From ecojustice: https://ecojustice.ca/take-action/demand-a-public-inquiry-into-albertas-oil-and-gas-cleanup-problem/https://ecojustice.ca/take-action/demand-a-public-inquiry-into-albertas-oil-and-gas-cleanup-problem/

You pay your taxes. You pay your bills. You clean up your own mess. It’s the law.

Why should oil and gas companies have a different set of rules?

Oil and gas executives are breaking their promise to Alberta landowners and declaring bankruptcy instead of cleaning up their aging and inactive wells. Now, the Alberta government wants to change the rules — which may stick Albertans with the multi-billion-dollar bill.

This is bad policy, plain and simple. And we say no.

Tell the Alberta government you’re counting on them to:

• oppose Alberta’s new Mature Asset Strategy and 
• call for a public inquiry into Alberta’s oil and gas cleanup problem.

After dining and dashing at Albertans’ expense for decades, bad-faith oil executives still owe rural municipalities approximately $254 million in unpaid property taxes and over $150 million more in unpaid compensation to rural landowners — many of whom have been paying for this crisis with their health.^{1 2}

Now, the Mature Asset Strategy (MAS) adds insult to injury. Designed through a closed-door process dominated by industry representatives and led by longtime oilpatch consultant David Yager, the MAS could leave everyday Albertans to pick up the tab for the industry’s $60-$130 billion in cleanup costs (a total that eclipses the province’s combined annual health and education budgets several times over).^{3 4 5}

Every public dollar spent backstopping companies’ well cleanup liabilities is a dollar not being put toward Alberta’s chronically underfunded schools and health services. Put simply, that’s not something Albertans can afford.

92 per cent of Albertans believe aging well companies should ultimately be responsible for cleaning up their own mess.⁶ It’s time for lawmakers to listen — and trigger a public inquiry to get real solutions to this crisis, opening up the floor for experts and everyday Albertans to weigh in. 

No More ‘Drill and Dash’ in Alberta

Urge the Alberta government to reject the Mature Asset Strategy and call for a public inquiry into Alberta’s oil and gas cleanup problem.