Smith’s government dumps a load of denial and new risks just before Christmas.

The Alberta government gave its citizens an Australian sack of “modern” coal for Christmas, as well as a load of misinformation accompanied by a mountain of disingenuousness.

In an abrupt news conference held Friday, Energy Minister Brian Jean and Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz declared the government was changing mining policy for Alberta because the world needed more metallurgical coal.

“It’s a big day,” said Jean, who has been lobbied relentlessly by the Coal Association of Canada and Australian billionaire and mining magnate Gina Rinehart to support coal mining in the Rockies.

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During the conference, neither Jean nor Schulz made any reference to what the public really wants. Repeated surveys have consistently shown that most Albertans don’t support coal mining of any kind in the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

In fact, most believe the government’s only priority should be the protection of critical watersheds.

Jean admitted Friday that coal development in the past has been “bad,” but that something called “responsible resource development” — a catchphrase for every speculative project in Alberta — would prevent selenium pollution, a multi-billion-dollar bane of metallurgical coal mining in neighbouring B.C. and many parts of Alberta. No viable technology has currently solved this environmental problem.

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Corb Lund, a popular musician who lives in southern Alberta, described the government press conference as “an Orwellian word salad meant to calm the public right before Xmas.”

“It is all greenwashing bullshit,” Donahue told The Tyee. “It is a way to push the UCP’s original 2020 plan to open the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains to coal mining, and now we’ll make a case for it again.” He called the announcement “a farce.”