno. Yeah, I mean, we’re at a point now where I think the level water levels on the old man river and the Waterton River have been very low for a few years running and it’s causing some farmers problems. Granted, many of them here have irrigated fields. They have had difficulty growing some bumper crops, some of their regular crops. And whether I think because they do seem to have the ear of the current governing party in Alberta, whether I don’t like to say the name, whether that might be the tipping point where the farmers and the ranchers rise up, similar to what we’re seeing in the crow’s nest pass with respect to the coal mining rising up and saying, enough is enough, you’re killing me.Key TakeawaysJenny (00:54:46):Mark Dorn would heavily agree with you in terms of the landowners are the ones that have not only the power to change things too. Right. That’s where there is a big opportunity there. Thank you for flagging that. I just want to offer a couple things I heard before we wrap here and then I’ll let you guys do the same. Yeah, I’m hearing the frequency and severity of events, climate events are impacting both the rates and the ability to ensure people more. Brokers are becoming more proactive in your analysis, trying to make sure that people have a sense of what’s coming at them and be prepared for that. Relocation is still a question. How are people going to decide? And I hear what you’re saying, Derek, I’m sure there is a big piece that people can’t move. That’s not realistic, that’s not something that’s going to happen. So what are we going to do about that as a society? I will say that Mike Klein, our friend in the chat here was talking about potentially state owned mortgages or corporations that would help mitigate those costs for the population. And the last thing is big is that pollution is excluded from insurance coverage. Yeah. So that’s a big one. Thank you. That’s everything I’ve got from it. I don’t know who wants to go first. Maybe you first Markham and then Derek, you can finish. Give us the last word.Markham:Sure. I’ve got a couple of key takeaways from my point of view. One of them is the extent to which the insurance industry is a global industry, and changes that are taking place, it’s not all about Alberta, and this is something that Alberta, we politely call Alberta exceptionalism, right? It’s not about us. I’m sorry, Jenny. I live long enough in Alberta and I’ve been long and I get it, but there are changes that are taking place at the global level in the reinsurance industry and then in the larger industry as a whole that are going to play a role, what insurance costs and when it’ll be available, and to what degree that has nothing to do with Alberta and be prepared for that. The other thing that, I don’t know if it’s a takeaway, but it raised an issue. Again, if we’re going heading to some sort of collapse or some, the issue becomes big enough that the private sector can’t or won’t handle it, then the government will have to step in. And now the taxpayer’s on the hook again, and we see this, I’ve seen this over and over again, and I think that it’s one of the criteria for any kind of development in round oil and gases.Will the public have to, will the taxpayer have to step in and subsidize it? And to what extent? And we should just say, no, we’re not doing that anymore unless it’s things like the 2013 flood. It’s an extraordinary event and that’s different. Those would be my two takeaways, the global issues and the fact that the government may have to step in again with public money.Derek:No, I think why can’t the government mandate each oil company to post a bond for each well site to a minimum level to cover cleanup costs. If you don’t clean up by a certain time, we’re going to exercise the bond to clean up. It’s going to cost the insurance company money. That’s probably why we haven’t seen anything like that. Or sorry, not the insurance company, the oil company money. I think you’d probably find some insurers who would be willing to take that on for a right price. I also think, and this is stepping out of my insurance hat a bit, it’s time to treat water like the valuable resource it is. And I think we’re getting to a point now, and I remember saying this to my wife, gosh, it must be 20 years ago or more, now that fresh water is going to become the new oilJenny:A hundred percent.Markham:Assuming we have enough of it. Yeah.Jenny:Yes. Well, and again, that’s why we’re working towards trying to wake people up to this massive issue so that we can start moving in the right direction. Thank you, Derek. Thank you, Markham. This has been awesome, awesome conversation. Thrilled. And yes, I think we got to do this again, Markham, and it’d be great to circle back with you on a regular basis. Derek, if you think of anything else that you want us to talk about in the space of water that comes to mind, would love to hear more from you as well.Derek:I will send you what I get. I am a profuse and almost addicted reader, I will send you anything I come upon.Jenny:Yeah, I have to say, I appreciate you. There’s very few people that are aware in this space and willing to talk, and I’ve appreciated your support virtually and now it’s nice to actually put a face to that and hopefully we’ll have a chance to meet in person sometime soon. I’ll let you know when I’m down your way. Okay, thank you so much guys. Have a great rest of your day. Take care for now. ThankDerek:You. Thanks, Jenny. Have a nice day. Bye now. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In episode 6 of Water in Southern Alberta, Jenny and Bob Morrison are joined by three guests: Dwight Popowich, Julian Vandenberg, and John Smith, who represent different farming sectors—dryland, irrigated, and rangeland farming. The discussion highlights the challenges faced by farmers, including water shortages, drought conditions, and the impact of climate change on water resources. The guests share their experiences with water management, the economic pressures of farming, and the mental health challenges within the agricultural community. They emphasize the importance of community support, policy advocacy, and technological advancements in sustaining farming operations. The conversation underscores the interconnectedness of water, agriculture, and community well-being, advocating for greater awareness and support for rural farmers.Introductions to Dwight Popowich, Julian Vandenberg, and John SmithJenny (00:04):Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast. I am your host, Jenny Ami. Here you break down heavy ideas with me to understand their complexities and connections. Our mission is to work through dilemmas together in conversation and process. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territory of Treaty 7 and Metis districts 5 and 6. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples were created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature by giving back and uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide The Gravity Well conversation. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me.This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The gravity well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at thegravitywell.net. Welcome, I’m really excited to have Bob join me with three other guests today, which I’ll get into in a second. This is still in the first half of season two if you’re a subscriber. This is episode 14 of season two, and it’s also episode six of Bob Morrison and I’s Water and Southern Alberta Podcast miniseries. This episode is going to cover dryland, irrigated and rangeland farming. We have three guests today. Dwight Popowich is a dryland farmer in two hills in the Red Deer Basin and is the chair of the Polluter Pay Federation, of which I am a part. Dwight has been on the show before talking about liabilities last year. Julian is an irrigation farmer in the Enchant region in Bow Basin and is a city firefighter.That’s how…my husband actually introduced Julian to me, a few or actually 2023. And he said, you need to learn about rural Alberta and you need to learn about farming. And I was saying to Julian, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since, basically. Yeah, he was right. And then lastly, John is a rancher. John Smith, excuse me, is a rancher in the MD of Ranch Lands and Willow Creek. He straddles both and is the fellow defender of clean water. John and I have met at many protests against the coal mining proposals in Eastern slopes. I’m really pleased to have all of you guys here. Why are we doing this? Just quickly for your background, we want to first of all give the general population some knowledge. I’m very ignorant in farming and farming practices. I am very excited to learn here, help people that work in water.There’s a lot of conversations that happen in silos. We’re trying to break those silos down. And then lastly, concerned citizens. Like myself, who’s concerned about it, we were talking earlier about water shortages that we saw last year, for example. We know there’s more drought happening in southern Alberta. The Milk River Irrigation District is shut down for the year, for example. There’s a lot of things happening in water that are impacting your work, and we’re excited to hear about it. That’s in the area of stewardship. We also had some conversations around irrigation history and then also the environment. A few conversations in there, and then in the fall we’re going to reconvene and talk about the future. Where are we headed in Alberta with water and how can we help people do more to get involved? Okay, I’m going to stop there and do some introductions again. Bob, please go ahead and introduce yourself to this group and then we’ll go around with everyone. Thanks.Bob:Okay. My name is Bob Morrison. I’m a retired planner. Most of my career was in water management and transportation, and since retirement I’ve been involved in municipal issues here in Calgary, and I’m really looking forward to this podcast because we’ve been talking about policies and law and how people manage water on a basin scale, but I’m far more interested in learning what does water really mean at a local level right in the field when somebody is trying to make a living farming. I’m very fascinated by the conversation we’re going to have and really interested in seeing what you have to see. Thanks.Dwight:Dwight Pop, which I live in the two hills area, which is just east central, I guess Alberta is what we call ourselves here, the gateway to Lakeland. I live on 75 acres of land just south of two hills here, and when we have 50 acres of alfalfa on it, we never bought this property to farm it, so to speak. We bought it for recreation purposes and it happened to have 50 cultivated acres, which I continued to use. Rented it out for a couple of years and then started farming it ourselves actually is what we did. And now we’ve turned it all into alfalfa because I’m retired and actually I’ve joined with my neighbours who’ve done the same thing because they’re all retired and we’ve made one huge field out of it, out of our three fields joint because they’re all touching together and we farm it altogether.Now we have one of my neighbor’s sons who has stayed on the farm and actually wanted to farm, which these days is kind of unusual, losing a lot of our youth to the cities. It’s worked out great. The farming that I do these days is kind of lazy man’s farming, but I’d rather enjoy it and it does give us an income. Water is also in my background. I had worked for the town at two hills for 10 years and I held the licence for their water systems. I was the guy that was in charge of all of it. That’s water and wastewater. I do understand it very much, and it’s very, very important that we have drinking water. We only have 3% of the water in the world is potable. The rest of it can’t be used, it’s rather important that we have water done properly.Jenny:Thank you, Dwight. Yes. I forgot about all your knowledge in water infrastructure as well. Julian, you’re next, please.Julian:I’m Julian Vandenberg. We farm in the Enchant region, which is in the MD of Tabor. For anyone who doesn’t really know where that specifically is, it’s right center between Lethbridge and Brooks. We’re an irrigated farm. We farm depending on the year, but about 3000 acres are irrigated. Our primary crop is potatoes as far as water, we’re fed off the Bull River. We are heavily reliant on it. The Bull River for us has been the most solid irrigation system, I think, in southern Alberta. Even with the water restrictions last year that was south of us in the old man and St. Mary’s, we didn’t see any restrictions on our part other than water farms temporarily for the year moved into our region to grow their high water input crops because of the water shortages south of us. That’s kind of my story. Kind of back over to you.Jenny:Yeah, thanks Julian. I’m sorry if you said it. And what generation are you on your land? Is that…Julian:Sorry. Yeah, I should have mentioned that my dad started the farm and I farmed together with him, he would’ve started it in 1989.Jenny:Okay, cool. Right on. Okay, John, you’re next please.John:Yeah, my name’s John Smith. We own and operate Plateau Cattle co with my wife Laura Lang. I’m the third generation. My maternal grandfather started it in I think 1959 is when he got started. We’re mostly a cow calf operation. We have, I don’t know, there are four or 500 acres of cultivation. It’s not necessarily our main focus. I usually have that hired out. I have custom work for that. A lot of our experience is kind of on the Highway 22 corridor and over the first range of mountains in the Livingston kind of area, Mount Livingston area. I guess in a previous life I was a weed sprayer for the md, a ranch lands and forestry and stuff. I spent a lot of time back west and have seen some pretty significant changes regarding the water and our management of the landscape back there. I think I started back there 25 years ago probably. I guess I got a quarter of a century of experience and seeing how it’s changed and how we’re treating the landscape. Yeah, excited to be here and thanks for the opportunity.Jenny:Yeah, thank you John. I’m excited to hear more. Bob, do you want to leave this off?What issues are you seeing related to water in your area?Bob (08:42):Beyond what you’ve already talked about, start with you, maybe John, what are the issues that you see in your area related to water, whether it’s a water supply issue, whether how does the land affect the water? Is it a water quality issue? What kinds of things are you seeing in your area?John:Well, specifically at our home place right now, we’re able to control the quality pretty well. We do have our creeks and dug oats fenced off and we’re investing money and continuing to invest money in offsite waters. That’s been really good. I mean, there’s a lot of programs there to help farmers out and most of the people I know are taking advantage of those programs. It would be the quantity that is our issue. There’s a little creek that runs through our place. It doesn’t even have a name and maybe if it had run more often, I’d name it. But the point of it is when I was a kid, we talked about the one time the creek didn’t run and now we talk about when it does run. We just received five inches of water whenever that was like four days ago and the creek came up pretty good, it wasn’t running.It came up pretty good and now you can go and almost check it twice a day and you can see that the flow is starting to slow down and I expect in a week it’s probably going to quit again. Our aquifers, our groundwater flow or supplied by springs and that’s killing us, is our springs are just not flowing the way they used to be, and that’s how low our groundwater is. And that five inches of rain, I mean it’s soaked in, there was no water laying in the fields, anything. We were so dry and it could give us another five inches again right away and that would be fine.Bob:Yeah, that creek sounded like a spring Fed Creek the way you were describing it, and that’s certainly one of the issues we’re trying to get a handle on is this relationship between groundwater and surface water in the basin, particularly for those smaller streams. Now you talked about fencing off the creek. Have you been involved with things like cows and fish, those kinds of programs?John:Not specifically on cows and fish. On this one, we just did this. We wanted to, but our offsite watering things, we participated in the Western grant and had a couple winter things subsidised. I guess actually the next one we’re doing, we’re doing through cap, Canadian agricultural Partnerships has a program where they’ll cover 50% of an offsite watering system up to 10 grand. That’s good. We’re going to do that next. I know there’s other ones like off cap RR, I’m probably forgetting some, but there’s lots of funding streams out there if you go looking.Bob:You’ve been using dugouts, if I can use that term. Is that what you’re looking at in terms of wall stream?John:Yeah, our little creek flows through and then my grandfather, he dug three dugouts kind of spread out through the place. The place is kind of a couple miles long, he kind of spaced these dugouts where he thought best and the creek had run into him and then ran out and carried on into the neighbours. We’ve fenced it all off, fenced the dugout off, and then wherever appropriate and where it works for our management, we’ll spot a tank and do a solar powered pump. And I can see the cattle far better. They’re going to do better when they have clean fresh water.Bob:Julie, in your area, what are the water issues, whether they’re water quality, water supply, management of the land and how it affects the water?Julian:For us, I believe that we are in a very fortunate part of the irrigation districts being in the bow. We haven’t had any water restrictions in my lifetime, south of us in the St. Mary’s and the LNID. There has been, but for us it’s been really good, honestly. But I would say the number one issue probably would be the quantity of water, not necessarily for us, but the irrigation district south of us. As far as positives in the irrigation industry, I guess in our area, a big thing in the last 15 or 20 years has been the progression of water pipelines. As a kid we always got our water through irrigation ditches, which had lots of problems in and of themselves, lots of leakage, stuff like that. And now with everything through pipelines, I feel it’s become very efficient that way and very convenient for us. I mean, it’s like opening the tap and we have water. Sorry, John, it sounds like it’s not the case for you, but that is how it is here.Bob:Yeah, pipelines have been a big improvement.Julian:They sure have. Yep.Bob:Now has that been something you’ve had to pay for or is it something the district has to pay for? How have those things been financed?Julian:I believe it’s through the district and public funding. As far as I know, we have not paid directly for the pipelines. I do believe our water rights costs have gone up, but I believe it’s mostly publicly funded, I guess indirectly through tax dollars. But other than that, no.Bob:Kind of a partnership between say the provincial government and the district then.Julian:Correct. Yeah. I do believe it is one of the best uses of public funds that we’ve seen in our area.Bob:Well, and the thing that we found in our first podcast is that irrigation may not be economic on its own, but it certainly provides a lot of economic development opportunities in terms of maintaining a secure water supply for people.Julian:Correct. As well as parts and recreation. It’s also a huge driver for parts and recreation in an area.Bob:Well, certainly on the reservoirs it’s very, very popular, isn’t it?Julian:Yeah.Bob:Okay. Dwight, you’ve touched a little bit on this, but what are your concerns in your area in terms of water land management as it affects water?Dwight:Well, what we’re seeing of course, is drought, light conditions that have been going on for a number of years, dugout slews are the lowest I’ve ever seen them in decades. They just don’t seem that we depend so much on runoff and we don’t get the snow, whether we even get in the wintertime to get that spring runoff to fill these things. And we’ve been very dependent. Then on the rains, which used to be quite regular, we’d get that sunshine in the daytime and then get the evening showers coming through. But we’ve seen that kind of been disrupted for some reason or other. It hasn’t always been the best. Last year I only got one third of the alfalfa. I normally get off of my field because we just didn’t get the rains in a timely fashion. But yet this year they did come here. They were a little late coming, but it was still, we got a significant amount, a couple inches.Dwight:That’s going to add to it alfalfa’s deeper roots. It goes down quite a ways, but what we’re seeing is the water table is lower and the area that we’re in, we sit on one of the largest salt beds in the world right under us, and if you get down any lower than say 200 feet into the ground for a well, you’ve hit the salt beds. We can’t go lower. When the water table starts going down, you start to see the upward issues of the quality of the water. The sodium is just too high. Matter of fact, the town at two Hills used to run well water. They had five wells that they ran to supply the town. They had to shut it down because of salt. Yeah, the good supply. But the salt was off the table. Doctors would recommend anybody with high blood pressure not to drink the water locally.We treated it, but just couldn’t take enough salt out of it. Now they get City of Edmonton water, which brings up another issue in my mind is we have the city EPCOR supplying all these towns going out for hundreds of miles now. We saw what happens in Calgary when part of the main water suppliers go down. It’s always an issue out here too. We worry that farming wise, like you say, we’re very dependent on the rains. If we need spray or water, we will be going to the towns and we use that clean water there. And I think frackers are starting to use some of our water too, is what I’m starting to see, because there’s no dugouts, there’s nothing to really suck it out of no slue, they have to get it somewhere. Yeah, it’s going to become a challenge as the demand gets higher and if we don’t start getting some of these drought conditions change, which I just can’t see changing with what we’re seeing going on, it’s going to be a struggle as we go forward.And here we don’t have any other options. We don’t have pipelines bringing water in, I don’t know what they’re going to do there. You said the only irrigation I’ve ever, ever seen in my life in this area was we had a guy who was a sod farmer and for his sod, he would irrigate some of that, but that was it. That’s the only irrigation, and now he sold that out and there’s nothing there anymore anyway, guys just don’t do it here. I think it’s the cost of course, and getting rights these days, it becomes an issue getting water rights. Yeah, that’s where we’re at here now.Bob:You’ve got to have a body of water that you can tap into that, as you said about the groundwater, that’s going to be reliable and not come with some extra benefits like salt.Dwight:Wow. Exactly. And if you’re running cattle up in this area, you need, well, you got to have wells or dugouts, the wells have to supplement those dugouts. You’re not getting fueled up from rain or runoff from the springs. It becomes a concern when you start seeing the drop in the water table itself. We know it’s much lower than it usually is.Bob:Are you on a well or on town water?Dwight:I’m on a well.Bob:On a well.Dwight:Yeah.Jenny:Okay. But your town is on city water?Dwight:It’s now on city water and matter of fact, when I think of just about every community within our county is now on city water.Jenny:Yeah. You and I were talking about this in a prior conversation and one of the conversations was around WBE and Lake, for example, when that contamination happened from the train derailment. Now those communities are also piped into Edmonton. To your point about pipelines, I’ve been in Edmonton and Calgary my whole life, aside from our cottage, I am used to piping, not even thinking about water coming to me. And I think this is the blindness we have with water, which has come up in some of our other conversations. If we really don’t understand if something fails, where are we getting our second source from? Is what you’re describing Dwight, right?Dwight:Well, exactly. And the other thing is when they put the pipeline in, yes, you’re supplying the towns and that, but you’re not supplying the agricultural community, which is a big user. There’s no way that EPCOR would be able to do both. There’s just absolutely no way. The plant’s not big enough. They couldn’t produce that much. Yeah, we got a pipeline coming to these communities, but is it going to help agriculture because if we start lining up with our trucks to fill ’em up for our agricultural needs, it’s going to put a big, big demand.Bob:There’s a big difference in the size of pipes for irrigation versus supplying a municipality.How is water used for your farming operations?Jenny:Well, and I think if we could start talking about what water use looks like for you, just what does it look like for each of you, Dwight? I’m imagining as somebody who lives in the city and doesn’t really do this work that you have to look at the weather forecast and predict when you’re planting and all sorts of things around thisDwight:A little bit. I mean, you plant in the spring, you hope that you get the rains when you get the rains. I mean that’s basically, that’s the plan and it’s always been the plan for years and years and years when you don’t have irrigation, nothing to back it up, mother nature is what you have to depend on and you hope that you get the reins in a timely fashion. Like I said, last year, my neighbours were getting it. They did. Well, actually, but I didn’t because I didn’t get the reins, and that’s just the luck of the draw for that one year. But normally we get enough rain to make it work and it’s okay, but like I’m saying, we’re seeing when you need the backup. We see these stretches where we’re getting these heat waves now that go on for a few weeks. That’s the time when we don’t get the rain and the time when you may need to back up for water and cattle and all that sort of stuff. Now that starts putting a big, big draw on a system that’s already under stress and we know we’re not getting, we see it in the winter, we don’t get the snow out here, what we used to get, and we’re imagining you’re not getting it in the mountains either because they’re not getting it. We’re not getting it. That’s the way it works. The weather patterns move from west to east, and we’re dependent on what’s happening in those mountain ranges very much.Jenny:Yeah. Can you speak a little bit about your planning, John? I understand you’re at the mercy of Mother Nature, but are there any changes or anything you’re seeing in terms of planning, timing or otherwise that matters with respect to water?John:I’d say here on the farming side of things, you see guys trying to seed way earlier now than what would’ve been the normal. We got guys we’re on the foothills and guys just on the outside of the foothills are trying to seed the end of March, the first day April, which would’ve been, nobody would’ve ever done that before because you’d worry about getting frosted out. These guys are trying to seed earlier that they can use a bit of moisture when it’s there and they’re rolling the dice to see if that crop will get past the frost, the frost hazards. But for us, if we water a lot of cattle off of wells, for instance this spring and we have really good water, the wells have never gone dry, and we had a well bugger up and it’s always the pressure switch. And after I changed the pressure switch and that didn’t fix it, I started thinking that the well was dry, and that was the first thought that came to my head.It turns out that wasn’t it. It was another issue. And then that makes me think about the irrigation, the Vandenberg’s, there’s a Vandenberg hay farm. I’m not sure if they’re related or not, but us cow calf guys, I can see when it’s dry like this and we’re not getting production, I put the cows in on my own hay fields. They’re only rated at a thousand pounds an acre, and it’s not worth cutting. We grazed it, and that’s where irrigation’s going to provide a good service for the cow calf guy. We need somebody to grow a bit of forage for us and some hay, we might as well let the guys with the best technology do it, I think.Bob:Well, it’s my understanding that irrigation in particular has become quite integrated with the cow calves operations that you’ve got, particularly when you’ve got a drought.John:Yeah, absolutely. I know one strategy we’ve employed with our own cows in the winter feeding. We graze on the Waldron grazing co-op till about January 15th, 20th, something like that. And then now what we’ve been doing the last three, four years is bringing our cows home and giving ’em somebody that’s growing silage. Some do it with irrigation, some don’t mostly nod around here. But yeah, it’s actually really changing the ranching paradigm a little bit is how to winter these cows because that’s the most expensive expense that you have as a cow guy is your winter feed costs. Typically it would’ve been a rancher who would’ve spent all winter rolling out hay bales and we’re just not seeing as much of that anymore and definitely not in our place. Got to think outside the box and do some different things to try and stay in the business.Dwight:That’s some of the reason why I went into alfalfa was exactly what John is talking about. When we see lower, say rain isn’t coming and we’re not getting the yields, we usually see the price of that alfalfa that feed go up. It kind of balances itself out. Not for guys like John who’ve suddenly now got a higher cost, but guys like me who are growing alfalfa. That’s kind of the balance why and why I went into alfalfa being retired, very little lot less work to it. And there’s that kind of balance that sometimes happens with it. Not all the time, but sometimes.Jenny:Yeah. Julian, can you offer us a different perspective? What does it look like for you? Is it mostly just making sure everything’s consistent throughout the year or what does it look like?Julian:Yeah, for us, well, like I said earlier, we turn on the tap and we can get water. Now, the caveat to that is our water doesn’t get turned on generally until April 25th, and this year was actually a little bit later. I think we were a couple days into May before our water got turned on. But for us, our planting, I mean, we grow crops that take pretty much the full growing season, we can’t necessarily wait for rains or the water to get turned on to plant those crops because we run on our growing days. For us, our potatoes rule of thumb is April 20th, the planter started rolling into the fields, and that’s kind of the way it’s been for many years. We are, like I said, we are heavily reliant on irrigation, and so far we’ve had a pretty bulletproof system, at least in our district.Bob:Julian, I think you’re being a little modest. You said you just turn on the tap. I gather there’s a little bit more work involved than just turning a tap on. Can you give us an idea of what it’s like to irrigate?Julian:We irrigate primarily with pivot irrigation, and for those you’re not familiar with the pivot, essentially, it’s funny, I work with people in the city that say, “oh, look at all the crop circles where you are.” Well, that’s a pivot. Mostly you’ll see a pivot in a circle. That part of it is generally automated. There is a lot of maintenance involved in pivot irrigation. We have, I believe, 24 pivots that we operate. And some of them are ours, some of them aren’t, and we have a guy that’s busy full-time keeping those things running. There’s that side of it. As far as turning on the water, I mean, we still need pumps and things like that to get the right pressures. We are pressurized by a pipeline, but generally the pressure isn’t high enough to actually supply our irrigation systems. In the past three years, or not this year, but the last three years we’ve been doing sweet potatoes, which were under drip irrigation, and that was another whole plethora of things that we had to set up for it. Drip irrigation is nice once you get it set up, but setting it up takes a lot of labour. And then there’s actually one of our biggest problems was we had gophers and they would eat the drip tape and you would’ve holes everywhere. That was a concern with that, but we’re no longer doing sweet potatoes. That wasn’t, we thought it would be a high value crop and it was, but just on the input side, not on what we were getting out of it. Yeah, I hope that answered…Jenny:Well, it taps into something that was mentioned in our conversation about irrigation with Shannon Stunden Bower when she was talking about, as Dwight was saying, some farmers in Saskatchewan have opted out of irrigation because of all of the inputs to get you to those cash crops can potentially outweigh the benefit of not trying in some cases, again, depending on the area, but when you’ve had something readily available, it’s probably a very different conversation.Julian:For us, we grow potatoes as our main crop, and then we seed canola, a little bit of parsnips and some grain to fill the rotation. But the reason I list the crops is generally, except for the grain, those are generally pretty high value crops, which you’d need high value crops on irrigated farms, especially these days. I mean, I don’t know if you guys track what land values are doing our way, but they have gone up extremely high in the last few years to the point that no one starting a farm could buy land. That is why we grow higher value crops. Of course, our inputs are a lot higher too, and our storage concerns as well for the potatoes. We have to of course store all the crops that we get off and we’re actually shipping out today we’re shipping to one of our processing plants, but that’s another thing that comes with high value crops is high value storage. Right.Jenny:Yeah. You were describing this to me when I met with you that time, how you have to store and be prepared to move your product through in a way that you get the right prices, but you’re also, the quality stays high, all of those components as well. Right.Julian:And we wash and pack, as well. All the potatoes you see in the store in bags are washed, we wash a good chunk of those that you would see. But yeah, that also requires water, which we feed off of. We have a pond on site that we fill, and then we treat the water as it comes out. We have many, many pretty stringent food safety regulations that we have to follow for doing that.Jenny:Right. Yeah, I can only imagine the inputs to that. Okay. Can we talk a little bit about the changes you tapped into something both Dwight and Julian about potentially the number of farmers like Julian, you were just describing land prices going up. What we learned in our first episode was that there is, at least in the special areas, that crops like crop sizes have increased by 30 fold since the 1980s, meaning what I understood as 30 times less farmers on the landscape, if you will, in that area. They’ve actually seen a drop in people living in that district. I’m curious, can you guys talk a little bit about those changes? Dwight, you touched on it first already, maybe if you wouldn’t mind starting us off there.Community Population and Activity ChangesDwight (30:40):Yeah, we’re seeing something similar out here, Jenny. We’re seeing less people farming. The younger generation seems to be heading to the city for the big jobs, the big money type of thing, and many of them don’t want to take over the farming. We’re also seeing that as the cost of inputs are going up, you’re needing to do more and more acres in order to make a go of it. We used to have small mom and pop farms where you’d have one quarter of land and you can raise a family. You can’t do that. It’s almost impossible. The small guy really doesn’t exist anymore, and they’re getting bought up by the few guys that want to actually farm and realize that they need many, many more acres. That’s what we’re seeing is guys are becoming quite large for farming, for me to have 75 acres is highly unusual.I’m very highly unusual, but like I say, I didn’t buy it for farming. I bought it to live on and recreation, and I worked in the grain industry for years. I was the head of the Grain Services Union, that’s why I live out here. I’m very familiar with farming. I grew up on a farm, that sort of thing. I’m connected to it. I love it. I love it out here, but I cannot see how it’s sustainable for these young people to ever start up farming. Unless you have a parent who is retiring and turning some stuff over to you, you’re not going to make a go of it. You can’t afford it. Our prices of land, it’s going up too. Of course, it depends on the soil itself, what grade it’s at, but we’re seeing $1,500 for an acre for some of the farmland, which is crazy. I bought my place 25 years ago. We paid 104,000 for the 75 acres with a house and all these buildings on it and whatnot, and now it’s half a million bucks is what it’s worth just from the property. Gotcha.Jenny:Thank you. Dwight. Yeah. John, can you offer some thoughts with respect to that? I know in the songs we heard in Fort McLeod there were some comments around succession planning in the music. I’m just curious, can you offer some comments around what you’re seeing.John:To go off Dwight’s point, it is the same thing here. It would be extremely difficult for a young person or a couple to begin ranching. Our land prices, I’m actually jealous of Dwight’s land prices. Ours are quite probably double that or a little bit more, probably closer to 4,000 an acre. And there’s just, even if they wanted to, I don’t know how they would ever get a loan from the bank. You would have to have a down payment so big that they just, why would you do it? You’d have to be a masochist. Really. It’s the same thing out here, the little guys. Some of it’s our young people aren’t coming back because for a long time in farming and ranching, there wasn’t a lot of money in it. Farming has enjoyed a little bit of a boom previous to the one that ranching’s having right now.That helped maybe bring some young people back there. We’ll let Julian speak to that. But the ranches, you got to be born into it really, or maybe have a relationship with an old guy that’s retiring. I forget the median age of farmers in Alberta, but I think it’s over 65. It’s the same with ranching. There’s a ton of the older generation kind of hanging on, and it’s one of those that’s kind odd because you’ll be sitting there sitting on probably millions of dollars worth of wealth, but because you’ve struggled your whole life, you didn’t have the opportunity to save all the money that you wanted to save to retire.My mom and dad enjoyed a reasonable retirement, but there were no lavish villas in Spain or anything like that. They just barely made it and they sacrificed to make sure that Laura and I could have a shot at it, and then still a little bit younger, but we’re going to have the same decision to make as try and figure out how we can get enough money squirrelled away to retire and hopefully roll this thing one more time. And then that goes to government policy. If you get the government screwing around with taxes and estate planning, that’s a really big deal for us in agriculture, like huge.Jenny:Right. Yeah, I’ve heard that conversation come up before. Yeah. Okay. Julian? Yes, a younger perspective for us, please.Julian:Yeah, if I were today to go on my own and buy a farm, it would be 100% impossible Land prices here, and keep in mind this is irrigated, but I think I just did a rough estimate on a quarter that I heard sold the other day and we’re, I think $22,000 an acre. It’s impossible to buy one quarter of land and you can’t even make a go of it on one quarter of land. You could if you had very high value crops, but with that comes very high value equipment that you need to purchase as well and storages and the whole thing. I’m fortunate that my father is involved with it. It’s not getting handed to me by any means, but it is giving me an opportunity that I would be able to start up on my own. I would say for young farmers or for young people in general, I’m in a very fortunate category that I have a dad that has a successful farming operation or that we have a successful farming operation and that we have worked out a plan that can get me involved in it.For the average young person, that is not possible. It’s just the amount of money to buy a quarter of land. I mean that’s three and a half million dollars per quarter of land where you’re going to get the down payment even by one quarter, never mind a couple to make it worth it, and then all the equipment costs on top of that plus your operating costs. It’s just, yeah, it’s a lot of money. I’m in a fortunate position, but I can see the industry. Actually, I’ve thought about this for a while. I think the industry is going to go, you see it in a lot of Midwestern United States where there’s a lot of now corporate farming. I think that’s going to happen here as well. We see it. Everyone here has mentioned how farms have gone bigger and bigger. Part of that reason is we’ve got a lot of foreign investment into farming in our area and we’re seeing more and more corporate farming. We farm on 3000 acres and we’re considered to be a pretty small to medium farm. Yeah, I guess that’s my perspective on it.Jenny:Yeah. Julian, I’m just curious because you grew up out there, can you speak to your neighbours, are your friends what’s described? And I’ve certainly seen them go into the city to work for industries or other things rather than try to pick up where their parents have left off?Julian:Yeah, I guess it depends on the friends. Some of them weren’t motivated to work on a farm, a lot of ’em, and I think that had to do, and I think maybe Dwight or John had mentioned it earlier, farming had a real bad rap, especially in the nineties. It was really tough to make a go of it. A lot of people were born, probably a couple of years older than me, but we’re coached not to farm and to go to the city and get jobs there. Now, farming, I would say in the last 20 years, has turned around and especially irrigated farming has done quite well. I guess farming requires a lot of effort and a lot of work and a lot of people like the Monday to Friday, eight to five jobs, which I guess I can see the appeal to, but it’s not for everyone anymore.And there’s just a lot of options out there. But as far as my friends go, I would say they are not necessarily farming on their parents’ operation, but a lot of them have started businesses related to farming. In our area, agriculture is a primary economic driver and with that comes, I’ve got a couple buddies that have machine shops and welding shops and mechanic shops and stuff like that. Everything to do with irrigation is high inputs, which means lots of equipment, which means lots of work for those guys. There’s lots of business opportunities around farming. Being directly involved in a farm is a different story, I would say.Jenny:Yeah, thank you. That’s fantastic. Okay, Bob, I’ve hogged the conversationMaking Farming Work for Its CommunitiesBob (38:49):In terms of making this work from a community point of view where you, it’d be nice to have the corporate guys come in and be part of the community, but Dwight, you’ve been involved in banking in your previous life. What kind of solutions do we have out there that would potentially make this better from a community point of view in terms of keeping people on the land as opposed to going to these major corporations?Dwight:That’s a darn good question. What I’m seeing out here is this is something that we really haven’t talked about the stress of farming, it’s a big issue. We’re losing farmers who are taking their own lives because of the stress in my area. I’ve lost two friends in the last couple years and it’s just, I see it and I look at these guys because they’re having to go to this more and more acres to make ends meet, snow is flying and they’re still combining for crying out loud. We never used to have to do that kind of stuff. I’d rented it for a couple years, we thought we’d just try renting it out. We rented to one of the bigger guys in the area. He went under, he never finished off because he couldn’t get his crops off to one, he had too many acres.The stresses are everywhere, and that is something that we haven’t really talked about, and I think that’s one of the biggest problems of why people are not going into farming a ranching, financially speaking, you’re gambling and then you get all the stress on top of that with weather, with input costs, with whether you’re going to get your crops off, whether you’re going to get proper pricing for it, you don’t know what, there’s too many things being thrown at you, too many things, too many stresses that need to be managed. It’s not everybody’s cut out to be a farmer. It’s special people that will be in this, and that’s why I see it kind of going to corporations because of all the stress and all the management that is needed to farm all these huge acres to make ends meet. I don’t think you’re ever going to see the single family farm type of thing ever coming back, ever. Not at these costs.Bob:John and Julian, have you seen the same kind of issues in your area?John:I would say yeah, the mental health thing is actually, that’s a big one that doesn’t get talked about and most people in the industry don’t really want to talk about that either, but it is something that should be addressed and yeah, stress is huge, right? And lots of times it’s about things that you can’t do anything about. You can participate in whatever business risk management, your crop insurance, there’s moisture deficiency insurance. There’s all these different things, and I mean they do help, but at the end of the day when it hasn’t rained in a month or two or very little and you’re running out of options, and in my case, you’re looking at a cow herd that has generations of working to it, and it’s like now you got to decide what cows to get to go to town. And we had to do that three years ago and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like doing that. Yeah, it’s hard, right? It’s hard, but you just, I don’t know. Mind you that being said, if I ever go to Vegas and I play blackjack, that feels easy. It’s the same thing as my regular life.Dwight:That’s easy. The guy who won the lottery went farming till it was all gone. Yeah.Bob:I asked an economic question, Julian and I got a mental health answer. How are things in your area? The question I had was, how can you make bankers make the system work better for the local community? But I got an answer that was related to stress and mental health issues. What do you…John:Sorry, Bob, I lost focus.Dwight:That was my fault. Sorry.Bob:Well, no, I’ve been known to ask the wrong question, but get the right answer surprisingly sometimes. But in terms of your area, Julian, you’ve got all the cost inputs in particular to make a go of it. In terms of irrigation, are there better financial models or are there better mental health models for farming?Julian:That’s a tough question. I don’t really have the answer to that to be quite honest. I don’t know what the solution is to get family farming back. I don’t think it’s actually possible. I don’t really have an answer to that. As far as mental health, that’s a big one for sure. I mean, like John said, you’re playing blackjack with millions of dollars at a time. I mean, a lot of times when I talk to people, they’re shocked by the amount of money that we move. Well, the amounts of money come in, but they also leave in the same amounts. It’s just bigger dollar values that you’re gambling with and there is a lot of risk with it. We can’t say for sure. We spent a lot of money getting the crops in the ground where one hill storm away from it not being there. Crop insurance has helped with that. But as far as your question goes, sorry, I don’t really have a solution for that.Bob:That leads me to my next question, which is in terms of getting people to work the land for you or help you in terms of labour supply, particularly if people are going to these big corporate farms, how well are we set in terms of being able to have people that would provide that labour supply along with all the other things we need? For us,Julian:It works. We have a big population of Mennonite in our area, and they’re really great workers. They’re very handy people. And generally our lower, I should say, yeah, lower paid labour. For example, today we have five people that are grading out the bad potatoes off our line, that’d be our lower paying jobs. We do sometimes have an issue getting enough people for that in the future. I do see that being replaced by technology for us. There’s already, I do my own programming on the farm and our own electrical and design. The more we can automate and get rid of some of those positions, the easier it is as far as, I would say skilled labour as far as operating the plant retractors or trucking and stuff like that. We haven’t had a problem getting people as of yet, but we also, we’re in southern Alberta Mennonite community, we only work six days a week, and that’s because of our faith as well. But if we push ’em to work seven days a week, you’re not going to be able to get that. And I do believe we were talking about mental health earlier. Like I said, we only operate six days a week and I see our neighbours running seven days a week for four or five weeks straight. That’s not healthy either. There has to be a break in between there.Bob (45:44):Okay. John, what have you seen in terms of labour supply?John (45:48):In our instance, we’re a smaller cow calf thing, we’ll sometimes get some seasonal help. That’s never been an issue getting that, but I do think Julian’s right on technology is really going to change things going forward. We’re already talking about swarms of sprayer drones. I can see where most of the planning equipment will probably go autonomous. And the same with the cow calf thing we’re working on, or the technologies just becoming available now for these virtual fence callers and remote monitoring of your cattle. I don’t think labour’s going to be a problem going forward. You’re going to need maybe 20% of the labour that you did need, and it’s going to need to be skilled to be able to run the systems to run four combines at a time or analyze the health of 500 head of cows. That’s the way I see that going.I just want to go back to your economic question. I did get sidetracked there quick too, and I think if there was a little bit of a directive, at least this was my experience with banks, there was two or three different branches in our hometown, and it would seem like one bank would be a little bit agriculture, you’d see most of your farmers and ranchers there, and maybe another one kind of wasn’t, and they’d kind of roll around and take turns. And there were times that you could work with a bank and not work with it. And now I don’t know what it’s like for you guys, but honestly the bank in town’s useless as we know. You go in, you give your paperwork, whatever, and it’s always got to go to Toronto or wherever. I think if there was a little bit more on the lending side, some help and direction with the banking industry, it would help slow down the bleeding anyways would be my thought.Julian:Yeah, John, on that, we experienced a similar thing about 15 years ago or so, and we have turned away from charter banks because of that. Long story short, they called in our loans and gave us 60 days and we were really close to going under because of that. We no longer deal with charter banks because of exactly that reason. Everything has to get approved through Toronto, whereas we’re with a credit union now and a TD that way is really good as well, but it’s a lot more local. When you need something, you go to the bank and you talk to someone who’s actually in charge of it.Dwight:Yeah, I was just going to mention that ATB, and that’s why it exists, is to be helping farmers in Alberta and unfortunately what they’ve done is they’ve kind of slid towards the oil and gas sector more than they do the agricultural sector. To me, that saddens me because that is why ATB exists to help us guys out in rural Alberta because the big banks, if they weren’t ignoring our communities in the first place, they were ignoring agriculture even if they were out here. It’s a little disappointing to see the mandate for a TB to kind of go more to oil and gas. I know that they still have programs for agriculture. I work quite closely with my local banker because I’m an ex banker and worked for a TB. She’s always wanting to chat with me about stuff. And also because of my position in the Polluter Pay Federation, she’s always talking about what’s going on with banks and mortgages for land. And this is something we’re seeing where mortgages are being affected now because their reclamation certificates aren’t being trusted. The banks aren’t trusting the AER. It’s those kinds of issues. The banks are well aware of what’s going on, but they need to work with us a little closer instead of costing us money. And then we need the government to step in here and start taking us seriously. Agriculture is a big part of Alberta, a huge part of our economy, and yet,Key TakeawaysJenny (49:48):Well, not just for Alberta, but for Canada. This is a massive role that’s played for the country here that we talk about very casually. Thank you so much. I think it’s been fascinating to hear the similarities. I went to a watershed council meeting just outside of Red Deer and they had somebody speak to mental health issues at that event. And the recommendation I was listening for, what are the recommendations, right? Because they were talking about precisely what you guys described, more suicides and stress for performers, and the comment was, call this health number. To me. One of the things when I think about the future, and maybe I’ll pass this off as closing comments, is there still a community of farmers that are able to drive policy in a meaningful way? I would mean how would, because to me, it’s all about the communities and the local people benefiting long-term rather than you’re describing corporations.I don’t see how that’s going to help communities come together. Anyway, those are my closing thoughts, and I’m just curious from your perspective how we might, again, thinking about community growth and about how you guys can build that security and safety and what you’re doing in your farms, I guess I’m thinking trying to figure out how to stitch that back together or if that is already there and I’m ignorant to it. Those are lots of words. The question in there was what sort of community building are you doing together with other farmers to make sure that you’re helping drive decision-making? I’ll leave it there.Dwight:Well, Jenny, you know what I’ve been going through for the last eight years with the Polluter Pay Federation and trying to get landowners to come on board a little bit more with oil and gas and hosting it. And we are notoriously independent landowners. That’s what we are. We really love our independence. That is why we’re out here. This gives us this sense of freedom. It’s pretty hard. It’s like herding chickens when it comes to landowners trying to get ’em together to do the same voice sometimes, but you are absolutely right. Hopefully I’m still going to be starting some town hall meetings.Jenny:That’s wonderful.Dwight:It’s going to be around the mature asset strategy. We’re going to start there, but I think we need to be hearing more and more of that on some of the other things that are going on in agriculture and start getting everybody together to be that one voice.Because we’re starting to see in the Polluter Pay Federation, that one voice is actually starting to have some effect on the government. They’re actually starting to listen and maybe, I don’t know if it’s really willing to change policy yet, but they are listening to us. They are hearing us. We are making enough noise for them to at least start listening before it. They’re always ignoring us. So I think we need to do the same thing here with some of the other issues we have in agriculture, water, one of them, the stress end of it, financing all of that. These are all important because agriculture, if you don’t have agriculture, what have you got folks? What have you got? Nothing.Jenny:No kidding. Thanks, Dwight. That was awesome.John:Yeah, I was just thinking about our experiences where one of the families that’s been involved with taking the government to task over the coal mining and the Eastern Slopes, I do feel like Dwight’s, right? It’s hard to get a bunch of farmers and ranchers organized to push in one direction because it is just everybody’s busy. Look at today, I was looking forward to doing this podcast, and then my morning got away from me and thank gosh, Jenny phoned me to tell me I needed to do something. That’s a real thing. And that happens every day, a lot of us out here. But I do think that when we’re reunited and we’re somewhat organized, that we can have an effect. And we saw that we were able to turn the government around whenever that was, 21, we had Sonya Savage on tv, recognized that they made a mistake and reversed a decision. Now why we’re revisiting it again is unclear to me. But anyways, we’re organized again, and I think as we had the town hall in Fort McLeod, and I understand there’s another one on the second in Okotoks.Jenny:Be there.John:Yeah. I unfortunately got to take our cows to the mountains that day. I had the trucks booked even before I organised that, and I got to get these freaking cows out of my hair. Anyways, but yeah, and I really hope that that will be well attended because that’s the only thing the government fears is bad press and not getting elected. That’s honestly all they care about. And for us, we’ve always said, it’s nonpartisan. It’s not left right, it’s right, wrong. This is the beast that you got to work with. I’m really hoping that we get a great turnout and I really hope that all the people in the agricultural areas that have supported us continue to support us and actually continue to educate their neighbours. We’re still amazed that we find that people don’t actually understand what the crux of the issue is.Education is still important, and that’s something every farmer can do. I am sure Julian and Dwight, they have that happen. When I run into somebody that is from the city and finds out that we ranch, there’s nobody jumping down my throat saying, what are your cows doing near the water? Are they belching methane? They’re enamoured and excited to learn what we do and how we do it, I think because they feel like we’re connected to the land maybe more than what they are. And I think that chance for education’s there and people just want to know and feel good about what’s going on, right? I think that’s something we should all provide.Jenny:Beautiful. Okay, Julian?Julian:Yeah, I think I’ll piggyback off John A. Little bit there. I think as far as getting together as farmers, it’s going to be pretty tough until you have an issue that everyone can unite behind. I think Dwight mentioned earlier as well, but a lot of times we’re in our own little world here. We got neighbours all around us on every side, and I can’t think of one that I actually talked to other than pulling up on the road and both of us rolling down our windows and having a chat. I would say the onus for mental health on farmers is to reach out to each other and talk to each other. I think all of us have been around long enough in the farming community to know that you look at your neighbour’s farm and you see things going on, and you can know either if they’re doing well or not doing so well. I think that’s pretty obvious on the road. I think it’s more just us reaching out to them as far as having town halls, like I said, I think there is an opportunity for that. I know we have been involved in politics on this farm quite a bit. I think the government does listen if you have enough people with a good understanding of how things should operate approaching them. Yeah, that’s my take on it.Jenny:Yeah, I think that’s very true. Brilliant. I think you guys have a very strong voice, which is another reason why I am appreciative of working with rural Alberta because you guys do have a strong voice. I don’t think as much as I do in the city, for example. Yes, thank you for exercising your political will. If you’ll, Bob, do you want to offer some closing thoughts or comments?Bob:Okay. But first you have to recognise that Julian is part of a community. It’s by necessity because he’s part of the Bow River Irrigation District, which is really one of those, what would you call it, little democracies. They get to decide in one way or another how the district is going to operate. There is a community. It just isn’t necessarily your neighbour down the road. It’s a much larger community than that. But in terms of closing comments, this has been a great conversation. Very helpful. We’ve slid away from water, but for good reason because water is connected to a whole bunch of other issues. The finances, as we’ve talked about, the mental health, the whole thing about community. Water isn’t just about water, it’s about a lot of other things. Thank you very much. I’ve really appreciated the privilege to be able to talk to the three of you today.Jenny:Thank you. Well said. Anything we missed, guys, before we wrap, any other comments or thoughts?Dwight:I just want to remind urban folks that oil and gas and your food comes from rural Alberta. Just remind them of that because it seems sometimes that they forget that.Jenny:I believe you completely. Yes. The water blind world, and as Bob said, water’s connected to all of us. It all feeds into how we ignore, where everything just comes to us so easily through pipes as Julian described. Okay. Thank you very much guys. This has been amazing. Like we said, we’re doing some more conversations in the fall, we may call upon you again, or if you have anything that occurs to you that you would like to suggest, we’re all ears. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Take care for now.Dwight:Thank you.John:Thank you for the opportunity. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe

In this episode, Jenny and Bob are joined by Mike Murray, Susan Ellis, and Tim Romanow, who are experts in watershed stewardship. The discussion centers on the importance of public investment in water decision-making and the challenges faced in managing, protecting, and restoring water resources. The guests share insights from their respective organizations, highlighting the need for collaboration, education, and data-driven approaches to address water concerns. They emphasize the significance of building trust among stakeholders and the role of watershed management plans in guiding sustainable practices. The conversation also touches on the unique challenges of transboundary water management and the importance of building relationships with indigenous communities. The episode underscores the critical need for informed and inclusive dialogue to ensure the health of water systems for future generations.Introductions to Mike Murray, Susan Ellis, and Tim RomanowJenny:Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast. I am your host, Jenny Ami. Here you break down heavy ideas with me to understand their complexities and connections. Our mission is to work through dilemmas together in conversation and process. I acknowledge that I live on the traditional territory of Treaty 7 and Metis districts 5 and 6. The treaties and self-governance agreements established by indigenous peoples were created to honour the laws of the land, maintain balance with nature by giving back and uphold reciprocal relationships. This knowledge and intention are what guide The Gravity Well conversation. I ask for genuine dialogue, real hearts, and openness to different perspectives. This is your invitation to find common ground with me.This podcast is dedicated to the natural world, our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The gravity well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at thegravitywell.net.Okay, thank you. I’m very excited to have some very familiar faces here today. I’ll get into introductions in a second, but we are in the first half of season two if you’re a subscriber. This is season 2, episode 13. It’s also episode 5 of a “Water in Southern Alberta” course that Bob Morrison and myself have been leading. Today we have three guests with us. We have Mike Murray, who is the executive director of the Bow River Basin Council. Susan Ellis, who is a social scientist. She’s in a group that we call the Concerned Calgarians on Climate Change with Bob Morrison and myself. We get to work with Susan regularly, which is wonderful. And then Tim Romano, who is also the executive director at the Milk River Watershed Council, thank you all very much for being here.Why are we talking about Water and Southern Alberta? This series is dedicated to the general public. We want people involved in water such as yourselves to be able to feel empowered by the public in these water concerns. As I am a concerned citizen, that’s the third concerned citizen who feels empowered to get involved and get engaged in water decision making. We’ve talked about the history of irrigation. We then went into some conversations around the environment, had some conversations around the impacts of resource extraction around water laws and licensing and around the water cycle. That was our last conversation with Tricia Stadnyk and now we’re doing stewardships. Today we’re meeting with the three of you to talk about your work in both Lake and watershed stewardship. I’m going to stop there. I’m going to let everybody do a little bit of introductions and then we’ll get into some questions specifically for this group. And I will mention we’re going to do some future conversations in the fall. If you guys like this experience, we’d welcome you back and perhaps maybe Shannon Frank might be able to join us. Then we hope to have Shannon Frank in this conversation from the Old Man Watershed Council as well. Okay, that’s enough for me. Mike, you’re next on my screen. If you would start by introducing yourself, please.Mike:Well, hello, Mike Murray. I’m the executive director for the Bow River Basin Council. I had a background in ecology and did some work in that area, and then 22 years ago I thought I’d just take a look at this Bow River Basin Council and see what it’s like and work there for a little while. And 22 years later, I’m still there because just of the people that work there, the energy, the fact that we learn something new every day and just the culture of helping each other be right and to work on these challenges together has kept me here all this time.Jenny:Wonderful. Yes, and I have the opportunity to meet with Mike regularly as I’m on the Stewardship Coordinating Council with them. I’m still learning my way and really grateful to Mike’s expertise, it’s great. Susan, you’re next, please. Hi everyone.Susan:Pleasure to be here. I’m here because mostly because of my background with the Pigeon Lake Watershed Association and the extensive engagement that we conducted around the lake, it was helpful to have my human resources and behavioral science background around change because of the work that we were trying to bring about into the watershed. And I’ve just been reviewing that. I’ve been out of it for a few years, but we covered a lot of ground and I look forward to sharing with both of you. I do appreciate that lakes are very different from watershed communities. The councils have to deal with a lot more people than I did at the same time. It was very engaging. I look forward to this conversation with you all.Jenny:Yeah, I’m really excited to hear more. We’ve had lots of little clips from Susan about the work done. I’m looking forward to hearing it fully. Tim, you’re next, please.Tim:Yeah, I’m Tim Romanow. I’m the executive director for the Milk River Watershed Council Canada. Yeah, I got a bit of background in Fish and Wildlife Management. I spent a number of years working in sustainable agriculture and extension. I guess a little bit about started getting involved with the WPACs volunteering actually with the Old Man Watershed Council and their rural team probably, geez, about 2005, 2006 through the municipality that I was based in with the old AA program. I started doing some work with the Milk River Council when they got established and took on the role of executive director back in 2011. It’s been a little while.Jenny:Wonderful. Yes. I’m excited to hear your experience as well, Tim. Okay. Bob and reintroduction for everyone here, please, in the context of this would be great and you can lead us off into our first question. Thank you.Bob:I’m Bob Morrison. I’m a retired planner. I work primarily in water management and transportation. And since retirement, I’ve been involved in municipal issues here in Calgary, and I’m very interested in this conversation because the watershed stewardship groups like what Susan was involved in and the water basin councils are very valuable ways of getting people together to work on common problems. And I’m really looking forward to hearing about the experiences of everyone involved. In terms of the watershed planning and advisory councils, what are the primary issues they deal with and are there differences between your two basins?Primary Issues to Deal with within a WatershedMike (00:06:49):We have four main categories that we work in, which is convener and collaborator education, state of the watershed reporting and watershed management planning. I’d say for the Board River Basin Council, our major strength is the convener and collaborator portion. Our ability to bring people together from all of the sectors, all the different users of the watershed and engage in that dialogue that brings forth some of the challenges, some of the solutions, but also just helps everybody build a trust within that community to tackle some of these challenges. Talking a little bit about some of the differences, there can be major differences. All MW PACS have different situations that they’ve got to deal with. In the BO specifically, we are what we would call an urban central basin. We have 1.6 million in the City of Calgary. We have irrigation at the bottom end of the system, and we have parks and protected areas as well as national parks up on our headwaters.Our situation might be a little different. We also have 15 dams and weirs on the bow. Natural flow is controlled in a way that will be different from what some of the other W packs are dealing with. They might be more rural centric or have different types of industry or agricultural presence in their watershed as well as maybe even different precipitation patterns and other considerations. One of the important things that as a Board of Basin Council we look at is that we have very few but larger licence holders. It’s a much smaller group than maybe some other basins would have controlling the water, but the bow basin is the largest contributor to the SSRB, the South Saskatchewan Regional Basin River basin. We understand that the challenge of watershed management in our area also affects many other people downstream. That is always something that we are thinking about, not just upstream, but also the downstream users that get what they’re given after we have finished using that water. It’s a responsibility, but something everybody takes pretty seriously. Yeah,Jenny:Yeah. Well said, Mike. The cascading effects of the decisions we make in our basin as I’m in, Bob and I are in the same basin as you and Susan for that matter versus what Tim sees. Yeah, Tim, you actually have some pretty recent examples of decisions issues coming in on the landscape in your area. Can you offer some different ways to or what your primary role is in some of those things? Thank you.Tim:Sure. Yeah, and to echo Mike a little bit, there’s a common weave of those four main core roles and responsibilities that all 11 of the watershed councils roll into their programming. We’re a little different in the milk. We’re a trans boundary watershed, I like to say we’re connected at the head and the hip with Montana. We share water between the Milk River and the St. Mary’s river system through extremely large diversion down in Montana, which has its own complications as it’s not really recognized as an inner basin transfer for the Government of Canada and regards to even some of our infrastructure opportunities and grants that our municipalities face. There’s different unique challenges there. But the other, even though we’re one of the smallest of the major basins in the province, we’ve got a complicated set of things that we work with. Over 80% of my watershed is native grasslands. And I like to say our work watershed management is more than just water management. And in our area, we do a lot in terms of speed at risk, supporting stewardship, doing education and outreach, hands dirty and feet wet, maybe a little bit more than some, but we really do our best to try to reflect the values and interests of the community through those activities.Jenny:Amazing. Yeah. Wow. There’s a lot going on there. That’s really cool to hear that you have 80% native grassland, though we always hear about the low amounts in other areas. That’s phenomenal, Tim.Tim:It also relates to a lot of the species at risk issues. We’ve got probably 85% of the species at risk that are found in the province down here just because of a unique landscape and at the northern end of the range for some of the grasslands and a lot of the species ranges as well. SoJenny:Yeah, that’s really interesting. I would like to hear more from a federal perspective, some thoughts you have later, Tim. Okay. Susan, can you offer the same from you? What were some of the issues that you dealt with as a Pigeon Lake council member? Thank you.Susan:Pigeon Lake is the biggest lake in central Alberta, and it was developed before a lot of the lakes were more developed than most of the central Albert Lakes. We saw ourselves, or at least I saw ourselves, even though lakes are very different as leading in terms of where a lot of the other lakes would be going if they didn’t do more in terms of people living around the lake, a lot of people didn’t understand that the condition of the lake had much more to do with how we live around the lake. A lot of our issues was how to take the lake community, which included the 10 summer villages, two counties and four native bands, and help them come together in terms of seeing the lake as something that we can all contribute to the health of the lake and it can contribute to the health of the businesses.Susan:There’s all sorts of people that only live at the lake. It’s a place for them to bring their families, and it’s a recreation lake. Some people saw it as a backyard bathtub or a backyard swimming pool. I was there because I thought, here’s a great opportunity for people to see in front of them the consequences of how we live on the land for people to learn to live with nature, which to my mind is part of fighting climate change, is also making sure we live with nature and let nature do its thing for the climate as well. Our rules were to educate, advocate, protect, and preserve what we could around the lake. When I came on, and personally, my role was, even though I was chair of the board most of the time and grew the organization to the point where I could be executive director and finally handed off, my biggest role was as a conduit. Learning from the experts what the conditions of the lake were, what the issues were, and then finding experts that could help us find the money to bring the experts in and bring people along with educating us as we learned, bring them along and connect and engage and get their input, give them opportunities to be involved. I often said I could have six full-time people doing the work that we were doing. It was a lot of fun. It was amazing, boring day,Jenny:And it’s just such a great example, Mike. I could see you nodding in there as well, because it’s a big part of trying to understand that this is not something that we know. We don’t have the luxury of seeing these results on the landscape. We have to learn as we go and educate and bring people along. It’s really important to highlight that, Susan. Thank you. Okay, let’s talk more about managing issues. How do you choose between stakeholders or is that a thing, and what does it look like in terms of making sure that people have a seat at the table, that the representation of those stakeholders are there in your decision making? Maybe Tim, if I’ll let you leave this one off.Ensuring All Stakeholders are Present in Decision-MakingTim (00:15:05):Sure. Yeah. Our diversity is our strength. We have a big diverse board representing all kinds of sectors. We try to make sure everybody’s included. There’s sometimes challenges where there are biases or certain things that some people are wanting to bring to the table, and we try to make sure that everybody, when they sit at the table, they’re representing the watershed council and they park their personal biases at the door if they can. We do work really hard to make sure that everybody is informed, like Mike mentioned earlier, educating ourselves and our community members is really important in terms of understanding what these issues are and understanding different facets of a concern or opportunity. We do spend a lot of work on that. I’m in a unique position, maybe in a lot of ways. I don’t think I would’ve been with this watershed council if I didn’t have such great volunteers and community interest in the work that we do.And it’s really empowering, just same as Susan said, she could have six employees doing the work that they’re doing, and volunteers are absolutely critical to our work and making sure that everybody has an opportunity to be involved, whether they’re technical experts in a certain area or they just want to spend a few days putting some manpower in to working on a project with us. We try to make sure that they’re included. And we do have an annual election for different seats that come up, and if there is occasionally more volunteers that then we have seats on the board, then we make sure that we’ve got other opportunities, including our project teams, our research and monitoring, our community awareness involvement team, water supply and management is another one on our end, and we try to get them involved that way, and it helps even in the long-term, I think it’s actually going to help us better as an organization. It helps foster that next group of volunteers that are going to step into those other roles and keep us moving forward.Jenny:Yeah, that’s true. And for me, the coordinating committee is such a great spot for me to be in because I get to see what everybody else is working on, and that’s something that’s really of interest to me. I do feel really empowered in these spaces too. You guys do, if anybody listening to this is not involved and wants to get involved in water, this is the place to go. And you learn a lot and you feel like you’re in with really good people trying to do really smart things on the land. Yeah, encourage everybody to get involved as much as possible. Okay. Susan, can you offer some thoughts as well as to how you managed the balance, making sure that everybody had a seat at the table? You spoke about stakeholders already.Susan:Well, it’s interesting. The human dynamics is really fascinating. A lot of people get it in their minds. In our case, people would Google and find something that would work on a stormwater pond and have no concept of the scalability of some of these solutions. And there was a group who were influential movers and shakers business guys that wanted to fix the lake by putting something to bind the nutrients into the lake. And there was a group of teachers who thought we needed to educate people on becoming great lake stewards. And there was another group who said, it’s the land development and we got to work with the counties and summer villages on their area structure plans and bylaws and regulations. When I first started, I ended up volunteering with the communication committee, but I saw this and because I’d done a bunch of governance and strategic plans, I thought these guys need a plan that pulls them together.Initially we did just a small one that was a hybrid between an operation and a strategic plan, and the board headed up committees to reach out to people in the different sectors and areas around the lake. And we moved from that. I tried to help people understand we all needed to be there. We were the voices of different groups around the lake and they all needed to feel they had representation at the table and that we were all moving up the same mountain, but from different perspectives or different sides of the mountain. Really brought most of those guys together. And I went to the alliance of the Pigeon Lake municipalities and the chair at that time. He and I were in complete agreement in terms of we had to work together, we were almost seeing each other more than we saw our own spouses at that point.We tried to compliment and work together, forming partnerships with everybody that I could was a major thing, and go to community events, go to where people were at to get them to voice the issues, to find out what their thoughts were we could speak into their thoughts, we could educate into their concerns and get them starting to engage and think about and just have that awareness initially. And one of the issues was most of the summer councils felt it was the wastewater system around the lake that needed to be upgraded and that would fix the lake. And the PLWA board was very smart in thinking, we need to stay out of that even though we had a couple of experts on our board who didn’t necessarily agree with what summer villages wanted to do, but there’s high risk and it’s up to the municipalities, not us.We said, okay, let them do that and recognize their roles, their responsibilities, and do what we can together. We outlined who led what PLWA communicated to the whole lake. We did a lot of communications on every front of work that was being done for the lake. We led on a lot of the education and stewardship things. The runoff on the nutrient budget that we got was the only thing that really made a huge difference for that lake. There was already internal loading of nutrients that if there wasn’t something that we could put in the lake, which looked pretty far in terms of a solution, there was a lot of pushback from governments and the cost was horrendous. We needed to do whatever we could and we adopted, we needed to turn over every single stone we could. And there were lots and lots of issues that people disagreed on. It just went on and on.Jenny:Thank you. That was a great summary of what you have to go through in a given process. Mike, your turn.Mike:I think when I first started with the BRBC, I didn’t realize this kind of thing could exist, but the power of the organization, and I think that goes for the other two organizations as well and others that I’ve worked with is the membership, the people that put their time and effort and passion and expertise into these things. The council now has over 500 members and over around 900 active participants that come from those 500 memberships. And it really is a membership driven organization. If the members want something to happen, they can make it happen. The board of directors works and is elected by their membership, and then staff does what membership the board tells them. We also have over time built different committees that engage certain sectors or interests. We have a science committee, a watershed stewardship committee, an education and communications committee, and that’s how we get our members to maybe dip their toes into getting involved and getting things done is to start working on those committees.Mike (00:23:24):And some of those folks then migrate up to the board or other positions. All of our work, I think, was especially benefited by what we call “watershed champions”, those that really lead the charge, and we’ve had quite a few at the BRBC that we have been very blessed to have, and most of them are still with us. And the idea of how to get things done is we try to get everybody that’s involved in that issue to get together and talk about those issues. I think what’s really appreciated is as a forum or a space where you can be open and honest about what your perspective is and you’re not going to be getting any negative feedback from that, that’s an acceptable way to approach the issue. And then everybody else gets their chances to get their perspectives out and then hopefully through a dialogue that’s built on trust and working together, the ethic of working together is you’ll finally come to a conclusion that is maybe not satisfactory perfectly for each sector but meets in the middle somewhere.And it’s that kind of compromise and that willingness to try and find that solution, maybe it’s a hard one or not, is how we work on it. All the things that the W PACS and others do, or at least what we’re trying to do at the BR BBC is based on things like data-driven bias, neutral inclusive activities that allow for everybody. That’s one of the biggest roles about the state of the watershed that we just finished in December was it brings a level of information up to the folks who want to talk about these things. We’re not spending a lot of time getting everybody up to speed. Hopefully we can aid in that and then have these apples to apples conversations. It’s through this culture or way that we’ve done things that we generally find that there are solutions to many of the challenges that we face, and we’ve given everybody a chance to be heard about it.I think that’s the effectiveness we have. And one example that we didn’t do, but I think is a great example of what can be done is when I first started in 2003, there was a water engagement session where all the users of the SSRB would come in and talk about water management in terms of quantity. And we did that process for two or three years and then those recommendations went to cabinet and that’s what led to the closure of South Saskatchewan to new water licences. But that wasn’t done in a fast fashion. That was done very slowly, very pragmatically, data-driven, all perspectives were heard. And that kind of activity is, I think, what builds this network of folks who manage watersheds and builds that trust between those different communities so that we can make these decisions as a system instead of siloed. I think that it all builds into that. How do you create that? I think it all is built around trust. And how do you build that with those that are at stableBob:Now, Tim, you have a much different situation down there in the milk in terms of building trust and finding those solutions someplace in the middle because you’re dealing with an international stream. How is your job different in terms of building those kinds of consensus-based decisions?Tim:It’s still very similar to Mike in terms of relying on those champions in the community and those area leads that help. I find our role is a bit more, especially being trans-boundary. We rely on our partners in Montana and especially with the IJC, the International Joint Commission, the Bureau of Reclamation. We have a couple sister organizations in Montana, the Milk River Joint Board of Control, and I talk to those folks probably once a week at least via email if not on the phone. And that’s an interesting thing too. Our watershed council is now coming into the 20th year of operation and 20 years ago, there wasn’t that communication. Everybody was working in a silo. And I remember some of the stories from some of my producers that I worked with out west that said it’d be the end of March or beginning of April and middle of the night, it would sound like a freight train coming down the river because they turned water in from the St.Tim:Mary’s diversion to the North Fork the day before. And that had hit there. No one got any notification back then. No one knew that that was coming. The producers that were managing the land and living next to that bridge that could potentially have a major ice jam didn’t get any awareness. The municipalities weren’t being informed when there was going to be water management changes or whatever. And I remember when I first started, I’m thinking, this is baloney. We should really do a better job. That was one of our very first things we did to try to improve communications. And then we’ve built on that. We’ve built a trusting relationship with our partners in Montana. They’ll phone us asking about conditions or what’s going on. We’ve got into more difficult issues now in terms of some of the issues regarding irrigation demand and water use, reporting, other things that are happening up here that if it wasn’t for a relationship with our other partners, especially transboundary, we’d be in a different spot right now. But it is getting better and it’s really because of the work that’s been laid down to build relationships.Bob:Yes, you’ve laid a very good groundwork and maybe someday you’ll make Montana the 11th province. Who knows?Tim:Probably not Montana. But yeah, we’ll keep our ears open.Assessing Data Needs for Watershed HealthBob (00:28:45):In terms of watershed’s assessments that you folks have been doing. I’ll start with you, Tim, again. What are the topics that you feel you have the best handle on in terms of watershed assessments and where are the areas where we need better data, better science, better information, better education?Tim:Again, 20 years ago there was basically no water quality data whatsoever on our system. Down here. Again, we’re maybe a little farther from some of the major urban centers and there hasn’t been as many eyes, I guess in terms and some of the research and monitoring down here. We had to start, we did some data mining early on. Our first state of the watershed report actually came out in 2008. It was a great opportunity to kindly pull together any of the historical information, but we found major data gaps. Like I said, virtually no water quality data outside of a couple small projects were collected in the previous hundred years. We said, okay, let’s try to check off some of the boxes on these data gaps and collect the information ourselves. We can make more informed decisions in terms of management and understanding the impacts of, for instance, the St. Mary’s diversion and what things look like.We started in our own bubble and started collecting data like water quality on our own to build that information, that dataset. There was some relatively good GIS work that had been done for some of the land use planning and land management and traditional edge effects and trails and roads and things like that. We had a bit of a starting point at that point. In 2008, within about two or three years, we realized, you know what? We can’t do this in a bubble anymore. The Alberta portion of the Milk River watershed is only about a third of the entire watershed. We have transboundary partners both in Saskatchewan and Montana that are important for us. In 2012, we initiated our second state of the watershed report and we said, let’s work with our trans boundary partners.The core team that we had established in Alberta that had put together 2008 one, we basically found out who their counterparts were in Montana and Saskatchewan and teamed them up and said, okay, Alberta’s going to take the lead here, but we want to help fill in those data gaps from other areas. We opened the Pandora’s box a little bit in a lot of ways by doing that project in 2013 because we found even more data gaps and recognizing whether it’s a species at risk issue or aquatic species at risk or water quality concerns, they’re not stopping at the border. What we’re doing is impacting our downstream communities in the Highline of Montana. And what’s happening in the headwaters of the Cypress Hills is impacting all the areas in southeast Saskatchewan. And in 2013, there were some major changes happening in terms of PFRA. The federal government was pulling out of the community pastors and leaving some major question marks in terms of what was going to happen to some really beautiful, intact native rangelands and critically important habitat for a lot of species risk.And that project in 2013, it really helped, well one, continue to build just as we’ve been talking about, building those relationships with other trans boundary partners. But it also made us start thinking about, okay, what are issues like sage gross? We’re going to have an environmental protection order for sage gross in southeastern Alberta. Well, maybe we should be talking to our Montana partners about the hunting season that was allowing ’em to take three birds a day in north central Montana. And if those are, and what are we managing for here? A lot of difficult conversations have come built out of this, but by being able to work on these major issues transboundary, it’s helping us move in the positive direction for sure.Bob:You’ve been a catalyst to a lot of cooperation.Tim:And even more recently, of course, the IJC is bound to the Boundary Waters Treaty and it brings together the two countries in terms of water management in the trans boundary. But grassland issues, species of risk issues were all being managed in a bubble. And I know fish and wildlife biologists that worked in southeastern eastern Alberta that didn’t even know who their counterparts were in North central Montana. And now we’ve been able to build those networks and we have a group called the Transboundary Grasslands Partnership that brings all those three groups together, the three jurisdictions together annually and rotates around to build relationships. And it’s been really good because people recognize that we all have passion for the work that we’re doing, but sometimes you get so focused on exactly the issue at hand right in front of you that you don’t see the bigger picture. And our work has really helped people better connect and understand how they’re related and how their actions are impacting others. And that’s fundamental to the work that we can do in terms of bringing people together.Bob:Well, and Susan, you certainly were instrumental in getting people to see the bigger picture on Pigeon Lake in terms of where Pigeon Lake is now. What are the issues that you think that basically are under control, if not solved, and what are the issues that are still outstanding there?Susan:First of all, it wasn’t all me by any means. We had all of us, we partnered with all these different groups and many did so much in terms of moving parts forward. There was research done on the options for the lake. The government was instrumental in some of those. There was research on the lake, some of which the government did, some of which we partnered. There was a professor Rolf Fein Brook at the U of A who did, what are the cyanobacteria? We have lots of different cyanobacteria. There was research done just on the land development and what had been developed and what needed to be done. At first, we couldn’t do a watershed management plan because we felt that we needed more research and now we’re the most researched in the province, I think. But we did get a watershed management plan done that was an award-winning plan, and we’ve moved forward on a whole bunch of areas on that and we’ve got the areas that need to be continued work on.And clean runoff is a huge issue and continues to be because people decide to build a bigger house on their lot and the developers come in and take everything off the lake. With the Alberta Low Impact Development Partnership, we created a clean guide of which a lot was used. We looked at trying to help municipalities put in place regulations and worked with Judy Stewart on a model land use by law. That may or may not be. It’s really helped in terms of some of the bylaws. Our model starts with the science and the social considerations, and then we bring it down into objectives for the plan. And those objectives then have, for example, one is clean runoff and we promote clean runoff practices under that. We’ve got recommendations to do with roads and statutory plans and land use bylaws and beaver management, you name it.Every aspect of nature and social considerations is in this plan of which a group continues. The biggest issue is if we don’t have much cyanobacteria obvious to people, many people only go on the weekends and cyanobacteria come and go, and when it’s obvious, we have a lot of motivated people to do something for the lake. When it gets better or they don’t see it much and don’t know what a healthy shoreline looks like, for example, then they’re not motivated to do much on it. Those relationships and the ongoing awareness is a huge ongoing, ongoing issue. And most of the summer villages certainly stepped up. I couldn’t do much in terms of schools and the kids that lived in the area. Some people said, if you want to get the adults to change, you have to get their own kids after them. And after I left, the next person worked a lot with the kids and the schools.I did bring about a family fund day that partners came: Cows and Fish Trout Unlimited, the Government of Alberta Lake management system, they all challenged us to bring something fun and engaging. And we got people from all over that area coming for three or four hours learning about the aquatic system and the invertebrates and what makes a healthy lake. And one family, as Tim said, people keep you going. One family said, “We need a lot of volunteers.” They were wonderful. The people coming together to make those things happen and the family who kept going back every year, and I said, it must be year four by now that you’ve come every single year. And the dad said, yeah, and every year we learn different stuff. It’s great. And I was just thrilled with that.Bob:That’s fascinating how you’ve gotten all these people involved, but that’s an interesting comment about how when things look good, the motivation level goes down and then people start to maybe not do all the things that they should do. Is that the kind of thing that you’re discovering in the bow basin, Mike, that when things start looking good, when people look at the watershed assessment and say, okay, yeah, we’ve got this one under control, do they lose that motivation or that interest?Mike:I think the average person probably doesn’t think about it that much because I think for the most part, things are going okay. We go into this back and forth between, oh, we’ve just had a flood, everything we do is about flood. Then we have a drought and everything we do is about drought, but we forget about the flood, which could happen. Floods can happen the year after a drought. How do you maintain an even keel when in terms of tackling all of the challenges that are out there? When I first started data, as Tim was mentioning, data was a bit sparse. It might’ve been there, but getting it was hard. Now there’s so much of it. The challenge is what do you do with all of it and what is a scientifically correct way of representing that data? I think we have a pretty good handle on the main stem, but maybe some of the areas we don’t have enough information on might be how some of these smaller systems that feed into the bow, how are they being affected by climate change?And I think the overall question some people might have would be, where is this metaphorical cliff? If we push the system to a certain level, where is the edge? And I think if you’re looking for a gap or something maybe people aren’t really thinking about because everything seems like it’s going fairly well, that might be some of the questions that some of our members would have is with all this climate change we feel is happening, we know there’s pressure on water, we all have uses for it, and there’s only a limited supply of it, how far can we push it before we have some effect on the river that we can’t fix?I think the average person’s probably not thinking about those challenges. But I do know that a lot of the organizations are, some of the things that as a council that we’re trying to promote is if we see a gap. For instance, we would like to see more groundwater monitoring. Our science committee has put together a small grounding group that’s going out there getting equipment and then seeking out people to measure the groundwater. The council has found funding for stewardship groups like the elbow and the Ghost River groups to go out there and actually do sampling, cabin sampling. And I think maybe the overall concerns that we are not really getting, or there’s not been a flood or a drought right this second, I think some of our stewardship partners are the ones that help us take on those challenges, and quite honestly can help the whole system by getting out there and doing their part by measuring their piece of the watershed and then reporting back so that when we do maybe see a challenge coming, we can do something about it.Maybe not the canary in the coal mine, but that idea that if there is something that’s showing up with the steward group, maybe that sends up enough red flags or alarm bells that someone else will do a bit more monitoring and we’ll get a better handle on it quicker than we would if we just waited for those issues to show up in the main stem, which might take a very long time. The problem might’ve already gotten to a place where we didn’t want it before. You’d see the actual implications in the bow main stemBob:That would be vitally important for those smaller streams that you’re talking about, but you raised the question of where is the edge, the limits, and that leads Jenny very much into those watershed plans that the councils have been developing.Jenny:Yeah, thank you, Mike. Because I’ve had the opportunity to have some conversations around this edge pushing too. One of the members I remember speaking to about groundwater recharge and do we know when we might push it so that we won’t have that groundwater recharge? And the answer she gave was, no, we don’t know that limit. We don’t know what we’re pushing. That’s a real example of how things look on the surface versus how things are going in the whole system are potentially two different things that the public wouldn’t appreciate. And the one thing I just want to reiterate from our conversations before I kick it back to you all is Mike, you’ve said the membership makes decisions. And I think it’s really important for people to understand that because reiterated to me, we need more public members to help understand the issue from outside of potentially the proponents pushing for decisions on the landscape.Because the councils are limited to education. You can’t advocate for scientific outcomes or things like that. You can only educate your members and have those members make the decisions. That’s just my, I’ll say we can do this as a round of what’s coming next and some takeaways. I see we are getting close to the hour and I want to be respectful of everybody, so, if you can talk a bit, I’ll let you lead Mike about what is the state of the watershed and what are the asks the needs of the system, let’s say, and how can we help people get involved or help, or how do you help move things in that right direction, let’s say? Thank you.Moving in the Right DirectionMike (00:44:17):Yeah. I’ll start with the first thing we do, and you’re correct, we try to produce good information. And I speak, I think for all the groups that are here, that these groups are recognized as trusted voices in the watershed. We work very, very hard to stay that way. And how you do that is to make sure that you have data-driven, scientifically valid information and you try to provide it in a non-biased way. We like to say that we create decision support tools. Our first two watershed measure plans that we put together, although they were not regulatory and you did not have to follow them, the 30 or so communities that helped us develop them, adopted many aspects of those plans and made them theirs. And that’s when those plans become plans, whether or not you’re forcing someone to do it or they want to do it, I think you actually get maybe a bit more buy-in if they get to choose what they get to do rather than being forced to do something.That’s one way that we do it. And the people that we have at the table are the people that want to be there, are energized by being there and want to be part of the solution. I think we don’t necessarily need numbers, we just need those people that are interested in finding the solution. That’s what we’re interested in finding. And a lot of the watershed management stuff that we do now, 15 years ago, was probably more of an interest to CPAWS and other groups put together watershed management plans. I think that the environment has evolved a little bit more, and I think there are larger organizations that maybe W PACS can help augment their work, their source water protection plans and their other stuff. And maybe we can be more efficient with our time helping others get a better product than trying to create our own and then bringing it out to them. That’s the strategy we have approached currently, and I think that’s probably the best way to go right now with the limited capacities that we all have and trying to be as efficient as possible and the knowledge that the more people we have working on an issue, the better the outcome will be in all likelihood.Jenny:Yeah, wonderful. I fully agree. I think there’s so much benefit for any organization to look to the watershed councils and what you guys have already built in terms of your ability to bring stakeholders together to make decisions can be a leap forward. Speaking of which, Susan is going to help us take this work and make it even better in the fall when we get into the future. Susan, can you offer some thoughts too about how we take these plans forward? How do we keep the ball rolling, as you said, as interest comes up and down and et cetera? How do we help people move in the right direction? Thanks.Susan:Well, that’s always a great question, Jenny. We have to continually look at where we are and where we want to be. We certainly were able to get all of the summer villages and all of the four native nations of quiche signed off on the watershed management plans, but plans get put on Shell’s councils change, there’s new people all the time. That ongoing engagement, those trusted relationships that Mike and Tim have talked about are just so critical. And I’ve been away from the Pigeon Lake Watershed Association, but when I was there, the tools that we made in terms of that clean runoff guide in terms of the model land use bylaw, there was other directors who were very clear that we wanted to invest this for tools for the broader audience, other lakes who didn’t have the means that we had. I enjoyed so many directors who had expertise or influence, and all of this needs to go forward.Groups really need to be clear about where they are communicating about where they are and what else needs to be done. Every year I would do, okay, this is how far we’ve come on this bar, this area, we needed to do riparian restoration work. I got a few going with cows and fish. The next year I’d say we did this many and make demonstration sites, try and get people to come out and see what a healthy shoreline looks like because there were too many that had been cleared. It’s a lot of ongoing work. And without those relationships, the summer students that I had would come from environmental science, and at the end of the year I’d say, what’s the biggest takeaway you guys had? And most of them would say, well, we came in from a science perspective, which is critical, but it’s the “people” stuff that makes all the difference.It’s ongoing building relationships, please. I met one of the directors just a week ago. They are continuing to move this stuff forward. They now have three First Nation people on the board. We had one when I was there, and it certainly helped leverage us to build those relationships and get a committee going in terms of how we were going to engage with them. It’s an ongoing issue, but being clear and finding we had low hanging apples in the first place before there was the science. We all knew we needed to stop the furthest fertilizers and pesticides before all the summer villages eventually adopted bylaws. And it really did change the social norms to be, nobody uses fertilizers around the lake, but then new people come in and the ongoing, this is what is, and this is what you need to do. But more and more people were able to speak up in the beginning, people had to live beside each other and they didn’t want to confront. And their relationships living together was more important than whether or not they used fertilizers. Now it’s shifted. It’s just what you do, and I’m helping you to understand this is something that’s important for the lake. There’s been a lot of shifts and now some of the bigger boulders are having to be moved. One of you said isn’t obvious. That communication relationship is ongoing big time.Jenny:And like you said, there’s still some boulders in there that need to move. And I think that’s a thing that we’re all potentially feeling, as you said, Mike, when we have some limits coming our way. Tim, I’m really excited about the thought of the trans boundary work that you’re doing and how important that would be to help people understand how to do that work well and thinking from an energy standpoint. Oil and gas closure work, for example, to me, should also be happening on a watershed scale, not on a trans boundary scale, if you will. There’s some work there, I think too, to think about. But anyway, can you lead us off, sorry, finish us off I should say, with some of your thoughts around taking this work forward as well. Anything these other two missed?Tim:I think Mike hit the nail on the head in terms of how the planning environment in this province has changed quite a bit from the start of the Water for Life and Lauren Taylor’s vision for the work that we would do as watershed planning and advisory councils. And I do think that we’ve got some advantages, again, being based in the local communities, we can turn that bus a little faster than, for instance, the governing province right now. But we don’t have that local authority. Any of the work that we do, just like Susan and Mike said, has to be valuable to our community members and our stakeholders. We have an integrated water prevention plan that we spent a lot of energy putting together back in 2015. It’s 10 years old now. We’re right now trying to figure out how we are going to do this?Tim:Are we going to dust it off and do a check back in and see how we’re doing with those priorities from 10 years ago? If things change, where are we at now in terms of providing advice? But I know in the last few years we’ve done more work like you mentioned with the trans boundary issues, but water security and water contingency planning for drought and major diversion failures like we’ve had here the last couple years has been really important. And that’s been the valuable resources that we’ve been creating for our municipal partners, and it’s helping inform the provincial response and international response in some cases. That stuff has been really, really valuable. In recognizing we are a safe space for indigenous communities and others to be involved with without feeling that they’re being, or having legally be engaged with in ways that nations, the nations should be engaging and making sure that their vision for our community is reflected in the work that we’re doing. That’s something just as Susan said, it’s critically important to make sure all stakeholders are recognized. That’s it on the planning side of things. Yeah.Jenny:Yeah. Just because I know it’s out there in the public anyway, Tim, it’s my understanding that the Irrigation district has been shut off for the year in the milk due to this diversion breakdown that happened last year. Is that right?Tim:For those that aren’t as familiar with the Milk River Basin and the St. Mary’s Basin, one of the very first beer reclamation projects that was completed in the United States was done to transfer water from the St. Mary’s River down by Bab Montana, just south of Cardston, up over the Continental divide through two sets of syphons and really incredible technology. We’re talking about things that were engineered and the first surveys were conducted in 1903 to 1905 and engineered and built in the teens. Roll forms steel from Chicago that was brought up on barges and then on wagon trains in pieces from Great Falls to establish. This incredible infrastructure that really was, that opened up settlement in North Central Montana. But I’ve got three plus generations of residents in our area in the Milk River portion of Alberta that have never seen natural flow for 110 years during summer months on the Milk River.We have naturally a prairie stream that really doesn’t sustain that as many as six years out of 10 in areas that would’ve had no flow naturally that has sustained flow through the summer. And then in 110 years also, we’ve got an aquatic environment that’s adapted to that of fisheries that are very unique, that are coming up through the Missouri River system that aren’t found anywhere else. Stone Cat and Western Silver Minnow and Rocky Mountain Sculp. Species at Risk that are found in the Milk River Alberta that are nowhere else in the province. And the first major, basically Chicken Little has been saying for 25 years now that we’ve got an infrastructure deficit. This equipment’s been 60 years plus its lifespan, anticipated lifespan in Montana. That’s super critical for communities in Alberta as well as over 28,000 residents and six municipalities in Montana. And in 2020 the first light went out, dropping five on the end of the system that, just below the Whiskey Gap in Montana, blew out.And for the majority of the summer we had had basically no flow in Alberta. We’ve got about 40 farm families or independent irrigators that are completely reliant on the Milk River for their irrigation. And again, I mentioned all the extensive native range lands that we have a major forage deficit in order to be able to feed the livestock that are being restricted at timing on the grazing of the native grasslands, we need alternative forages, and that’s where the irrigation water helps make our budget. It’s been a major challenge. In 2020, they got $10 million US to make those major repairs there still, everybody thought, well, we’re out of the woodwork now and you’re not. We had about a $ 350 million deficit still of equipment and infrastructure in Montana that we’re reliant on here. Yeah, last June, we had a major failure of the St. Mary’s syphon, honestly put the Calgary situation to make it look pretty minor except for there’s not 1.8 billion.No kidding people reliant on it over whatever, close to 4,000 linear feet of eight foot diameter syphon pipe blew out. And incredibly, they were able to get the funding in us secured to replace the infrastructure. I just got word last night that starting in two days, they’re going to be running some test flows through the new syphon and we will see some return of flow for about six weeks this summer in the Milk River here, but it’s too late. We’re in the fourth year of a shadow of a major drought in this area. And we talked a little bit briefly about ground surface water interaction earlier. Our groundwater, we’ve got a few too many straws in the milkshake this year without a lot of recharge and we’re not seeing as much base flow in the river. And yeah, our irrigators are off for the season right now. It is a tough situation for a lot of families. We’re probably looking at least a couple million dollars worth of lost revenue just from lower crop production values. But more importantly, this is the bottom line for about 40 farm families that are reliant on it, plus the residents and other water users. It’s going to be wild.Jenny:Yeah. I know it’s a unique situation, and I know we will have a whole other hour when I say this, but I wonder about the lessons from this on some of the other basins like we’ve talked about, Mike, the Overallocation in the South Saskatchewan River basin. What are some of the lessons to understand in terms of those emergency type decision making, which you guys obviously are heavily involved in facilitating. Thank you for that very much, Bob. You’re welcome to anything you want to catch before we let these folks go?Approved Water Management PlansBob (00:58:55):Well, I’ve got one quick question. Tim, you mentioned creating this safe space where you don’t have these legal issues that pop up often in terms of dealing with or consulting with people, but there are these things called approved water management plans, all three of you. In terms of the plans that you have or are going to develop or revise, would your areas, your lake, Susan, your basins, Mike and Tim, would you be interested in coming up with one of those or getting approval for your water management plans, or would you want to keep it one of these safer places where the legal technicalities don’t get involved.Tim:I just want to mention it took us about 10 years working with our partners with the GOA. We have an approved water management plan that was established just last year, quietly came out, passed by cabinet. But there’s a big difference between an approved water management plan and what I feel needs to be involved with an integrated watershed management plan. An approved water management plan is really looking at the nuts and bolts of how water is managed and regulated and it really has to have a regulatory team. Allocations, transfers, inter basin transfers, all those major issues in there. And it speaks well to that. IT integrated water management plan really has to bring all those other pieces together and that’s again, that’s that safe space and everything. But it also, I feel that I, WPS, really have to speak well to municipal needs, to community values, all those other aspects and how land use is interacting with outside of just the nuts and bolts of who gets what water. That’s where I see it is that they’re really two different beasts. They both have value maybe and they compliment each other in a lot of ways, but I really see their approved water management plan as a regulatory tool and the IWMP is this is the goalpost that we want to set ourselves for our community in the future.Bob:Okay. That’s interesting because when I looked at the provincial site about which ones have been approved in terms of the plans, Milk River wasn’t mentioned. I’m going to have to send a note to somebody in the province to let them know. Mike, you’re up.Mike:I mentioned earlier about a process that happened in the early two thousands about, and I think many of the BRBC members, in fact, BRBC was involved in that process. There is a really well working network of water users that I think the system is, as we saw in the drought, it was pretty easy to come up with water agreements. And I think that’s because that community already exists of people who want to work together. I think going forward, if we were looking at changes to the system, that’s where we got to spend a lot of time thinking about it. Because it is so complex. It’s not, you make one little change and you have so many unintended consequences. I think it’s really important to understand that before we make large changes in how it’s managed, but currently I think that the communities that are involved all work very well together and are communicating.That’s all you hope for. Going back to Tim’s point as well is that when you do a watershed management plan, you’re trying to put together the idea that there is surface water that you’re looking at, but also there’s groundwater land uses other things that are going on and I’d like to think of our planning exercises and the report that we put together afterwards is a good place to start on new initiatives on areas of water management. It hopefully is building that crystallizing factor that helps start some new planning initiatives underway rather than trying to get something that I think a watershed management plan might be something that’s too complex to actually push through into a regulatory process. You allow a lot more openness, I think, collaborative ideas to generate from that plan rather than, I would think if you wanted to make it a regulatory tool, you’d have to really refine the scope and outcome expected for it before you could really get it through quickly. And quickly would still mean years. I think we can generate a lot more momentum as a WPACs. Now other organizations might have more power to generate something much more powerful on their own. But for groups like WPACs, I think the best momentum we can generate is through the way that we do planning now.Bob:Okay. Susan, in terms of Pigeon Lake, there’s lots of regulatory things there in terms of land use and those kinds of things, but you’ve had the most success in terms of getting people to voluntarily do things like cutting back on fertilizer. Do you think an approved water management plan would provide a benefit to Pigeon Lake?Susan:I am not sure if the government approved our watershed management plan. When I left. They had been very much involved and I think that they were going to, and I never did find out because to my mind it wasn’t that important. We had the critical stakeholders, everybody else, the government was working with us already. We had the counties and all of the summer villages and we created it as a living plan. And I think this year, the Pigeon Lake Watershed Association, it’s one of their years to review the plan and I think with the First Nations representation on the board, it will have more input from them than it’s ever had in the past. All four pieces to sign off on the vision and how to report on how we could work together or compliment each other. And the biggest thing was to be going back to it, making sure it came off the shelf and that people were looking at what’s been done, what is the next batch of things that could be low hanging, what needs to be ongoing?And I have confidence that the people who are with the Pigeon Lake Watershed Association and the summer villages will continue to do that to some degree. The other thing is summer villages, they’re small. They can’t take anyone to court. I mean, if something came up in our summer village, the mayor would take a case of beer down to whoever was having an issue. The issuer was out of line and talked about it and tried to figure it out. People wanted us to be watchdogs and we said, no, we’re not taking that on. Although if the government, we would try and have people phone in if there was something that they saw, people used to cut down reeds in front of their place, which all lakes need certain percent of their lake to be reed beds to be healthy.Yeah, the endorsement in terms of approval, it’s, the area concept plans and the structure plans that need to be endorsed in terms of summer villages. One administrator told a counsellor, it doesn’t matter about the bylaws because you can’t enforce them anyway. And I said, when I was on the P-L-W-A-I research and 70% of the people before they made a major investment such as development, they would look to see if there were bylaws and 70% of them, all of those bylaws. Just having them in place is really important. Even if they can’t be enforced. It’s interesting. Plans have a major part in the whole process, but for a lot of people they never see them. I ended up doing a huge survey to make sure that people knew about the areas and whether or not they approved with what was in the plan, and we got over 90% endorsement for each section of the plan. But time has gone past. Whether or not people think to look back to the plan, I doubt it. It needs people to be bringing these things forward and not necessarily in the form of a plan.Bob:Thank you. Those have been very useful comments, and I didn’t answer your question, Jenny, in terms of final comments, excellent conversation. I was really happy to be part of it. Thanks.Jenny:Yes. Thank you all very much for especially staying after work or after school, if you will. Any final things from you guys that we missed or anything you want to hit home before we close?Susan:I want to thank Mike and Tim for all the good work they’re doing. Thank you. So important.Jenny:Yes. Thank you both very much. I couldn’t agree more. We need to, we just had this conversation with Tricia Stadnik, Dr. Tricia Stadnik, and man, do we need to start making decisions on water first and foremost. I just feel that your work is vital to where we need to move forward and I’m just so grateful for all of your experience and continued contribution. Okay, let’s leave it there. Oh, go ahead, Mike.Mike:I just want to say thank you, Susan, for all you’ve done as well. Been folks like you or been why I love working with the BRBC and other groups. Yeah, no one does it by themselves.Susan:I might have to come back to the Bow River Basin Council.Mike:You’re welcome.Jenny:I love it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you all so much. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll be in touch soon.Bob:Thanks.Tim:Thank you for the opportunity. Get full access to The Gravity Well with Jenny Yeremiy at www.thegravitywell.net/subscribe