Oilpatch support for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's agenda ballooned after she won her party's leadership and put the so-called RStar program — a plan to give tax breaks to energy companies for fulfilling cleanup work they are already obliged to do — high on the government agenda.
Alberta's United Conservative Party government is facing growing criticism for a plan to give oil companies a royalty credit for cleaning up their old wells.
New Alberta government research has found windblown dust from mountaintop removal coal mines has polluted a pristine alpine lake to the point where its waters are as contaminated as lakes downwind from the oilsands.
Critics fear Alberta's new United Conservative premier is preparing to bring in a program that would use billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded royalty breaks to subsidize energy companies to fulfil their legal duty and clean up old wells.
Premier Jason Kenney threw Alberta politics into a tailspin on Wednesday when he narrowly won a United Conservative Party leadership review vote only to announce he was quitting the top job anyway.