Alberta Environment disputes report slamming its enforcement record

A new report that finds Alberta only enforces a tiny fraction of possible environmental violations in the oilsands misrepresents the province’s activities, says Alberta’s Environment and Sustainable Resource Development ministry.

“We disagree with the majority of conclusions presented in this report as we feel the numbers are not in the proper context” because they include “non-infractions” that wouldn’t need enforcement from the province, ministry spokesman Wayne Wood said in an email.

The report found that while provincial records show 4,000 “alleged contraventions” in the oilsands between 1996 and 2012, it only has records of 37 enforcement actions during that same time. That indicates the government is “absolutely not” doing enough enforcement, says the report’s co-author Kevin Timoney.

But the province argues Timoney and his co-author Peter Lee are just looking at the numbers wrong.

Get breaking National news

Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.

Sign up for breaking National newsletter Get Started

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

“The Alberta Environment Call Centre receives more than 11,00 calls each year and we follow up on each and every call, but not all require regulatory action. In many cases there is no infraction at all, and many infractions are minor in nature and do not warrant enforcement action,” Wood said in his email.

“Albertans can rest assured that if there is an incident that requires action, we take action and hold industry accountable.”

Timoney doesn’t think he’s misinterpreting, or confusing complaints with contraventions.

“That’s entirely false,” he said in an interview. The 4,000 “alleged contraventions” the study focused on “are cases where industry is reporting that they have contravened. It’s not just somebody calling in out of the blue saying, ‘I think there’s a problem.'”

The province has been taken to task before on how well it enforces its own rules; resources for its regulatory bodies haven’t kept pace with industry growth over the past several years. But Alberta Energy Regulator CEO Jim Ellis said in an interview the body has what it needs to do the job.

Wood also defended the ministry’s transparency record; the report slammed the ministry for its inconsistent and often error-ridden record-keeping.

“We strive to be as transparent as possible and we have a wide variety of compliance related information posted on our website. In some instances, we are limited by what we can publish which includes details that may negatively affect the outcome of an investigation,” Wood wrote. He also noted that the new Alberta Energy Regulator, which is meant to meld the energy-regulating responsibilities of both the environment ministry and the Energy Resources Conservation Board, “has made transparency in reporting a priority and will be putting in policies and procedures as it moves forward.”

The regulator recently started posting some incident information on its website.