24/04/2026
Alberta’s Past is Not Our Future: A Lived Experience.
I am an Albertan by birth (1978) and a Nova Scotian by choice (2013). Having grown up in the 80s and 90s during the oil rush in Alberta, I have seen the industry’s impact firsthand. I arrived in Nova Scotia just as the original fracking moratorium was being settled, and I followed the discussions surrounding the Wheeler Report closely. At the time, I was relieved and grateful to see that solid science, professional insight, and genuine community collaboration were being used to make sound, research-based decisions for Nova Scotia’s future. It gave me confidence in our decision to move here and in our future that this province valued its water and its people over short-term industrial gambles.
However, my perspective isn’t just personal; it’s professional as well. My career in finance started as a bank teller in Lacombe, Alberta, then in customer service in Canmore, and finally as a financial advisor in Okotoks, AB, and New Glasgow, NS. I have had countless discussions over the years surrounding the oil and gas industry in daily lives. In Alberta, I worked with families whose lives depended on the "patch," and here, I work with those who fly back and forth to survive. I know firsthand how oil and gas money can look like a lifeline in both household and provincial budgets—I understand the pressure deeply to provide for our families.
As someone who sat on the Economic Development Board in Lacombe before the industry moved in with the Joffre refinery, I witnessed the change in our community plans when the industry came to call. My family chose to leave Alberta because we saw the destruction of our province under the notion of growth and disagreed with the prioritization of greed and corporate wealth over the wellbeing of the family.
We came here for a different future.
We bought our land in Nova Scotia and named it The Hollow, with the intention to build and run a farm-to-table B&B experience for our retirement dreams and our son's future. Our son, an NSCC culinary graduate and professional Chef, works in that very environment. My husband and I support the Pictou County Food Bank because we believe “no one should ever go hungry.” Our passion is rooted in ethical and sustainable growth, food security for our neighbors, and in providing watchful stewardship over our home and the adjoining Crown land.
But today, our dream is threatened by a proposed "fast-acting" gas plant less than five miles away and a government that seems to have forgotten who it works for—led, sadly, by a once-neighbor. My biggest fear is that our province's generational nightmare is about to begin if history repeats itself from a past I've lived.
I attended the "information session" last night at the Pictou Wellness Centre. What I saw was a taxpayer-funded Political Relations stunt designed to mask a structural power grab while the local MLAs, Tim Houston and Marco MacLeod, were absent.
The Timeline and The Facts I need you to understand:
In October 2025, Tim Houston appointed himself Minister of Energy while being Premier. This is an extreme rarity in Canadian politics; effectively, he was positioning himself to take personal control of the province's resources and remove the oversight that is traditionally built into our cabinet system.
In April 2026, he used his super-majority—gained by calling an election after changing the very election dates he originally set—to push through Bill 193 (the Powering the Economy Act). While the vote happened, he was personally absent from the legislature, reportedly attending energy meetings in Texas, the heart of the American oil and gas industry.
Tim is now the lawmaker, the deal-signer, and the one holding the checkbook for his corporate friends. He personally lifted the moratorium on fracking while prioritizing billionaire interests—like media mogul Larry Ellison, whose company Oracle Health was given public funds to create and run our NS Health App. Meanwhile, the Halifax Harbour boat race, which Ellison will attend, received a $1 million provincial allocation from a budget that saw deep cuts to Disability, Arts, and Indigenous funding. These are the atrocious decisions of a government led by a Premier that is doing what they want without public support.
Last night, representatives from the government and Dalhousie stood behind scripts. When residents asked pointed financial and environmental questions, they were pulled away by their counterparts while security loomed. There was no availability to present insight or provide open debate in a public forum that our democracy is built on. Remember, it is your democratic right to question and demand accountability from your elected officials.
Tim Houston: You have been repeatedly told: No Fracking. Yet you are using $24.3 million of our tax dollars to reimburse and give incentive to private corporations for exploratory drilling through the SERDIP program.
Let’s be honest about why: The viability of Nova Scotia’s onshore gas is so questionable that the private sector refuses to risk their own money.
So instead, you are using our tax money to prop up a project that isn't a sound economic decision and shamefully using the credentials of Dalhousie as a shield for a gamble the oil and gas companies won't take.
Betrayal isn't a strong enough word. You are paying to fund our environmental destruction while our healthcare and housing systems are in crisis. You have manufactured a budgetary crisis to further your drilling agenda, then attempted to buy public support by removing tolls and reducing the HST, all while handing MLAs a 27% retroactive pay raise to secure their votes for your super-majority to gain power to pass bills designed to personally grant YOU legal authority without oversight.
These aren’t rants; they are FACTS.
If the objective was truly to improve this province, your "Defend Nova Scotia 2026" budget plan would have included:
Investments in top-tier healthcare and funding to create communities where Canadian seniors actually want to invest their money and retire, and where Nova Scotians can find the healthcare they deserve built from the ground up with purpose. A win for job creation and securing investment capital for our communities.
Sustainable agriculture that supports our farmers and fishers to ensure food security.
We should be leaning into Nova Scotia Loyal to protect our environment and support those who feed us in a symbiotic relationship that serves the interests of ALL.
Tax reform where corporations are actually charged for resource extraction (like "Big 8 Water") and new laws that hold accountability and demand reclamation support for environmental damages when they are caused, with strict, unwavering oversight.
Mandating that forestry companies clean up one hectare of windfall for every ten harvested to prevent fires and create additional employment opportunities while safeguarding our forestry sector for sustainable growth and harvest.
Honoring the land, our laws, and treaties by seeking partnership with the input and guidance of our Indigenous communities for the ethical and sustainable harvesting and future of this unceded land that we are so privileged to inhabit.
Prioritizing collaboration with our Nordic friends on the offshore wind and turbine projects to ensure we are making the best use of our resources with proven technology.
It's simple: we need ethical, sound decisions focused on Nova Scotia's future—our children’s future—rather than repeating a playbook from Alberta's past and hoping it works in spite of what the science says, using taxpayer money to frivolously fund the whims of billionaires and their companies.
I’ve spent years fighting for what I believe in and in helping and caring for others. I refuse to watch in silence as the home we built and the peace we've found is threatened under the guise of empty promises of prosperity that will never be fulfilled because that is not the intention nor the play at hand—it is one man with a hidden agenda we've yet to fully understand.
I want a prosperous future for my family, my neighbors, and all Nova Scotians that honors who we are and what we value, and that provides for us all.
Thank you for reading. It is my hope you'll understand what I’ve expressed from my lived experiences and professional insight.
As with all my posts, I welcome discussion and debate in a respectful manner.
With all sincerity,
t.
