Rural municipalities have been suffering crisis-level budget shortfalls for years already, as zombie companies wage an escalating property tax strike forcing counties to cut hundreds of millions in services or raise taxes on everyone else.

The challenge of cleaning up a century of development comes early for Alberta's newly-elected United Conservative Party Premier Jason Kenney. There is a solution to the massive oil and gas site cleanup that could put energy workers back to work.

The hour is late and the odds against the world’s richest and most powerful industry are steep, but at least courts have not taken away our most powerful tool. Regan Boychuk puts the Supreme Court’s Redwater decision in context.

The Alberta Energy Regulator efforts this week at damage control are nonsensical. It’s difficult to overstate the consequences of the predicament that the regulator – assumed to guard the public interest, but long since captured to serve industry – has plunged the province with a staggering unfunded liability for oil and gas cleanup.

What followed was more than six months of reckless disregard for the public’s safety that would scarcely seem plausible as a sinister movie plot.

The conventional oil and gas industry is leaving a massive mess in Alberta. Regan Boychuk traces how it happened and shows how industry - not taxpayers - should be made to pay.

The conventional oil and gas industry is leaving a mess in Alberta. Regan Boychuk traces how it happened and shows how industry - not taxpayers - should be made to pay.

The Alberta NDP’s recent royalty review was a scandalous gift to industry at Albertans expense.