New Democrat MP tables private bill, wants federal assessment of coal projects
OTTAWA — Alberta’s lone New Democrat member of Parliament is asking Ottawa to require that all coal-mining proposals go through a full federal environmental assessment.
Heather McPherson says her private member’s bill, tabled today, would remove a threshold on size that new mines must now cross before they are federally reviewed.
She says the bill is in response to the large number of projects proposed in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains after the province’s United Conservative government removed a long-standing policy that protected the land in the region.
After a loud public outcry, the policy was temporarily restored.