Scheer leaves himself open to claims he’s in cahoots with Big Oil

[grassfarmer]

Nothing shameful about asking a profitable industry to be accountable and cleanup its mess , unless you are an ass kissing gutless politician.

Anybody who thinks the oil industry and Alberta and the prairies are the only ones who work hard and contribute to the well being of the country need to get out more.

It's funny the patriotism attached to "our oil" given how much of it is foreign owned or foreign controlled. Giving away our assets at bargain basement prices to foreign corporations is not that smart. Recklessly damaging our environment in the process of extraction is just stupid. It doesn't even make that large a contribution to Government revenues - about 3.3% of total revenue came directly from the energy sector in 2016. A bit of Stockholm syndrome involved too when you all hate the high price of fuel but cheer on the guys charging you the high price.

[beaverdam]

Hey doofus, Notley and the NDP revisited royalty rates and their own people said the rates are in line with where they should be.

It's 'our oil', because as Canadians we all share in the royalty revenues. Why wouldn't we want this natural resource, to help in subsiding the amount of taxes we pay.

[beaverdam]

If the ChiComs were burning more Canadian oil, they'd be burning less of their coal, hence a carbon reduction, and a cleaner produced product.

[grassfarmer]

Hey doofus, Notley and the NDP revisited royalty rates and their own people said the rates are in line with where they should be.

Yeah that was disappointing - to find out that the NDP too were in cahoots with big oil. I guess that's the way it has to be to govern in a Petrostate?

[jazz]

The oil sands already is the biggest oil spill clean up operation on the planet. We are cleaning up what mother nature dumped millions of yrs ago.

And the foreign ownership is because our own country is too weak to invest in our own industries because we have a bunch of socialists here so we have to import capital and entrepreneurs.

[SASKFARMER]

Wow chuck what a stupid post.

Just imagine the last few years working people building a great canada and patting trump on the back and not saying a word.

But no let’s totally destroy canada for a UN job.

[mcfarms]

A quote from Brett Wilson about this

"I was at this retreat. Scheer gave a standard political speech.

There were several senior liberals speaking. Along with several First Nation leaders, etc.

The goal was to educate and inform on all matters related to energy.

You just don’t have a clue do you.... https://t.co/ut2QHtjT6Y"

A tweet from Brett Wilson on this.

[sawfly1]

I hardly think CBC funding
Would help the oil patch more than a day.
Another point
I think we need full page ads in
Quebec.
Do you use gas in your car.
If so . Why would you use oil
From a nation that chops peoples heads off because they do not like what they say.

So how about a pipeline from
Western Canada .

And you can live guilt
free. No beheadings oil

Ehthical oil from the same folks that send 12 billion in transfer payments a year to
Quebec

[GDR]

So are you guys are in favour of having taxpayers pay for the cleanup costs for abandoned and orphaned wells? No response seems to indicate you are in favour of subsidizing the oil industry.

So I'm not gonna bother looking it up because I know the general answer. So since you like googling, how many Provincial / Federal government dollars have been spent reclaiming leases? While you are at it how many royalty dollars have been collected, corporate oil co income taxes received, municipal property & oil field road taxes received. Then show it as a ratio or percentage to help us all understand. You pick the time frame, real actual numbers not hypothetical future potential numbers, actual paid for and done. EUB and the orphan well program etc does not count as that is industry money. And remember, the wages, jobs and spin offs from operations will be on top of your answer.

Oil is not everything, but it is important.

[Guest]

how come none of these dummies realize how many income tax dollars came from the patch? , all across canada ?

[SASKFARMER]

Case your answer is to look at Chuck and read his posts and soon you will get your answer.

[chuckChuck]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/oct/26/revealed-oil-giants-pay-billions-less-tax-in-canada-than-abroad

Revealed: oil giants pay billions less tax in Canada than abroad

Data shows companies made much higher payments to developing countries in 2016 than to Canadian, provincial governments

Martin Lukacs
@Martin_Lukacs

Thu 26 Oct 2017 11.00 BST
Last modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018 17.34 GMT

Canada taxes its oil and gas companies at a fraction of the rate they are taxed abroad, including by countries ranked among the world’s most corrupt, according to an analysis of public data by the Guardian.

The low rate that oil companies pay in Canada represents billions of dollars in potential revenue lost, which an industry expert who looked at the data says is a worrying sign that the country may be “a kind of tax haven for our own companies.”

The countries where oil companies paid higher rates of taxes, royalties and fees per barrel in 2016 include Nigeria, Indonesia, Ivory Coast and the UK.

“I think it will come as a surprise to most Canadians, including a lot of politicians, that Canada is giving oil companies a cut-rate deal relative to other countries,” said Keith Stewart, an energy analyst with Greenpeace.

Companies like Chevron Canada paid almost three times as much to Nigeria and almost seven times as much to Indonesia as it did to Canadian, provincial and municipal governments.

Chevron used to run its Nigeria and Indonesia projects out of the U.S., but after allegations that they evaded billions in taxes, their operations were moved to Canada.

According to data collected by the Guardian, Suncor also paid six times more taxes to the UK, and Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) paid almost four times more to Ivory Coast.
Oil company payments in Canada and abroad - how it breaks down

The revelations emerge as tax reforms proposed by the Liberal government to curb the use of loopholes by wealthy Canadians continue to be hotly debated and opposed by business lobby groups.
Advertisement

Even with the low rates, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has been lobbying the federal government for more tax breaks to improve their “competitiveness.”

The Guardian used a new extractive sector database launched in June, 2017, after a law passed by Stephen Harper required oil, gas, and mining companies in Canada to disclose for the first time payments they make to governments around the world. The Guardian compared payment figures for 2016 to oil production levels.

The result of a global push for “publish-what-you-pay” corporate transparency, the Canadian law was billed as a way to empower citizens in developing countries to ensure more tax revenue is collected for much-needed social programs. While it was supported by Canada’s mining industry, oil companies fought against full disclosures.

“Publish-what-you-pay was set up to help fight corruption in the developing world, but ironically this data reveals that it’s Canada who is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the public’s share of oil revenue,” said Stewart. “The Trudeau government should be demanding that oil companies pay at least as much tax here as they do abroad, and use that money to fund a transition to green energy.”

According to resource governance expert and UBC geography professor Philippe Le Billon, neoliberal policies in Canada and across OECD countries have resulted in lower taxes and royalties for companies.

“Companies in Canada will point to the jobs they are creating rather than acknowledge they could be sharing more of their profits, which mostly goes to shareholders who are not even in the country,” he said. “In key jurisdictions like Alberta, this has come about after decades of rule by Conservatives who are very cozy with oil interests. The numbers reveal a poor tradeoff: high emissions for not much revenue. It’s long-past time for Canada to follow a model like Norway’s, which captures far more revenue from oil production.”

While royalty rates in Newfoundland are the highest in Canada, in Alberta they have fallen from a 40 per cent high during the 1970s to less than four per cent, and a complex system of exemptions ensures companies often pay even less. The NDP government in Alberta backed away from a pledge to hike them.

Le Billon said the tax gap between Canada and developing countries has also been influenced by lower prices for Canadian crude and higher production costs.

“[Production in Africa] generated positive segmented earnings, therefore generating higher associated payments to the local Governments. In contrast, last year our Canadian conventional operations were generating operating losses, hence lower payment levels to Canadian governments,” a spokesperson for CNRL said. They reported losses of $204 million last year but have made $1.07 billion in profits in their latest quarter in 2017.

Chevron Canada did not directly address the discrepancy in tax rates, but a spokesperson said its reporting to the extractive sector database “are one of many important roles that Chevron Canada and our industry peers play as we produce safe and reliable energy and partner with communities and first nations [sic].” They reported losses of $497 million in 2016 after making $4.6 billion in 2015.

Suncor, which reported profits of $1.9 billion in 2016, did not return a request for comment. All three companies pay massive dividends to shareholders every year.

Natural Resources Canada referred questions to the Finance Ministry, which did not respond to questions.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and the provinces also continue to give $3.3 billion in yearly subsidies to fossil fuel producers in the country, despite having pledged to phase them out.

[chuckChuck]

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/04/12/Eleven-Ignored-Issues-Albertans-Should-Think-About/

Andrew Nikiforuk

1. The long-term collapse of government oil revenues
Almost every day Alberta’s politicians say they have to export more oil to boost government revenues needed to pave more roads and build more schools.

But oil and gas revenues have gone from a gush to a trickle.

Between 2000 and 2017, annual revenue from royalties collapsed by 59 per cent — $9.5 billion — while oil production rose by 112 per cent during the same period.

The Alberta government has made it a policy to slash the royalties it takes in for the sale of the province’s resources. In 2000, corporations paid royalties equal to 19.5 per cent of the value of oil and gas produced.

By 2017, that had been cut to 5.1 per cent, among the lowest in North America, even though major producers like Imperial Oil, Suncor and Husky continue to make robust profits in the oil sands because they upgrade and refine bitumen into gasoline and jet fuel.

3. The province’s focus on the wrong markets

The United States, not Asia, remains the largest market for heavy oil, because its refineries invested in the upgrades necessary to process the low-grade bitumen. Companies in Alberta and Canada chose not to make these strategic investments.

U.S. refineries process about five million barrels a day of heavy oil. Heavy oil supplies from Mexico and Venezuela are declining.

As a result, the importance of Canadian heavy oil has increased in U.S. markets. That reality makes Enbridge’s Line 3 and TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline — not the Trans Mountain expansion — the most important infrastructure for Alberta.

4. The coming cleanup cost crisis

Alberta has no real plan for addressing a hidden fiscal crisis: unfunded oil and gas liabilities worth at least $260 billion. The province, for example, has only $200 million in security deposits to cover the abandonment and reclamation of hundreds of thousands of wells.

If not properly sealed and reclaimed, these wells can leak methane, carbon dioxide or radon into the groundwater and atmosphere.

Other unfunded liabilities include 400,000 kilometres of pipelines, inactive gas plants and oil sands mines and 200 square kilometres of bitumen tailing ponds. These liabilities easily exceed the total revenue the province will earn from hydrocarbons over the next 50 years.

5. The inability to manage production

Overproduction of both bitumen from Alberta and tight oil from Texas helped precipitate the 2014 oil price crash. That put thousands of Albertans out of work and emptied Calgary’s office towers.

Unless Alberta learns how to curtail future production or add more value to bitumen, the province will be increasingly vulnerable to oil price swings and shocks.

UCLA political scientist Michael Ross notes that oil-exporting states have become the most highly specialized states in the global economy “and hence the most vulnerable to large price shocks.”

[grassfarmer]

While royalty rates in Newfoundland are the highest in Canada, in Alberta they have fallen from a 40 per cent high during the 1970s to less than four per cent, and a complex system of exemptions ensures companies often pay even less.

Wow, just put this in farm terms. How would all your businesses be doing if instead of paying $40/acre rent in the 1970s you were paying $4/acre now? I bet you'd all be going to Government with a begging bowl and hoping oil workers would be fighting your cause for you.

[blackjack]

Yep It all started with Turdo # 1 with his NEP.