Corb Lund and band of volunteers blitz province to gather signatures for Water Not Coal citizens’ petition initiative

Alberta country singer Corb Lund is collecting signatures on a petition to protect the Rockies from future coal development

Corb Lund was at the Palomino Smokehouse in downtown Calgary Saturday afternoon, but it was for a different kind of gig.

The Juno and Canadian Country Music Award-winning musician was there gathering signatures for Water Not Coal, a citizen petition initiative.

The Palomino was one stop on a weekend-long, province-wide Coal Petition Drive that started Friday in St. Albert, continuing on to Edmonton, Ponoka, Red Deer and Calgary before heading to Longview Saturday night.

Lund is stopping in Medicine Hat, Seven Persons and Lethbridge on Sunday.

“We’re in a blitz this weekend,” Lund said. “And basically we’re about a third of the way through, 40 per cent through the cycle of our petition, and we need to get 180,000 signatures.

“We’re well on our way,” Lund added, “but we just want to really kick it into high gear and get more and more canvassers and really knock the number out of the park to send the government a message.”

Lund said what makes his citizen petition initiative unique is that it crosses party lines, with just as many rural folks in support as urban Albertans.

“I always say (this) has nothing to do with political parties,” he said. “I don’t really like any of them. Number two, I’m not anti-resource (development). It’s just that not every project makes sense --and this one doesn’t.

“Number three, it wasn’t left-leaning activists that brought me into this,” he added, “It was family ranchers from west of Nanton.

“People assume if you mention this kind of thing, it’s that you’re aligned with a certain political stripe --and I’m not,” he said.

“All it has to do with is keeping irresponsible coal mining out of the headwaters of our rivers,“ Lund added. ”And that’s a thing for agriculture, for tourism, for hunters and hunters and fishermen, and just for our drinking water, because it affects hundreds of thousands, probably millions of Albertans.”

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With files from CTV News’ Tyler Barrow