Red Deer South MLA Cal Dallas accuses a taxpayer of Alberta of “making inaccurate statements” about carbon capture and property rights (Property rights protected under carbon capture legislation) Dec. 13. The question arises is why every time a person expresses an opinion about the government’s actions that the crown’s immediate response is to imply the person is not telling the truth.
The Carbon Capture and Storage Amendment Act amends the Mines and Minerals Act. This amendment includes a provision declaring that no grant from the Crown, either in land or mines and minerals, operates or has operated as a conveyance of the title to pore space. This amending provision is deemed an Exception to Sec. 61.1 of the Land Titles Act, meaning to all landowners that this declaration will not constitute an expropriation.
Accordingly, the Alberta Government will not be required to compensate any title holder or rights holder for the loss of pore space. In other words this is legislating expropriation with out compensation.
All taxpayers in the province should be gravely concerned about the Government’s immediate commitment of 2 Billion dollars towards this poorly-thought-out legislation.
I have two questions for Dallas.
Does this include the million dollars given to Enbridge Pipeline for a CO2 slurry pipeline and the $25 million to U of C for carbon research?
Secondly, how many more taxpayer dollars has the government committed, that we are not aware of?
What Dallas failed to mention is the amendment results in the province becoming the owner of the captured CO2 and by doing so the crown assumes all obligations and liabilities once a project is complete and the party injecting the CO2 is issued a closure certificate. This transfers all future liability onto the Alberta taxpayer.
Are the Alberta taxpayers willing to be the ones taking on all the liability of sequestered CO2 in the event of a future release of carbon dioxide into a freshwater aquifer or similar disastrous releases from the subsurface? All residents of Alberta should be made aware that this has happen in CO2 projects in the United States and there is nothing to prevent it from happening here.
The Public should really question why the Tory government rushed this Act through the legislature in a mere 30 days and used closure to silent public debate and failed to provide any public consultation.
Why has a deficit-riddled government even considered funding CO2 projects? Privately owned companies have been injecting CO2 for enhanced oil recovery in the province for over 15 years.
Why did the government decide to invoke this legislation now on pore space? Nowhere in North America does such law exist. And why does the expropriation spread across all of Alberta?
There are numerous solutions to the problem, namely, the producers of millions of tons of CO2 should be required to be responsible for their own emissions, assume all liability of sequestering as they have profited hugely from their operations and the taxpayer should not assume financial responsibility for cleaning up the mess.
Mr. Dallas, this Act is another example of removing property rights which carries the same disastrous outcomes as Bills 19, 36, 50.
Don Bester
Innisfail