Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Public participation is widely considered to be an essential component of any legitimate exercise of state power over resource development and environmental decision-making. A clear illustration of what can happen when public participation is excluded from the decision-making process is the public uproar concerning the abrupt rescission by the Alberta government of the 1976 Coal Policy in May 2020.  The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is Alberta's regulator of energy development throughout the full lifecycle of an oil, gas, or coal project - from initial application to final closure and reclamation. The AER is responsible for assessing and monitoring the environmental impacts of these energy projects, and the AER implements a compliance program to enforce the applicable legal rules. This session will be a critical examination of the opportunities provided by the AER for the public to participate in its decision-making processes. While the discussion will canvass the topic broadly in relation to various compo