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Grassy Mountain Coal Project - decision

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Grassy Mountain Coal Project - appeal

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Grassy Mountain Coal Project - judgment

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These proceedings arise from the proposed Grassy Mountain Steelmaking Coal Project in southwestern Alberta and stem from a joint federal-provincial impact assessment conducted under the Impact Assessment Act and Alberta's environmental assessment regime. In 2021, the Joint Review Panel concluded that the project was likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects that could not be justified in the public interest. In reaching that conclusion, the Panel considered numerous statutory factors, including the project's greenhouse gas emissions, contribution to climate change, sustainability, cumulative environmental effects, and consistency with Canada's environmental and climate objectives. Relying on the Panel's report, the federal Minister determined that the project's adverse effects were not in the public interest, while Alberta regulators likewise refused to authorize the mine.

The resulting litigation concerns different stages of those regulatory decisions. In Benga Mining Limited v. Canada (Environment and Climate Change), 2024 FC 231, the Federal Court reviewed the federal decision-making process. While rejecting the proponent's substantive challenges to the Panel's report and the Minister's assessment, the Court allowed applications brought by the Piikani Nation and the Stoney Nakoda Nations, finding that procedural fairness had been breached when the Minister considered post-report submissions without giving the Nations an opportunity to respond. The Minister's Decision Statement was therefore set aside and remitted for redetermination. In Northback Holdings Corporation v. Canada (Environment and Climate Change), 2025 FCA 31, the Federal Court of Appeal held that the proponent's appeal was not rendered moot by the Federal Court's judgment and allowed the appeal to proceed. Separately, Northback Holdings Corporation v. Alberta Energy Regulator, 2025 ABCA 186 concerns parallel challenges to the Alberta Energy Regulator's refusal to approve the project and addresses the availability and scope of judicial review under Alberta's statutory regulatory framework.

Although none of the courts independently evaluated the project's greenhouse gas emissions or interpreted Canada's climate obligations, climate change formed an important part of the statutory context underlying the litigation. The courts repeatedly referred to the impact assessment process, in which greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, sustainability, and broader environmental effects were considered as factors informing the public interest determination.


Grassy Mountain Coal Project

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

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A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

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Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

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Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

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Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from carbonised plant matter, rich in carbon and hydrocarbons, and occurring in several main types including hard coal and brown coal.

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Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

Any compulsory, unrequited payment to the government levied on corporations or individuals. This can be for environmental reasons, such as introducing a Carbon tax to set a price that emitters must pay for the greenhouse gases they emit.

Activities of industries that extract natural resources, such as mining, oil, and gas, for commercial use.

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Grassy Mountain Coal Project - decision

Policy instrument

Impacted group

Just transition

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Finance