75% of Blairmore residents want a coal mine — so why are outside activists allowed to block it?
Robbie Picard joins me to discuss the growing backlash from rural Albertans who are tired of being talked down to by people who don’t live there, don’t work there and won’t suffer the economic fallout if these projects are killed.
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The people of Blairmore already had their say. They want the coal mine.
While celebrity activists from outside the region push for a province-wide referendum to stop a proposed coal mine in Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass, locals in Blairmore voted nearly 75 percent in favour of the project. But apparently, that democratic result only counts if the “right” people vote the “right” way.
On tonight’s episode of The Gunn Show, longtime energy advocate and Oil Sands Strong founder Robbie Picard talks about his work amplifying the voices of the people who actually live in the region and stand to benefit from the jobs, investment and economic activity tied to the proposed mine.
Instead, the debate has been hijacked by celebrity opposition campaigns led by musicians like Corb Lund and George Canyon, whose province-wide citizen initiative petition seeks to override the wishes of the local community through a referendum driven largely by outside activists.
Picard argues this fight is about more than coal. It’s about whether rural Albertans still have the right to shape their own economic future without being steamrolled by urban activists, celebrities and political pressure groups who parachute in for the headlines and leave locals to deal with the consequences.
If “local voices matter” is more than just a slogan, why are the people of Blairmore being ignored after already voting overwhelmingly in favour of the project?
And why is Alberta’s resource economy subjected to veto campaigns, while the communities that depend on these projects are treated like their opinions don’t count?
Robbie Picard joins me to discuss the growing backlash from rural Albertans who are tired of being talked down to by people who don’t live there, don’t work there and won’t suffer the economic fallout if these projects are killed.
GUEST: Robbie Picard, energy advocate and founder of Oil Sands Strong.
COMMENTS
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Bruce Atchison commented 2026-06-03 21:26:14 -0400Why do folks listen to celebrities? All they know is how to be famous. How does that build anything?
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Fran g commented 2026-06-01 18:48:05 -0400I did not know that Oskar, thank you -
Oskar Ritter commented 2026-05-30 23:44:23 -0400Coal.. If you don’t sell or use it, it’ll ignite itself or dumbfucks will ignite it. Check history.
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Tony Salotti commented 2026-05-28 07:17:38 -0400That’s why Canada will never get ahead with these fools trying to stop our growth .
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Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2026-05-27 23:39:39 -0400I had to deal with that while I was a graduate student at UBC.
I grew up in B. C.’s Peace River Block, where the oil and gas industry provided a good living for many families, including mine. I spent my undergrad summers working in an oil refinery/gas plant and paid for a lot of my university expenses from what I earned. After I received my B. Sc., I worked for a while in that business in Alberta.
While I was at UBC, I encountered people who held me in disdain. The work I had done before was considered by them to be unclean because it involved oil and natural gas. Worse was that what I did required, at times, physical labour and I had to dress accordingly, depending on what I was doing.
Few, if any, of those people ever crawled through a process vessel, used a pipe wrench, or even wore a hardhat. But that made their judgement of me all the purer and noble as they weren’t tainted by actual experience and the corresponding bias.
It’s people like them that would think nothing of extinguishing one’s income because it’s in an industry that they find distasteful. (“Learn to code!”)
