The Billionaire Who Bored a Hole in Alberta’s Laws

Gina Rinehart, an Australian worth $30 billion and an avid Donald Trump supporter, has changed Alberta’s politics in her relentless pursuit of mined coal.

The saga offers more evidence on how the wealthy exercise their raw financial power to engineer democracy for their own economic benefit.

Political scientists call the oversized influence of billionaires “the wealthification” of politics. Witness how billionaires dominated the U.S. presidential election.

Now the influence of Australia’s wealthiest person seems to have won the open support of the right-wing populist government of Danielle Smith.

Not too long ago, Rinehart’s ambitions in Alberta appeared to be dead in the water. In 2021, provincial and federal regulators ruled her company’s proposal for a massive open-pit mine at Grassy Mountain would pollute the Oldman River watershed and was not in the public interest.

Not to be deterred, the mining magnate spent millions to reverse the decision, with demonstrable effect.

In the last three years she has repeatedly sued the Alberta and federal governments and challenged regulatory processes. And even though three separate courts have found her arguments baseless and without merit, she continues to sue.

Two outstanding lawsuits, for example, contend the Alberta government owes her billions because her mining plans were stymied. Overwhelming public opposition to coal mining forced the government to impose a coal moratorium in the Rockies to protect critical watersheds.

Outside of provincial and federal courts, Rinehart has hired two lobby firms with ties to the United Conservative Party government to actively promote her open-pit mining project.

When it became clear that citizens living in the municipal district of Ranchland, where Rinehart wants to build the mega-mine, were overwhelmingly opposed to its construction, Rinehart actively participated in a dubious referendum sanctioned by Smith in the neighbouring community of Crowsnest Pass. Rinehart’s company even drove voters to the polls.

Thanks to Rinehart’s promises of jobs and prosperity, one political geography voted yes to a project that will destroy water and landscapes in a neighbouring municipal district. In the divisive process, the billionaire weaponized an economically depressed community to buy the illusion of social licence.

In the process Rinehart effectively disenfranchised 200,000 water drinkers downstream from the proposed mine, as well as five million Albertans who own the resource and have consistently opposed mining in Rocky Mountain watersheds.

Last month Smith’s government openly embraced the billionaire’s Grassy Mountain project in an abrupt press briefing before Christmas. Since then, hundreds of demonstrators have flooded the streets of small towns downstream from the proposed mine site to defend their water security in an arid landscape.

Rinehart's victory to date adds a push-pin to her global map of political conquests. In a recent speech, interspersed with video clips from the fellow right-wingers Elon Musk and Pierre Poilievre, the Australian magnate said the mining sector must push its advocates into Parliament where they can rip up environmental legislation she claims is jeopardizing the world’s mining industry.

Here then is a brief chronology on what promises to be one of Alberta’s most contentious political battles this year.

November 2015: The Alberta Energy Regulator receives an application by Riversdale Resources (Benga Mining) to build a metallurgical coal project on Grassy Mountain north of the Crowsnest Pass. It proposes to extract 4.5 million tonnes of coal a year over a 24-year period and promises to be the first of several mine sites in the region. The proposed megaproject, located on Category 4 lands, is not subject to the 1976 Coal Policy. That policy largely banned open-pit coal mining in the eastern slopes.

May 2019: Billionaire Rinehart, owner of Hancock Prospecting and author of Australia’s 2010 “axe the tax” protest against a proposed tax on high mining company profits, purchases Riversdale Resources for $700 million.

October to December 2019: Capital Investment Partners, an Australian firm that owns extensive coal leases in the Rockies, tells investors that the “Alberta government [is] in the process of changing the coal policy to allow more open-pit mining.” At the same time, two UCP cabinet ministers write letters to one Australian mining speculator assuring the company that Alberta is open for business and will “streamline policy.”

May 2020: With no public consultation, the UCP government of then-premier Jason Kenney abruptly rescinds the 1976 Coal Policy, thereby opening the Rocky Mountains to unfettered coal mining. Australian coal speculators immediately buy leases up and down the Rockies and on lands near Grassy Mountain. The UCP government promises friendly regulators and a one per cent royalty rate on coal in contrast to Australia’s seven per cent.

October 2020: After repeated delays due to the incompleteness of Riversdale Resources’ environmental impact assessment, a public hearing on the Grassy Mountain project begins online during the pandemic.

February 2021: Due to unprecedented public protests over Kenney’s decision to open the Rockies to more than a dozen Australian coal speculators and open-pit mining, his government reluctantly reinstates the Coal Policy.

March 2021: The UCP government appoints a five-member coal committee to engage Albertans about the future of open-pit mining in the Rockies. Canada’s federal government fines the B.C. coal mining operations of Teck Resources $60 million for polluting waterways with selenium and nitrate.

June 17, 2021: In a rare negative decision, a joint panel review concludes that the Grassy Mountain metallurgical project is not in the public interest due to water, environmental and economic impacts. At that point an “advanced coal project” officially became a “cancelled" coal project. *

July 2021: Eric Lowther, a former Reform MP and coal operative, writes an opinion piece decrying the joint review panel’s decision as “unbelievable” and bad for the province’s international reputation. Meanwhile Rinehart’s Riversdale Resources launches the first of three separate legal actions challenging Alberta’s and Canada’s regulatory decision to reject its mining proposal.

November 2021: Lowther, a board member of Citizens Supportive of Crowsnest Coal, now accuses the Coal Policy Committee, a panel appointed by the Kenney government, of being biased against industry and influenced by American environmentalists. The accusations are false.

December 2021: The Coal Policy Committee recommends that no coal mining proceed in Alberta until proper regional and sub-regional land-use plans have been concluded because the majority of Albertans remain steadfastly opposed to open-pit mining in the Rockies.

March 2022: A ministerial order declares a moratorium on coal development in the Rockies. It directs the Alberta Energy Regulator to not consider any further exploration or commercial developments in the eastern slopes, “with the exception of lands subject to an advanced coal project.”

August to October 2022: While campaigning for the leadership of the UCP, Smith opens a political door to resurrect Rinehart’s mining project. She tells her supporters in Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass, including Crowsnest Mayor Blair Painter (a UCP supporter), that if there were a strong referendum in support of the Grassy Mountain project, she would be more inclined to push it forward. Lowther, board member of Citizens Supportive of Crowsnest Coal, confirms the promise.

But Smith’s referendum ploy defies geography and democracy: the proposed mine is located not in the municipality of Crowsnest Pass but in the municipal district of Ranchland, where ranchers are 100 per cent opposed to the project.

December 2022: Rinehart hires a new CEO, Mike Young, with a mandate to revive the Grassy Mountain project. Meanwhile, Alberta’s Court of Appeal rejects arguments made by Rinehart’s lawyers that Alberta’s regulatory process treated her company unfairly by denying the Grassy Mountain project. Justice Bernette Ho argues that just because a company might disagree with a regulatory decision doesn’t mean it was arrived at unfairly, contravened the law or ignored the evidence.

February 2023: The B.C. government fines Teck Resources $16 million for contaminating waterways with selenium and other contaminants.

July 2023: Riversdale Resources/Benga Mining officially changes its name and is replaced by the Northback Holdings Corp. The new company begins to extensively lobby the Alberta government. It hires two different lobbying firms (Enterprise Canada and Crestview Strategy) over the next year.

September 2023: After sustained lobbying, Northback applies to the AER for three exploratory coal licences to drill hundreds of new test holes on its Grassy Mountain lease. The application directly violates a ministerial order banning any further coal exploration on Category 4 lands.

November 2023: Energy Minister Brian Jean writes a letter to the AER suggesting that the rejected Grassy Mountain project should be regarded as an “advanced coal project” and is therefore exempt from the ministerial order and coal moratorium. Meanwhile an Alberta government website officially lists the project as “cancelled.”

December 2023: Five Australian coal companies sue the Alberta government for more than $10 billion over alleged losses due to the province’s coal moratorium and reinstatement of the Coal Policy. The court date is set for this April.

February 2024: Northback CEO Young begins a public relations blitz by telling Andrew Lawton, the managing editor of True North, that metallurgical coal mining is environmentally sound and good for Canada. The right-wing media site is partly funded by fracked gas tycoon Gwyn Morgan.

March 2024: In preparation for the referendum, Northback Holdings donates $75,000 to the Livingstone Range School Division for a school nutrition program in the Crowsnest Pass. The company calls it the Northback Breakfast Program. It also launches a $7-billion lawsuit against the Alberta government and the office of the energy minister alleging damages from the province’s moratorium on coal development.

March 2024: A study funded by the Alberta government finds that even closed coal mines leave a legacy of selenium pollution in downstream waterways that lasts decades.

June 2024: Another study funded by the Alberta government reveals that mountaintop removal contaminates snowpack and watersheds with toxic coal dust over a wide area.

July 2024: In preparation for the referendum, CEO Young continues his media blitz and offers tours of the proposed mine site. He tells the Western Standard, a publication with links to Danielle Smith, that selenium is not a pollution problem but an “education issue.”

September 2024: A court of appeal grants the Municipal District of Ranchland, where the mine will be located, permission to challenge the legality of classifying Grassy as “an advanced coal project” on the grounds that the regulator did not engage in any meaningful, independent analysis of the definition of an “advanced coal project” as outlined in the ministerial order.

September 2024: The council for the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass passes a motion to hold a non-binding vote referendum on the Grassy coal project even though the project is located in the municipal district of Ranchland, where residents remain totally opposed to the project.

Only permanent residents are allowed to vote. Northback spends heavily on the Yes campaign.

Nov. 21, 2024: An investigation reveals that Citizens Supportive of Crowsnest Coal, an allegedly grassroots group that supports the project, has strong ties to Energy United and the Maple Leaf Institute, which lobby on behalf of the oil and gas industry.

Nov. 25, 2024: The Yes side for a proposed project wins 72 per cent of the vote. Days later, Northback’s Young writes that “Premier Smith requested a local referendum and voters have given a clear message. The decisive victory shifts the focus to the next steps by the premier and the need to provide clarity on regulatory processes and to provide certainty for resource investment in general.” Energy Minister Jean replies to the outcome by saying that “democracy had its day.”

December 2024: Five days before Christmas, Jean conducts an abrupt news conference during which he endorses Rinehart’s project and promises a new coal policy to be shaped by engagement with coal companies. A modern policy will allow metallurgical coal mining in the Rockies.

Jan. 14 to 16, 2025: The AER resumes a controversial public hearing on whether or not to approve more applications for coal exploration on Grassy Mountain despite a pending appeal court challenge that could find the hearings illegitimate.

* Story updated at Jan. 10 at 8:52 a.m. to remove an inaccuracy inserted during editing. The joint panel review's conclusion that the Grassy Mountain project was not in the public interest did not, in fact, group Grassy Mountain with the other mining projects that the revival of the Coal Policy ruled out.