Australian Billionaire Faces Canadian Backlash Over Alberta Coal Mine
A major environmental fight is unfolding in Canada over a plan by Hancock Prospecting, the Australian mining group owned by billionaire Gina Rinehart, to reopen the Grassy Mountain coal mine in Alberta. The company wants approval to extract metallurgical coal for the global steel industry, but the proposal has revived fierce opposition in a sensitive mountain region already reviewed and rejected in the past by a joint federal and provincial panel, which said the risks to water, wildlife and fisheries outweighed any economic benefit.
The public face of the campaign is Corb Lund, a 57-year-old Canadian country singer and multiple award winner, who says the issue pushed him into politics for the first time. “I have been in the public eye for 30 years and never spoke publicly on any political issue until this story, because it is simply outrageous,” he told Bloomberg. “The risks here are so high and the rewards so low. The only people who benefit are foreign coal companies and a small number of locals who would get jobs there.”
Alberta’s coal policy has swung repeatedly in recent years. After nearly 50 years of tight restrictions, the provincial government opened previously off-limits areas to coal mining in 2020, then later froze sales, before lifting the limits again in 2025. That renewed the public backlash and sparked fresh environmental legal and political pressure.
The company says it has scaled back the project by 40 percent and reduced planned production to about 2.5 million tons a year, while promising an advanced water-treatment facility to prevent dangerous leaks. Hancock Prospecting’s subsidiary also says it is a Canadian company with the same legal obligations as any other. At the same time, it is seeking C$2 billion, about $1.4 billion, in damages from Canada under an international trade dispute mechanism over the earlier rejections. Opponents have gathered more than 200,000 signatures for the Water Not Coal petition, surpassing the 178,000 needed to force a provincial debate, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said a verified petition would trigger a formal referendum on October 19.
