Initial survey results are coming in following the online survey available to all Albertans regarding coal mining in the province.

Chair of the Coal Policy Committee, Ron Wallace, says that the survey provided immediate impact on decision-making.

“It was based on that information that the committee, very quickly, that the committee formed it's recommendation to the minister to recommend a moratorium (on Category 2 Lands). The survey had a major impact on the committee forming that recommendation to the Minister.”

Wallace says the committee has continued working hard to come up with their next plan.

“The committee has been working very hard to come up with it's engagement strategy with things like a website. With the website, some of this information will be posted to the wider public. That should happen sometime shortly.”

Overall, there were 24,572 responses to the survey.

Wallace says those responses came from a wide variety of areas and age groups.

“The responses came from all across Alberta and from all age groups. It was really quite remarkable. What's really interesting is that more than 70 per cent of the respondents indicated that the management of Alberta's coal resources has a major effect on them. Not everyone lives near a coal operation and yet 70 per cent of those 24,752 people, felt that they had a significant stake.”

Of the responses, Wallace says they came from a broad area of the province.

"From central Alberta, there were 8,000 responses, from southern Alberta there were 13,000, from northeast Alberta there were 403 and northwest Alberta there was 589."

The age groups of the survey also drew Wallace's attention.

"What's really interesting to me is that when you look at the age groups, Of the 24,572 responses, 18,000 of them came from age groups between 25-64. This shows it wasn't a group of young kids filling out the responses. This shows quite a consistent response. 25-34 was 4,500 responses, 35-44 was 5,400. 45-54 was 3,800 and 55-64 was 4,400. That's within a few percentage points of being pretty much the same. What that indicated was that this concern is not only a broad one across the province but it's very broad across the electorate and across age groups within the electorate. This isn't just a group of young kids getting together saying they don't like coal mining."

The survey provided Wallace and the committee with more interesting discoveries.

“What's even more interesting is that 64 per cent of the respondents did not think the economic benefits of coal development in Alberta were in the important category. Eight per cent indicated that they are very important. What that indicates to me is that the small number of people that live around coalmines or are involved in the production of the coal, feel very strongly about it but a very large number of people question the economic benefits of coal development.”

A large number of the survey results also showed that Albertans are not confident that coal can be mined safely and responsibly.

“Over 85 per cent indicated that they were not confident that coal exploration or development in Alberta is regulated to ensure that it's safe, efficient, orderly and environmentally responsible. That's a very significant finding because what that does is it calls into question the confidence of a lot of the people who responded to the survey in the policy or the regulatory system for coal,” said Wallace.

There were many respondents who felt certain areas of the province should also be off limit.

“Over 90 per cent of the respondents felt that there are areas of the province that are not appropriate for coal exploration or development. Whereas about 30 per cent felt that exploration and development may be appropriate for some areas of the province. That to me is a very interesting finding because when you have 85 per cent of the people saying they're not confident about the regulatory system and over 90 per cent saying that there are some areas of the province that are not appropriate and 30 per cent that development could be appropriate in some areas of the province, that's a very sophisticated understanding by the public that they discriminate between areas where they feel coal development should be going on and they're discriminating very knowledgeably and very strongly between areas they think it should not be occurring.”

Wallace says he understands the survey results are from a very small percentage of the Alberta population but is also pleased with the results of the survey.

“I recognize the survey results are form a very small percentage of the Alberta population of course, but at the same time, I think anyone would look at those numbers and they would be impressed by the breadth and depth of the response that came in.”

Wallace also stated the committee has held conversations with different Mayors in affected areas, including Mayor Painter.

Mayor Painter says the conversation he had with the committee was very beneficial.

"They wanted to know if I knew about the projects and what classification of land they were in. They also wanted to know how our community felt about it and any concerns our community had. They said they had around 25,000 submissions and they ranged over 400 topics. They wanted to make sure they fielded all questions and were open to listening to everybody. It was a really good conversation."

Mayor Painter added that he wasn't overly surprised at the number of submissions and said he was partially expecting lower numbers of submissions.

Wallace says now that the survey is over, the committee’s engagement process should be rolling out in the next couple of days.

"What we will be doing is inviting people to come forward in our first round of engagement. That is not by any means a selective thing at all. We will go through several rounds to make sure that we're hearing as many people as want to be heard. Now that we have our engagement strategy based on our initial conversations with key opinion leaders, we'll be going down that path and opening that door this week."

Wallace says the CPC reached out broadly asking what ways their engagement strategy could move forward.

“We reached out fairly broadly asking people how we should design the full engagement strategy. We're fully aware that in the initial stages of the engagement we may miss people. We plan to come back and make sure we're touching all of the bases for people who want to be heard.”

With more information available soon and engagement about to begin, Wallace says it’s important for people to keep an eye out for when engagement begins.

“We encourage people to keep an eye on the Coal Committee because our website and our engagement and communication plan is going to surface soon. If people are interested in engaging I really recommend they look for that on the website and that we are wide open to suggestions for engagement from all parties.”

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