The words may not have been explicit, but oilpatch contractor Matthew Linnitt says he read between the lines: lie on official documents about an incident that could have killed him, or someone would be fired.

The burden of returning the land to a natural state could fall to the next 93 generations. The estimates were outlined by an Alberta Energy Regulator official in a September 2018 presentation, obtained through freedom-of-information.

The top medical officer in Lambton County, a region surrounded by petrochemical plants, engaged in an animated online debate on Friday with authors of a recent peer-reviewed study that revealed elevated rates of a type of leukemia in several industrial Ontario towns.

A new peer-reviewed study has found “strikingly high” rates of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in Canadian border towns, including Sarnia, Ont., a city whose manufacturing sector is referred to as Canada’s Chemical Valley.

The Fort McKay First Nation was initially kept in the dark about a toxic cloud from the oilsands that struck their community after companies restarted operations that had been temporarily disrupted by the Fort McMurray wildfires. Internal records show that the incident occurred after industry pressured the provincial regulator to rapidly restart their operations despite risks to public health.

Imperial Oil Ltd. will not be charged for a Feb. 23, 2017, incident that saw huge flames shooting from its Sarnia refinery, which residents described as being “absolutely anxiety-inducing.”

In an interview, Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd declined to comment on the tailings issue. However, she did blame the looming costs of cleaning up the oilpatch on the previous conservative government. She has directed the provincial regulator to tighten its rules in key areas to “keep bad actors off the landscape” and ensure “responsible companies are protected."

What is clear is that the technique is unproven, and by conditionally approving industry plans that include it, Alberta officials are signaling they still have no idea how they’re going to clean up the waste of the oilpatch.

Toxic releases are still very common, despite provincial government promises to crack down on the problem. Local residents say the alerts and scares are far too common. “They just tell us ... to just shut your doors and your windows and shut off your air conditioning," said one resident who lives near a refinery.

Green Leader Elizabeth May is warning that taxpayers across Canada could soon be forced to bail out Alberta’s oilpatch because of a failure to adequately manage billions of dollars worth of liabilities — a concern immediately dismissed by federal Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi.

There's no need for an emergency debate on the looming, multibillion-dollar cost of cleaning up Alberta’s oilpatch, the governing New Democrats and official Opposition United Conservatives told the provincial legislature Tuesday. They took this position in response to a request from the legislature's lone Liberal member who suggested the matter required an urgent debate.

The president of Alberta’s fossil fuel industry regulator is resigning one day after the organization publicly apologized for the alarm caused by its $260-billion estimate of financial liabilities in the province’s oilpatch.

The Alberta Energy Regulator is apologizing for a “staggering” presentation, made last February by one of its highest-ranking officials, warning the province’s oilpatch that it could be sitting on an estimated $260 billion in financial liabilities.

The staggering estimate of $260 billion in financial liabilities for the oil and gas industry’s graveyard of spent facilities were spelled out by a high-ranking official of the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) in a February presentation to a private audience in Calgary.

"Off the chart" toxic releases in Saskatchewan have been going unpunished for years. Provincial air quality standards have been breached hundreds of times since 2014, but those living nearby were not warned and oil companies responsible for some of the emissions have faced no charges or fines.