Bonnie Castellarin’s column (Opinion: Democracy isn’t determined by the loudest voices in the room, June 24) gave her opinion of the raucous Albertans at the June 11 town hall meeting in Fort Macleod, on coal mining. She maintains they hijacked and shut down any dialogue that didn’t fit their narrow view, and were hostile to development of any kind.

She believes that since more than 70 per cent of Crowsnest Pass residents voted for the Grassy Mountain project in their municipal referendum, they represent legitimate community-based democracy and have a mandate.

I couldn’t attend that meeting, but my friends who told me about it were among the voices Castellarin describes. Like other Albertans who love our province and are concerned about coal mining development, I have been following this issue closely since May 2020, when the UCP government rescinded the 1976 coal policy that protected the Eastern Slopes. The UCP did this after meeting with coal lobbyists and Australian corporations, but didn’t bother to tell Albertans, or address regional land plans.

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