Re: Landowner Rallies Opposition to C02 Storage, Jan. 25, 2011
In this article, Jay O’Neill, from Alberta Energy, states that no landowner’s property has been taken through the passage of the Carbon Capture and Storage Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 24). He goes on to imply no surface owner, or mineral owner owned the pore space, which he describes as miniscule spaces in deep rock formations.
He is misleading the public in that nowhere in the act does it specify the expropriated pore space is “deep rock formations,” but is in fact, all pore space under one inch of the surface.
He also knows very clearly if there was ever a dispute about who owned the pore space it was between the mineral holder and the surface owner … the government never had a claim to the pore space. In fact, Alberta is the only place in North America where the government now claims the pore space.
The question I would ask is why is this Tory government always seeking to undermine its landowners’ rights, instead of protecting them? Why has every land bill these Tories have passed taken property rights away from the landowner and handed it over to large multinational energy companies?
Did this government forget who brought them to the dance?
The landowners of Alberta are sick and tired of this assault on our property rights and are ready to do something about it at the polling booth. We’ll get this bill repealed one way or the other!
Doug Malsbury
Penhold