Peter Dobbie outlines efforts on right-of-entry fees and clarifying regulations at Alberta Surface Rights Federation meeting
Farmers’ Advocate Office is taking a more proactive role and is lobbying the Alberta government to change some of its policies, says the head of the provincial agency.
“We’re trying to influence government policy to take your interests and concerns into account,” Peter Dobbie told attendees at the recent Alberta Surface Rights Federation annual general meeting in Camrose.
“With some luck, we’ll be good listeners and decision-influencers.”
In the past, the office has focused on providing information, but is now taking a more active role in trying to help people advance their cause, said Dobbie, who was appointed a year ago.
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This includes trying to get the Surface Rights Act amended so the right-of-entry fee — which hasn’t changed since 1981 — is increased from the current $500 per acre per month and to have it reviewed every five years.
His office is also pushing for the province’s new energy regulator to change regulations so that landowners have to be consulted on any proposed activity on their property that could directly or adversely affect them, he said.
There also needs to be more clarity in regulations, he said.
“One of the things that seems clear to me is that there should be, at the very minimum, some definitions that farmers and ranchers can understand so they’ll know when they’re entitled to get notice,” Dobbie said.
His office is also pushing for clarification to amendments to the Mines and Minerals Act, he said in a later interview. In cases where there is seismic activity proposed on property, landowners have the right to say no and the company shouldn’t be able to get a right-of-entry order, he said. But when it’s for carbon capture and storage, the option of going to the Surface Rights Board and getting such an order is allowed, Dobbie said.
To ensure that option is used as little as possible, Dobbie said his office has recommended to Alberta Energy that such access only be allowed when there’s something on the minerals title saying pore space has been granted — not just that it might be.
“It basically is making sure that clause isn’t used to allow seismic activity anywhere in the province,” Dobbie said.
His office wants pore space defined as being quite deep and below surface water, he added.
