A story that did not get enough attention yesterday was out of Alberta, where the organization that is tasked with cleaning up abandoned oil wells is sounding the alarm that the provincial regulator’s rules are not sufficient to prevent the creation of more of these “orphan” wells – at a time when more companies are offloading assets to smaller companies. This is the kind of practice that usually results in the orphaning of these wells in the first place – that the smaller companies start losing money when the price of oil tanks, and they can’t live up to their obligations to clean up the abandoned ones with the money they’re making from the active ones they’ve bought along with them.

This issue was the subject of a Supreme Court of Canada decision last year, where the court said that bankruptcy trustees who take up these companies with the orphan wells can’t simply abandon these obligations under their bankruptcy proceedings as they’re trying to sell the active wells to new buyers – that their environmental obligations can’t be jettisoned because it’s inconvenient for them. (More on the underlying issues here). This also reinforces the polluter-pays principle, which governments say they’re in favour of – except when it’s inconvenient. Like right now, for Jason Kenney.

Why this issue deserves more attention is because Kenney (and to a lesser degree Scott Moe, who is following the pattern set out for him by Brad Wall) has been demanding that the federal government spend their dollars on cleaning up these orphan wells under the rubric of it being job-creation, or good for the environment. Kenney’s demand for retroactive stabilization funds as an “equalization rebate” (which is ridiculous) has been cited on more than one occasion as a means of using the funds for this purpose, which would essentially be offloading the responsibility onto the federal government because the regulator hasn’t been doing an adequate job when these sales happen, and the provincial government hasn’t created strict enough regulations to prevent these wells from being orphaned in the first place. That’s something that we should be holding him – and the industry – to account for, but that means cutting through the obfuscation. There should be no reason why the federal government should be taking on this expense, but this is what they are being asked to do.

Good reads:

• Marc Garneau says the government is fighting to get compensation for the families of those killed aboard PS752, while some 17 families want bodies repatriated.
• There are concerns that a couple of low-level officials in Iran will be scapegoated for the downing of PS752.
• Part of Navdeep Bains’ mandate letter is to establish levels of compensation for privacy breaches.
• The Competition Bureau plans to investigate political parties’ use of databases.
• Here is some further analysis as to why listing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group is complex and may do more harm than good.
• Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, visited a women’s shelter in Vancouver, which could be the first of the couple’s outreach to Canadian groups they could help support.
• More questions revolve around the royal couple’s planned stay in Canada.
• Rona Ambrose is out – or maybe not, and Peter MacKay is in for the Conservative leadership.
• Stephen Harper has resigned from the Conservative Fund, leaving the organization in chaos, as he prepares to fight a leadership bid by Jean Charest.
• Former BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver left the caucus to sit as an independent, apparently because of “family health issues” (which sounds dubious).
• Here’s a disturbing look at how the BC government seems to be turning a blind eye to money laundering in casinos – it even disbanded the RCMP unit investigating it.
• Justin Ling demands the PMO to be more transparent with Trudeau’s schedule than just putting “private meetings” on their postings.
• Matt Gurney 100% clocks Canada’s skinflint nature in the grumbling over potential security costs for Harry and Meghan.
• Philippe Lagassé explains the constitutional and hereditary aspects of the Crown in Canada, to put some context to the Harry and Meghan situation.
• Colby Cosh pokes at the “lock him up” sign controversy in Western Canada and points to the free speech element with them.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.