Judge orders Alberta to produce massive trove of coal documents after four-year fight [Video]

EDMONTON –

The Alberta government must produce thousands of documents on its attempts to encourage coal mining in the Rocky Mountains after a judge threw out a bid to block their release.

In denying the government’s request for a judicial review into an order to provide the documents, Justice Kent Teskey warned the province that courts take a dim view of delay being used to neuter public attempts to understand how important decisions are made.

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“The requesting parties have been practically denied access to the information they are entitled to at law and this court will not abet this conduct through the availability of judicial review,” he wrote in a judgment released Friday.

“If public bodies are unwilling or unable to comply with their timely obligations under (freedom of information law), they should expect that courts may …