Report to the Minister - April

Since the committee was appointed in late March 2021, the Coal Policy Committee (CPC) has been hard at work, developing a strategy to engage with Albertans regarding the development of a modern Coal Policy. We have held a series of meetings that have informed this work. The following is a summary of the update provided to the Minister of Energy for the month of April.

First, based on input from Albertans, the committee recommended to the Minister of Energy that exploration in Category 2 lands be halted while the engagement process was ongoing. We are pleased the Minister accepted our recommendation.

To date, several themes and indications of expectations, as reflected in our initial engagement with key opinion leaders and as a result of the initial survey, have emerged:

• Transparency of the work of the committee is central to building trust
• The committee is expected to provide clear information on how, when and where it plans to engage with the public
• Many expect that our focus should be on factual, science-based presentations

The committee is committed to ensuring that information gathered during our engagement is broadly available to all Albertans while recognizing the limitations of any engagement during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also recognize that this may require using web tools where possible while we develop other appropriate engagement options for Albertans who may have difficulty connecting through electronic and/or social media in remote locations, including Indigenous communities.

We look forward to sharing more updates soon.