The Alberta government says powerful public protest persuaded it to reinstate a policy that has kept open-pit coal mines out of the Rocky Mountains for almost 45 years.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says Albertans have no cause to worry over his government quietly throwing out a coal policy that protected the Rocky Mountains for more than four decades.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is getting some unsolicited advice from the co-founder of the United Conservative Party: fire yourself as the intergovernmental affairs minister.

"The government is risking Alberta’s multibillion-dollar tourism industry and the health and well-being of millions of Albertans who live, farm and fish downstream in order to potentially create a few hundred jobs and a pitifully small stream of new royalty revenue," columnist Max Fawcett writes.