CALGARY — Several Edmonton landowners have set up a blockade on their farmland, accusing an oil and gas company of failing to pay its bills for years.The group says MAGA Energy hasn’t paid its lease for three years and will no longer be allowed to operate on their land.The Canadian Press reports that on Thursday, landowners Dale Braun and Mark Dorin erected a wooden barrier leading into their property in southwest Edmonton, where MAGA Energy operates several pumpjacks.“None of this even had to go this far, but we’re being ignored,” Braun told reporters.Braun, along with his family, owns a 75% stake in the farmland and said he isn’t opposed to the oil and gas sector and supports the direction of Premier Danielle Smith’s government.However, he said the company needs to take responsibility.“The laws have been broken here,” Braun stated.“They’re being broken on a daily basis, and it’s being ignored.”Dorin added that the landowners have terminated the lease because of the unpaid fees, meaning MAGA Energy is no longer permitted to access the property unless workers are there to decommission the wells..UPDATED: Smith, Jean insist no public dollars to clean up tens of thousands of ‘mature’ oil and gas wells.“That’s the law of Alberta, and we’re going to enforce it here,” Dorin said, adding the company usually has staff on the site about once a day on average.“If I’m a landowner and I don’t pay my bills, I lose my land, I lose my house.”According to Dorin, the company took over the lease approximately a decade ago and initially made its payments — which amount to roughly $12,000 per year — without issue.However, an investigation by the independent left-wing news outlet The Narwhal reported last year that MAGA Energy’s main refinery shut down in 2023, cutting off a significant source of revenue.The company hasn't commented.Dorin said the landowners have repeatedly asked the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to intervene but say their complaints have gone nowhere.“They’re supposed to balance the rights of that industry with the rights of these people that own this land. That’s not happening,” he said.“We’ve got a complete loss of social licence for the industry that built this province, and thousands of landowners across this province are absolutely fed up with this lawlessness and these double standards.”Oil and gas companies in Alberta have had longstanding issues with unpaid lease payments and property taxes, and MAGA Energy is just one of multiple companies currently in arrears.For years, there has been a call from landowners and rural municipalities urging the provincial government to address the problem, which has caused some policy changes, such as in 2023 when the government introduced a rule requiring the AER to block the transfer of oil and gas licences to companies that are more than $20,000 in arrears.However, the Investigative Journalism Foundation reported last month that some companies — including MAGA Energy — have still managed to acquire new wells despite the rule..Alberta’s Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean told the media that landowners should apply to the Land and Property Rights Tribunal if companies fail to make lease payments.“Landowners will always get paid for their leases,” Jean said, adding that Alberta’s regulatory system is “the best in the world” and that the province will “hold all operators to account.”Dorin said the solution to this problem was simple.“Pay your bills, shut down your wells, clean up your mess and get the hell off the land.”
